NoddyPirate
Grand Master
Thanks ST - makes sense....
After-Sales Service not up to Scratch
- Thread starter Johnsos1
- Start date
barlew
Godlike
It gets tricky at this point but essentially the act does not treat the battery as a separate consumable product, the act looks at the laptop as a whole and legislates as such.
This is hypothetical not aimed at PCS but the following example is how it works.
The retailer/manufacturer can reasonably point to the advertised lifespan of the battery and state that under the definition of "satisfactory quality" the battery has gone past its advertised life therefore it is not covered. The argument can then be made that a £2k laptop whose batteries no longer work after say for example 7 months is not of "satisfactory quality". This would obviously be where it plays out in court.
It is important to note that a Warranty or a companies T&C's do not trump consumer law. Just because they have it written down and you have agreed to it by entering into a contract with the company does not make it so.
I am in no way implying this example is in any way relevant to the example in this thread I am just illustrating how the act works.
This is all academic anyway as it would appear PCS are honouring the warranty and repairing the laptop free of charge.
You are correct and I didn't say otherwise anywhere... in fact if you read my very first post I even point out to the OP that they are still liable for shipping fees.
Will go back to my original thread. I'm waiting for PCS to confirm they actually have a battery to be able to replace this defective one before I can work out who/how the battery is replaced. I don't agree with some of the posts on here about the courier costs. If a product is faulty, in my experience dealing with manufacturers from many other companies in various industries, including my own, I have never been charged, or charged a customer for a warranty return. It is simply accepted that the component has failed prematurely and the company accepts the cost of that replacement, including transporting the original unit back to the manufacturer for repair at their cost.
I didn't take the silver warranty upgrade mainly because I never expected to have to make a warranty claim in the first place, but also because I didn't think I would end up having to replace components myself either. There will be many arguments for/against this comment, but the fact that as their namesake suggests, they are the PC Specialist and so expecting the consumer to open the product and remove/replace components in my view isn't an acceptable solution and I cannot think of any other electrical product that would allow you to do this. For many people it will be acceptable, but at the end of the day I purchased a finished product from PCS, not a selection of individual components that I assembled myself. I want my laptop to last well into the future, not be compromised because I've removed a part that I'm not competent to remove and then have the entire unit need replacing in the next 18months because its not up to the job being asked of it.
If PCS are offering a reliable customer focused service, I'm sure they will go out of their way to understand this issue and try to resolve in an efficient and amenable way that ensures their customer is not out of pocket for the expense of replacing one of their faulty components.
I didn't take the silver warranty upgrade mainly because I never expected to have to make a warranty claim in the first place, but also because I didn't think I would end up having to replace components myself either. There will be many arguments for/against this comment, but the fact that as their namesake suggests, they are the PC Specialist and so expecting the consumer to open the product and remove/replace components in my view isn't an acceptable solution and I cannot think of any other electrical product that would allow you to do this. For many people it will be acceptable, but at the end of the day I purchased a finished product from PCS, not a selection of individual components that I assembled myself. I want my laptop to last well into the future, not be compromised because I've removed a part that I'm not competent to remove and then have the entire unit need replacing in the next 18months because its not up to the job being asked of it.
If PCS are offering a reliable customer focused service, I'm sure they will go out of their way to understand this issue and try to resolve in an efficient and amenable way that ensures their customer is not out of pocket for the expense of replacing one of their faulty components.
NoddyPirate
Grand Master
OP - I feel your pain - I really do.
But you must see - you had a choice to upgrade your warranty and you didn’t. You simply can not now complain that PCS won’t give you the service that you elected not to pay for.
How fair would it be to all those who did upgrade their warranty to find that you got free collection just because you made noise?
Sorry - but it’s buyer beware here. Not expecting any issues or the possibility of a warranty claim is just naive at best.
But you must see - you had a choice to upgrade your warranty and you didn’t. You simply can not now complain that PCS won’t give you the service that you elected not to pay for.
How fair would it be to all those who did upgrade their warranty to find that you got free collection just because you made noise?
Sorry - but it’s buyer beware here. Not expecting any issues or the possibility of a warranty claim is just naive at best.
Martinr36
MOST VALUED CONTRIBUTOR
Couldn't have put it better, i mean it clearly states that postage and packing is only included for the first month with the standard warranty and as such are part of the terms & conditions that you signed up to when you initiated a contract between yourself & PCS for the purchase of the laptop
jamiephillips909
Godlike
M
My bad quick read at work while on break ! I really wish they would make silver the standard warrenty to avoid these issues im sure once exsplained to a customer what silver warrenty is the majority would opt to pay £5 extra I cant imagine pepole would not want it even on a budget and can be easily overlooked on the excitement on speccing a dream pc ( this is not a response to the op opinion on silver warrenty just my own ) side note on a competitor to pcs the warrenty level of silver is £109
Last edited:
Resistance100
Expert
I’m sure someone on here will be willing to talk you through changing the battery if you chose to have them send you the battery and save you the return fee.
The Sales of Goods Act has been repealed and has been replaced with the Consumer Rights Act 2015.
barlew
Godlike
You are right thanks for pointing that out. The Consumer Rights Act does of course say exactly the same thing however.
The Consumer Rights Act replaces 4 previous Acts, recently used it against a large electronics retailer (not PCS) and they saw things my way after a little cajoling, and refunded me. They did initially tried to bluff me, until I sent them a pre-action protocol letter.
