Item sent for repair, shop wants me to pay their postage

dnme

Dear forum,

I recently bought a Free to Air Satellite receiver from a vendor in Spain. The box is the VU+ Duo. It's pretty advanced and many fellow boardsies have bought this box from the same vendor see here.

Anyway, the vendor has had the box for nearly three weeks and tonight they emailed me stating that they cannot find any fault with the box and because of this, they want me to pay their postage to send the box back to me.

It may well be true that the box is ok, I'm sure they did a range of tests etc, but what about the postage ? They want me to send them €39 to post. It has already cost me €56 to send the item back to them in the first place.

I purchased the item from them in December 2010. How do I stand legally here? Do I have to pay this postage? I think it's pretty mean of them.

Any help greatly appreciated.

thenightrider

That is the way most companys do things i Know ive sent laptops back to sony and they say if they cant find fault with it i will be charged for all postage.

dnme

Is there anything concrete laid down in consumer rights law on this? I've searched and cannot find anything

Yawns

Dunno about anything concrete in consumer rights law but it is the general run of things. If they found a fault they would cover all costs of course and some even refund the costs you spent to get the item shipped to them but not all will.

If there is no fault with the item I would expect you to pay costs. You can of course pay the costs, then when you receive the item, bring it to another person to inspect. You will have to pay this person yourself but if there is a fault I would assume you could take the vendor to small claims for costs. But you would still be out of pocket for the second opinion.

If it works fine without fault, I'm pretty sure you'll have to pay. Otherwise what's to stop every1 returning claiming a fault and the company picking up the tab to reship them? Again if a fault, yes they pay. No fault, you pay. Seems fair enough.

dnme

Thanks folks, I'm just wondering....what's to stop the vendor lying in order to save on postal charges?

foggy_lad

dnme wrote: »

Thanks folks, I'm just wondering....what's to stop the vendor lying in order to save on postal charges?

ask them for copies of all diagnostic reports etc that they have done looking for the fault.

dnme

foggy_lad wrote: »

ask them for copies of all diagnostic reports etc that they have done looking for the fault.

Thanks foggy, I have done that. The vendors attitude atm is that I am lucky they are not charging me for their time in dealing with fault and my dealing with my emails.

So what happens if I just refuse to pay postage, are they simply entitled to keep my property?

Yawns

Well could they charge you for their time spent examining it? Would they would have had to inform you beforehand if this is what they did with non faulty products. I'm not sure on this one. Kinda like if you call out an electrician cos the power is gone aqnd all it was is the trip switch. You'll get charged about €50 - €80 for this. They have still provided you with a service of diagnostics on the product.

Charging you for dealing with e-mails? Tell them to cop on.

If you refuse I think they can just bill you. Refuse the bills maybe a claims court or some such?

The reason I said eleccy btw is there was a post here recently about someone who moved in, no power, didn't fully check switch and his gfcalled EA, who called in electrician who came out and flipped the switch. As everything was in pwo they couple were charged the callout themselves.

pleasant Co.

dnme wrote: »

So what happens if I just refuse to pay postage, are they simply entitled to keep my property?

No, but you're going to have a tough job getting your property returned if you're not willing to pay the postage - they're under no obligation to cover the postage for you. Realistically, what will you do when they don't send it back because you haven't covered the cost of shipping?

dnme

After emailing them last night asking for detailed engineers reports and telling them that I was extremely dissapointed about them charging me postage, I get this reply this morning....

1. The images I enclose are from your Vu+ Duo and from another new Vu+ Duo. If you had searched befor, you would know that this is the normal transfer speed(Ethernet 10/100)
2. The manufacturer has not inspected this box, they have just confirmed our tests and said that the box works perfectly.
3. You should not be shocked, if you send one box that is not faulty, you have to pay the shipping costs. Do you think this company is going to pay your failures? I could ask you also money for the time you are making us loose because of your failures, but I am not doing it.

I see you do not want to accept your failures and be responsible. You can ask any Consumer Right agency, you are not right and I am not going to lose one more minute with your case. I am very disappointed with you.

