My phone is having some issues so I'm going to take it back to Noel Leemings where I bought it from but they are asking for a $50 bond to send it away (phone is under warranty) Is this standard practice? Do I legally have to?
Here is a plain english version of the portion of the CGA that relates to this...
Rights and remedies Rights if goods are faulty The Act requires the retailer who supplied the goods to sort out any problems. This means a retailer can not tell you to take the problem to the manufacturer. You can choose whether to seek a remedy for the problem from the trader or the manufacturer. When you have bought something that doesn’t meet one of the guarantees you have the following rights:
Minor problems You can ask the trader to fix the goods. The trader must choose between repairing the goods, replacing the goods or giving you a refund. If the trader refuses to fix the problem or takes more than a reasonable time to do so, you can return the goods and ask for your money back. Or, you can ask for replacement goods, if the same type of goods are reasonably available to the trader. Or, you can take the goods elsewhere to be fixed and ask the supplier to pay for the cost of repair.
Serious problems If the problem is a serious one (the goods are unsafe, substantially do not meet acceptable quality, fitness for particular purpose, description or sample), you can choose to: return (reject) the goods and get your money back, or return the goods for a replacement of similar value and type (if the goods are reasonably available as part of the supplier's stock ), or keep the goods and have the price reduced to make up for its drop in value. If the goods cause damage when they become faulty - the washing machine floods the laundry ruining the vinyl flooring - you can ask the supplier to pay for the damage. This is called consequential loss..
Nothing in there about paying a bond, or not paying a bond.
Also some items are only covered by the "Sale of Goods Act" I'm fairly certain this applies to a cell phone purchased for business use but if it's for private use is it covered by the CGA?
i am no expert on this but telecom orb charged me 40 dollars to get my sanyo 6500 sent away this was about 2 years ago and then we i got the phone back they refuned the money back to me. i think that's the way warrenty works. i don't know about noel lee mean my self because i don't go there in my opinon there customer service is shocking
This practice appears to be becoming increasingly common and I would be interested to know whether there is a legal precedent.
Tell them that you can't afford to pay the bond and that you do not expect to forfeit your consumer rights simply because of your inability to pay it. Stand up to them, and if they refuse then they are being unfair and unreasonable.
alasta: This practice appears to be becoming increasingly common and I would be interested to know whether there is a legal precedent.
Tell them that you can't afford to pay the bond and that you do not expect to forfeit your consumer rights simply because of your inability to pay it. Stand up to them, and if they refuse then they are being unfair and unreasonable.
It's been the norm in the electronics industry for some time now to charge "assessment fees" to look at devices. This has pretty much been standard in the mobile phone industry.
I too would love to know if there has been any legal opinion ever offered on this, I know probably ~3 or 4 years ago when I discussed it with a friend who's a lawyer after some searching he could not establish anybody ever having done this.
sbiddle: It's been the norm in the electronics industry for some time now to charge "assessment fees" to look at devices. This has pretty much been standard in the mobile phone industry.
I know that it's always been the done thing in the case of out of warranty repairs, which is reasonable as it costs the service agent to diagnose the fault in order to provide the consumer with a reasonable estimate of the repair cost.
However, in the case of repairs under warranty this is irrelevant as the service agent must provide a resolution to the consumer regardless of the cost.
I can understand service agents wanting to take a bond in case the item turns out to be water or impact damaged, but regardless of that I don't think it's acceptable for them to create barriers against making genuine warranty claims.
I am all for supporting paying bonds to send phone's away. My 2 year stint at DSE saw PLENTY of liars whose phone would be liquid damaged inside or impact damage which they would deny when we asked about it. Send the phone away to MFR, it's liquid or impact damaged and DSE would get charged $50 odd. We would ring up the customer and tell them about it whether they want the phone fixed or not for X amount. They would say no and never turn up to pick up their faulty phone from us. DSE had to foot the $50 odd bill to MFR.
Since the introduction of the bond fees at DSE last year, LIARS have reduced in numbers turning up and wanting their phones sent.
If you have not damaged it intentionally then you should not be worried about submitting $50 as a bond.
Ham: Realistically though how long would it take for a tech to determine whether or not its liquid or drop damage?
It's a matter of opening up the phone which only authorised dealers are allowed to do so like MFR.Most phones that were not liquid or impact damaged came back within 10 business days fixed.
I just don't see why I should have to lend them $50
I would never do that with my business, if anything were to go wrong i would be full of apologies and going out of my way to get them on their way.. Not penalising them and asking for money incase they are a liar
Ham: I just don't see why I should have to lend them $50
because if you have liquid damaged or impact damaged your phone, you lie to noel leeming about it, MFR will charge noel leeming no matter what. Noel leeming will ring you up to pick up your faulty phone and you will never turn up to pay the $50 that you owe them since the phone is useless to you now.
I've seen this a lot - they charge the fee up front because you'll be amazed how many people drop their phone in the toilet (or similar) and then try to dry it off and take it in for repair "under warranty".
When told their $200 is out of warranty and will cost at least $200 to repair, they typically don't bother. Yet the agent is out of pocket for the cost of the assessment (which they have to pay regardless).
This way at least they aren't out for the fee.
Cheers
Paul
Paul Brislen Head of Corporate Communications Vodafone
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