Anyone gone to the Disputes Tribunal? - Likely need to take a 2Degrees retail store to court.

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#2425088 21-Feb-2020 16:31

Hey team, thank you for your support <3 <3 <3! Just submitted a document outlining what part of the CGA they've failed to uphold, email from CAB, email correspondence invoice.

The crux of the matter is as far as 2Degrees are concerned it is NOT their responsibility as a retailer of the product as the $499 headphones are outside of their reasonable expected lifespan at 19 months old.
And they haven't even seen the headphones or even asked about the issue itself.

This has been surprisingly quite stressful.

@networkn I slept on your advice, honestly he thinks he has done me a favour (!!) and ranted at me about the work his staff had done to help me.
He's stonewalled me as much as he can in regards to taking any sort of responsibility for the product that his store sold.

What really irks me about this whole thing is if you don't like/agree with what a manager has said, you are completely and utterly on your own if you want to talk to someone, which is the most stupid thing for a telecommunications company!? You can only email the 'tellus@2degrees.nz' and hope for the best.

Manager of 2Degrees misdirected and wasted my time from the very first contact.
Geekzone 2Degrees user was of no use, ignored my emails and seemingly isn't online for days on end.
Facebook 2Degrees was told to tell me there's nothing they can do if the supplier and manufacturer can't/won't help.
Call Centre of 2Degreees tell people they aren't allowed to transfer/talk to anyone in head offices and direct people to the email.

networkn

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#2425091 21-Feb-2020 16:57

There is definately something VERY wrong with 2D at this point. I can understand (but do not condone) one manager behaving this way (poor training, poor attitude, failure to comply with company policy), but for so many people in the organization to act this way (I exclude the GZ person because there is no official monitoring of these forums by that user and it's not an official channel as such, and I don't believe they are ignoring it, if they haven't actually been on), speaks to a deliberate and concerted effort to bypass their responsibilities.

So, did you end up asking the manager for his email and the address of his manager? Did he refuse, or did he/she provide it to you? If they provided it, you've done the right thing in handling it by documenting it. Give them a few days (to respond), and if the timeline you gave doesn't yield a response then lodge a case with the disputes tribunal. Personally, I'd be inclined to go and purchase replacements. You offered them a chance to rectify, they refused. DT will rule in your favour if what you have represented here is accurate, and order them to reimburse you, or refund the value of the items.

Facebook 2Degrees was told to tell me there's nothing they can do if the supplier and manufacturer can't/won't help.

The Commerce Commission will want to know about this. It's a breach of the fair trading act to mispresent a consumers rights. Screenshot that, and send it to them and ask them to investigate it. They have real teeth. I'd reply back to the Facebook account and thank them for their response, let them know you have forwarded their response (which is a breach of the Fair Trading Act for misrepresenting a consumers rights) to the Commerce Commission.

invisibleman18

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#2425099 21-Feb-2020 17:34

Good luck with it. Hope you get the right result.

At the other end of the scale I've had a surprisingly good outcome with a faulty product (Head Tennis Sensor - a tracker that attaches to your racquet and records stats). I bought it from a US site (Tennis Warehouse) as it was not available in NZ and it died after 18 months. Tennis Warehouse told me no warranty so nothing they can do, and for the last 6 months Head Tennis kept passing me around different departments that didn't respond. Eventually they forwarded the issue into the NZ distributer who appears to be a sports store based on Auckland (it later became available here) who has today said they will send me a replacement even though it's out of warranty and I didn't even purchase it from them.

dejadeadnz

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#2425109 21-Feb-2020 18:00

tehgerbil:

Manager of 2Degrees misdirected and wasted my time from the very first contact.
Geekzone 2Degrees user was of no use, ignored my emails and seemingly isn't online for days on end.
Facebook 2Degrees was told to tell me there's nothing they can do if the supplier and manufacturer can't/won't help.
Call Centre of 2Degreees tell people they aren't allowed to transfer/talk to anyone in head offices and direct people to the email.

You need to go to the ComCom now. Take a screenshot of the Facebook message as 2Degrees is clearly in breach of the Fair Trading Act. And e-mail 2Degrees and clearly direct your complaint to their Legal Compliance Manager as per my suggestion.

mattwnz

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#2425126 21-Feb-2020 18:31

Reading their website, they don't apparently act on all complaints they receive.

tehgerbil

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#2425197 21-Feb-2020 22:51

Indeed. I'll sleep on it over the weekend, but I do have the email from them spelling out they don't know how the CGA works. I didn't know ignorance of the law was a defence...

You're right though, the Comcom would have a field day with this. I'll think about it over the weekend.

God help anyone else less stubborn than me, they would have given up by now. I cannot be the first person to have an issue with how they've mistreated a repair??

I guess that's their intention, brow beat people into submission and abuse their rights under the law.