This is now verging sickening. Do I really have to put up with this ?

the_syco

dnme wrote: »

This is now verging sickening. Do I really have to put up with this ?

What was wrong with it that made you send it back?

dnme

the_syco wrote: »

What was wrong with it that made you send it back?

I did some network speeds tests, it was behaving as if it was a 10Mbit device rather than a 100Mbit.

whippet

dnme wrote: »

After emailing them last night asking for detailed engineers reports and telling them that I was extremely dissapointed about them charging me postage, I get this reply this morning....

This is now verging sickening. Do I really have to put up with this ?

Of course you do.

Think about it logically, from the vendor's point of view there is nothing wrong with the product and you want them to foot the bill for shipping when it didn't need to be shipped.

Just pay up .... or leave it sitting in their workshop until the next time you are in spain on holidays and pick it up.

slimjimmc

dnme. Under Irish law a retailer only has to cover costs if you can show the unit is defective e.g. faulty or not fit for purpose. You don't have to determine why it's faulty, just that it is e.g. show that you're only getting 10Mb/s instead on 100Mb/s
I've no reason to think other jurisdictions are much different.

As you have not shown to the retailer that a fault exists and their own tests do not reveal anything either the retailer is not obliged to cover the cost of shipping it back to you.

The manufacturer may cover costs if the problem was investigated by them under warranty (check small print), but that's not the case here since you sent it to the retailer.

dnme

Thanks folks for all the replies.

This is an interesting story actually. I initially thought the Satellite box was faulty as my Netgear router was giving me an amber light on the corresponding Lan port. When I consulted the Netgear manual, it states the following . . .

If the ADSL link LED is lit, a link has been established to the connected device. If a LAN port
is connected to a 100 Mbps device, verify that the port’s LED is green. If the port is 10 Mbps, the LED is amber.

My Satellite box should be operating at 100Mb My router is a 1Gb router (DGN3500) and in reality, Green=1Gb, and amber = 10 OR 100Mbit. It took me an age to find this out from Netgear. The manual was just simply wrong.

After a lengthy and confusing support case logged with Netgear, and after three different answers from them, they eventually found another version of the manual that had the correct info.

Basically I was left thinking that my Satellite box was faulty because of an incorrect Netgear Manual. I have now opened a new case with Netgear to see if I can recoup my postage costs which will end up at nearly €100.

slimjimmc

Glad you found the cause and good luck in your case with Netgear.
I presume you're now going to apologise to the vendor for the misunderstanding, hope they don't charge you for wasting their time, pay the shipping costs and get your gizzmo back. It's not much use to you if it's going dusty in someone's office.

dnme

slimjimmc wrote: »

Glad you found the cause and good luck in your case with Netgear.
I presume you're now going to apologise to the vendor for the misunderstanding, hope they don't charge you for wasting their time, pay the shipping costs and get your gizzmo back. It's not much use to you if it's going dusty in someone's office.

I'll pay the postage!

the_syco

dnme wrote: »

I have now opened a new case with Netgear to see if I can recoup my postage costs which will end up at nearly €100.

The moment you mention "3rd party equipment" is the moment you'll hear that they don't support 3rd party equipment. I'd advise ensuring it's defective with a speed measuring device (maybe connect that port it to the PC to check the speed). If you say you found out when another device failed to be 1GB, they may just say "goodbye" :S

dnme

the_syco wrote: »

The moment you mention "3rd party equipment" is the moment you'll hear that they don't support 3rd party equipment. I'd advise ensuring it's defective with a speed measuring device (maybe connect that port it to the PC to check the speed). If you say you found out when another device failed to be 1GB, they may just say "goodbye" :S

The router is absolutely fine and the STB is absolutely fine. What was wrong was the router manual.

the_syco

dnme wrote: »

The router is absolutely fine and the STB is absolutely fine. What was wrong was the router manual.

Since nothing was wrong with the equipment, I don't see how you'll get any money in compensation.

My point still stands. Once you mention "3rd party equipment" is the moment you'll hear that they don't support 3rd party equipment. Also, was the "other version" a newer version, or an older version than the one you have?

