Beware of buying Acer PDAs

Dilbert75

I'll try and make this as quick as possible - if people are aware of the issue I'm raising (after-sales service), they might choose a little more carefully than I did when buying their equipment:
- Middle of December, bought an Acer n50 from Komplett.ie
- Few days before Christmas - PDA arrived by courier. Happy days
- Middle of January - noticing occasional soft resets are necessary
- Middle of February - PDA starts occasionally hard-resetting itself (complete wipe of everything). E-mailed Komplett who tell me to e-mail or call Acer on their Dublin number.
- Start of March - no point persisting. Mailed Acer. Got response to call number.
- Middle of March - Called Acer's Dublin number. Message to call their UK 0870 number. Called that - on hold for 25 mins, took 15 mins to get agreement to get it returned for repair. Then had to call Acer's UK courier to arrange collection.
- End of March - mailed Acer to find out when it'd be back. Was told 28 days. Complained to Komplett - was told 28 day repair time is "normal".
- Middle of April - called Acer, was told they were waiting for a replacement motherboard. "Call back in two weeks"
- End of April - called Acer. Still waiting for part. Requested replacement. Was told to call back in two days to see if it had been approved. Called back - replacement approved.
- Second week of May - mailed Acer: was told a replacement can take "up to 14 working days to dispatch". Mailed Komplett to complain - got another (probably the fifth or sixth at this stage) "we're sorry but there's nothing we can do" e-mail. ("We haven't got the unit so we don't know what more we can do").
- Third week of May - mailed Komplett again, in a fury. Pointed out they are the supplier and that it is their responsibility to ensure that I have a working PDA for my money.
- End of third week of May - while abroad on business, for which I really wanted my PDA, the replacement arrived. When I opened it, I found it was the n310-B model. Great - except it doesn't have WiFi or CF slot, both of which the n50 did, and its a slower processor. *EXPLOSION* Mailed Komplett to express my <ahem> dissatisfaction and request that my credit card be debited with the purchase price incl. delivery costs by Wednesday, otherwise I'm going to a solicitor.

Problem is - what are my rights now? Given that Komplett are based in Denmark or somewhere and Acer are based in UK?

flywheel

a call to the ODCA may help, they have info on their site about buying from home / distance purchases:
http://www.odca.ie/cfmdocs/c_query/home_shopping.cfm

and contacting the European Consumer Centre Dublin (re Distance Selling Regulations and the E-Commerce Regulations)
http://www.eccdublin.ie/

would be interesting to hear about the outcome (hope you have a positive one)

Dilbert75

Seems my most recent (very angry) e-mail has worked. Komplett have issued an RMA no, for the return of the replacement unit for refund. Just have to find something good now with min 312Mhz, SD expansion card and WiFi for something around €300. I'm not sure its going to be easy.

flywheel

keep an eye out for offers from Dell on their Axim range, can sometimes get a good deal...