In all honesty, i think the silver warranty should be free and standard.
If a part is faulty (a battery failing is a fault and highly unlikely to be caused by the OP) and if you were to buy online from say Curry’s... they WOULD collect it free of charge.
Also, we are expecting OP to open their laptop and mess around inside. We need to take into consideration, how confident the OP is with the parts and not wanting to cause more damage. I’m fully confident in building my own desktop, but i couldn’t even tell you how to fit ram in a laptop.
However with all that said, i’m sure a video exists out there, of how to so the battery swap and a new one can be posted to OP.
If a part is faulty (a battery failing is a fault and highly unlikely to be caused by the OP) and if you were to buy online from say Curry’s... they WOULD collect it free of charge.
Also, we are expecting OP to open their laptop and mess around inside. We need to take into consideration, how confident the OP is with the parts and not wanting to cause more damage. I’m fully confident in building my own desktop, but i couldn’t even tell you how to fit ram in a laptop.
However with all that said, i’m sure a video exists out there, of how to so the battery swap and a new one can be posted to OP.
SpyderTracks
We love you Ukraine
No one is expecting anything, it’s given as an option if the buyer is confident doing so as it will likely be a much quicker fix rather than having to send the whole thing back for troubleshooting by PCS.
Again, it’s the difference between custom builds and branded, just gives you more control as the buyer to rectify issues. That’s what most people buying custom builds are looking for. It's kind of the whole point of them.
You don’t need to follow some random video, PCS would take the OP through it step by step.
Last edited:
It is not unusual for a user to have to take the back of a laptop when under warranty. In my previous job I had a laptop from a well known manufacturer that developed a fault while under onsite warranty. Before the company would accept the claim I had to remove the DVD drive, battery and memory card. Once a fault was proven, they sent a technician to replace the motherboard.
MartinDouglasShaw810
Active member
Hi,
Just a suggestion but why not just go to your local;l pc repair shop and get them to remove the screws and battery.
Then when you get the new battery take it back to them and get them to install it?
Surely they will charge less than £35 to do that?
Martin
Just a suggestion but why not just go to your local;l pc repair shop and get them to remove the screws and battery.
Then when you get the new battery take it back to them and get them to install it?
Surely they will charge less than £35 to do that?
Martin
SpyderTracks
We love you Ukraine
That would void your warranty with PCS.
From the warranty terms:
7.10 Should you take any goods purchased from us to a 3rd party and have them attempt to diagnose or repair a fault on the computer, you may VOID all warranties on the order and we will not cover the costs of any onsite or call out charges as we do not provide or charge you for onsite warranties. If you have any problems with your order you must contact us for advice and if necessary obtain an RMA number and return the item to us through the specified returns procedure.
Source: https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/terms/
NoddyPirate
Grand Master
It does techincally say 'may' rather than 'will' void your warranty - so it might even be an option to ask PCS's permission to bring it to a repair shop to replace it. Although I would expect they would say no anyway!
SpyderTracks
We love you Ukraine
There's no harm in asking, but in the past it's always voided the warranty.
Perhaps it would be different if they were abroad.
Update: so now its been a week since I first contacted PCS. 1 week on I'm no further forward, I've had no contact, no offer of a replacement battery, no phonecalls, no emails. Sorry guys, but Covid or no Covid this service is not good enough
so rang them yesterday, they have a battery in stock. Told it would be despatched same day, and delivered next day (today), low and behold it’s still not been delivered.
I think I rest my case on this whole ‘service is not up to scratch’ thing. COVID or no COVID, the service has been shocking, and I won’t ever buy from this company again. Never expected this service, or for my brand new, custom build laptop to have failed so quickly. Rubbish.
fyi, I am still waiting for the new battery. Has been more than a week since I first raised my complaint, didn’t hear from PCS during the intervening week despite being told I would get an email the next day. My initial message in the technical message centre has been deleted, I’ve had no phone call, no email, no nothing.
so rang them yesterday, they have a battery in stock. Told it would be despatched same day, and delivered next day (today), low and behold it’s still not been delivered.
I think I rest my case on this whole ‘service is not up to scratch’ thing. COVID or no COVID, the service has been shocking, and I won’t ever buy from this company again. Never expected this service, or for my brand new, custom build laptop to have failed so quickly. Rubbish.
Last edited by a moderator:
SpyderTracks
We love you Ukraine
Your message hasn’t been deleted, that’s already been explained, that’s a default notice from outlook where it doesn’t get a read receipt which a lot of corporate systems don’t give. Please don’t state fallacies.
check your spam box, a previous person who’d been told to expect an email went on the warpath and they’d contacted them as promised but they hadn’t checked their spam.
NoddyPirate
Grand Master
I feel your pain OP. I put a query to PCS a week or so ago and have also had no reply yet where they previously would have been in touch within a day or two. I do get the impression their CS is not managing the workload quite the same as recently. Who knows why though with all that is going on at the moment. However I have no issue waiting personally. I'll nudge them again in another week or so if nothing is forthcoming. Such is the environment we are in.....
In terms of your laptop - remeber that PCS don't make the parts. The chances of your battery having an issue is exactly the same no matter where it came from. Everyone needs to factor in the possibility of stuff failing or going wrong or malfunctioning. That's life and not peculiar to PCS or any other place you care to mention. Just sayin' is all......