BrianD

dnme wrote: »

Thanks folks for all the replies.

This is an interesting story actually. I initially thought the Satellite box was faulty as my Netgear router was giving me an amber light on the corresponding Lan port. When I consulted the Netgear manual, it states the following . . .



My Satellite box should be operating at 100Mb My router is a 1Gb router (DGN3500) and in reality, Green=1Gb, and amber = 10 OR 100Mbit. It took me an age to find this out from Netgear. The manual was just simply wrong.

After a lengthy and confusing support case logged with Netgear, and after three different answers from them, they eventually found another version of the manual that had the correct info.

Basically I was left thinking that my Satellite box was faulty because of an incorrect Netgear Manual. I have now opened a new case with Netgear to see if I can recoup my postage costs which will end up at nearly €100.

So because of the colour of a LED on another product you thought that there was a fault with the STB? Did the performance of the STB give you any grounds to suspect it was faulty?

BTW the provision of a guarantee or warranty by a manufacturer does not mean that the manufacturer to pay the carriage to and from the customer in the event of a warrantable fault. It is obviously good practice for them to do so. It all depends on the terms of their guarantee.

I think you are wasting your time with Netgear. There was no fault with their equipment.

rubadub

BrianD wrote: »

BTW the provision of a guarantee or warranty by a manufacturer does not mean that the manufacturer to pay the carriage to and from the customer in the event of a warrantable fault.

+1 dnme- if you had bought this in peats and they found no fault would you expect them to pay your taxi fare home? its a similar kind of expectation, even if it was faulty I doubt you would expect travel/carriage expenses off them.

dnme

Folks

Nothing was faulty! I am paying the vendors postage! The problem lies in an incorrect Netgear manual that led me to believe that one of my devices was faulty. So I am taking this issue up with Netgear.

Mr. Presentable

I'd say the best you can expect is a replacement manual. In PDF.

BrianD

dnme wrote: »

Folks

Nothing was faulty! I am paying the vendors postage! The problem lies in an incorrect Netgear manual that led me to believe that one of my devices was faulty. So I am taking this issue up with Netgear.

The problem that you have is that there was no fault and you have not stated that the performance of either product would suggest that there was any fault or performance issues.

The manual that you have may be incorrect or obsolete but there was no warrantable fault with the product.

Really the problem here is that you went about the diagnosis the wrong way. You went from the STB back to the broadband connection when you should have gone the other way around. I wouldn't expect any company to pay out as a result - particularly when no product was faulty.

Paulw

dnme wrote: »

Nothing was faulty! I am paying the vendors postage!

Exactly, nothing was faulty.

They are totally in the right to request for you to pay for postage.

The alternative is that they change you for the tests and diagnostics that they ran (which I assume would be higher than the cost of postage).

If you want your product back, then pay up. If not, then it's your loss. Simple as that.

You made the misdiagnosis based on a faulty document. There was no fault at all.

Yawns

The OP knows that the STB is not faulty so best leave it at that. They know they have to pay postage and are going to / have done. They now what to enquire if Netgear will reimburse as they supplied a wrong manual which was how the OP came to send the STb away.

Realistically I think they will get nothing from Netgear but that's up to them and the OP. Best of luck.

dnme

Yawns wrote: »

The OP knows that the STB is not faulty so best leave it at that. They know they have to pay postage and are going to / have done. They now what to enquire if Netgear will reimburse as they supplied a wrong manual which was how the OP came to send the STb away.

Realistically I think they will get nothing from Netgear but that's up to them and the OP. Best of luck.

At last, someone read my previous posts. Many thanks. If Netgear play hardball, so be it. But we have to at least try. We don't complain enough in this country. I have referred the matter to the European Consumer Centre and will follow their guidance. Postage costs here are totalling €100 approx, so it's not chicken feed. Anyway - thanks all for the replies.

Yawns

Best of luck dnme. As you know the worst case is they won't pay a thing, but you won't know until you try. Do let us know how you get on please.