RMA refund of carriage?

On Sun, 3 Aug 2003 01:12:06 +0100, "Andy"
wrote:

I'm simply going off my experience within the retail and mail order sectors
and discussions with I've had with trading standards officers on this
subject in the past.

Before 31 Mar this year the situation was slightly different.

learly, you believe that you're right, I'm not so sure
that you are, but I accept that you could be.

Lets assume you buy an item with a return to manufacturer warranty.
The warranty (since 31 Mar) becomes a binding contract between you
and the issuer of the warranty, before it wasn't.

The warranty can however say more or less what it wants - so a
warranty which said the manufacturers guaranteed the item for a week
and required you to post it via Yak train to Tibet if it is faulty
would be perfectly legal. However the warranty is entirely separate
from your contract of sale with the seller. You have two contracts,
one between you and the manufacturer and one between you and the
seller. They are unrelated and you can chose which you want to use.

There is no obligation upon you to use the warranty. If the goods
fail you are perfectly entitled to return them to the seller at his
expense and leave it up to him to arrange the Yak transport. The
seller has no choice in the matter and cannot make you use the
warranty.

Let's look at a failed hard drive. Obviously its not repairable at
the sellers premises and it may be to your advantage to return it to
the manufacturer directly as it will save time. Sellers really want
you to do this as it saves them the cost of supporting a returns
department. If you exercise your right to make them repair/replace
the goods and they ask you to return the item to the manufacturer
they become liable for the postage charges.

If however you decide to return the goods under the warranty rather
than under your contract of sale then you are liable.

Note that since the 31 Mar you are also entitled to a refund if the
repair or replacement takes a long time. You can rescind the
contract if "the buyer has required the seller to repair or replace
the goods, but the seller is in breach of the requirement of section
48B(2)(a) above to do so within a reasonable time and without
significant inconvenience to the buyer.". Useful against those
sellers who try the old trick of saying "You can send it to us but it
will take weeks to get back to you - much better to...."

--
Peter Parry.
http://www.wpp.ltd.uk/