I received this after I informed her what had transpired and they even agreed with me regarding the '19 months is not a reasonable time frame for 499 headphones to break' comment and then they asked for the details of the store.

I am guessing they was told to STFU, stop looking into this and stop helping me judging by this response.
Facebook link

Networkn yes I asked for and got the email address, physical address of where to lodge the complaint, and I gave it a few days before lodging. Thanks for your help man!

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Handle9

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#2425200 21-Feb-2020 23:03

There is no downside for you to make a complaint. Either the com com will agree or not but there is no blow back onto you.

Similarly if you have to make a disputes tribunal complaint your only exposure is the $45 filing fee.

Unfortunately New Zealanders are quite passive about enforcing their rights. This only encourages this type of behaviour from companies as it becomes a commercial strategy. It's cheaper to only honour CGA claims if they become escalated rather than doing the right thing.

The com com has become very interested in telcos so please make a complaint, not just for yourself but everyone else who has to put up with this kind of BS.

dejadeadnz

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#2425203 22-Feb-2020 00:13

Personally I'd like to see it become a criminal offence to misrepresent a consumer's rights under the CGA. Ignorance of the law is no defence. A decent jail term is what some of the 2Degrees staff and senior management deserve. 2Degrees has a very clear and obvious pattern of abusing consumers' rights as evidenced by some history on here.

Handle9

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#2425205 22-Feb-2020 00:30

dejadeadnz:
Personally I'd like to see it become a criminal offence to misrepresent a consumer's rights under the CGA. Ignorance of the law is no defence. A decent jail term is what some of the 2Degrees staff and senior management deserve. 2Degrees has a very clear and obvious pattern of abusing consumers' rights as evidenced by some history on here.

IMO a criminal offence would be disproportionate here. The CGA is not the simplest piece of legislation and there are some fairly grey areas (OPs situation isn't one of them). What should happen is there be a simple way for the com com to administer instant fines for this type of offence, much the same way the police do for speeding tickets.

By reducing the compliance cost for the regulator it would put the burden on the retailer to prove they acted in a reasonable way. IMO it'd stop most of this crap, especially if the penalties ramped up for repeated offences, that goes on as businesses hate being fined.

dejadeadnz

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#2425206 22-Feb-2020 00:31

tehgerbil:

Indeed. I'll sleep on it over the weekend, but I do have the email from them spelling out they don't know how the CGA works. I didn't know ignorance of the law was a defence...

You're right though, the Comcom would have a field day with this. I'll think about it over the weekend.

God help anyone else less stubborn than me, they would have given up by now. I cannot be the first person to have an issue with how they've mistreated a repair??

Here's your mistake. You're thinking too much about it. People who take no time to learn about the law or go and mislead people as to their rights are bullies and scumbags at heart. Unless you show a high degree of persistence and a willingness to (legitimately and reasonably) hurt them, they'll just keep persisting in their existing behaviour. You should have escalated the complaint the moment the store manager started BSing you. Here are the details of the company on the Companies Register. Compose a letter, send it via track&trace courier and address it to their General Counsel and Legal Compliance Manager and outline your case in full. This is going to get you results instead of allowing more people from 2Degrees to waste your time and, more importantly, allow people to cover for some of the ratbags who have blatantly shat on your rights as a consumer. At the same time, complain to the ComCom.

Like @Handle9 said, don't do it just for yourself. Do it for the sake of others who have been through this and hold the individuals involved to account as well.

elpenguino

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#2425209 22-Feb-2020 00:36

Handle9:

businesses hate being fined.

And what they hate even more is bad publicity. Prominent convictions are not helpful when painting yourself as a great kiwi company.

Most of the posters in this thread are just like chimpanzees on MDMA, full of feelings of bonhomie, joy, and optimism. Fred99 8/4/21

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Handle9

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#2425210 22-Feb-2020 00:39

elpenguino:
Handle9:

businesses hate being fined.

And what they hate even more is bad publicity. Prominent convictions are not helpful when painting yourself as a great kiwi company.

Especially when you're not actually a kiwi company - I understood 2degrees to have majority offshore ownership with a small stake by Iwi. I could well be wrong though.

eracode

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#2425217 22-Feb-2020 02:27

According to the NZ government Companies Office, 2degrees is a private company owned 73.22% by Trilogy international Partners LLC, 26.71% by Netherlands-based Tesbrit BV (which appears to be an investment company) and 0.08% by Pacific Custodians (NZ) Ltd . PC is wholly-owned by Auckland-based registry/nominee/custody operation, Link Market Services Ltd.

According to Wikipedia, Trilogy is a public American wireless telecommunications company based in Bellevue, Washington and listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

So for all practical purposes - yes, 2d is foreign-owned.

Sometimes I just sit and think. Other times I just sit.

tehgerbil

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#2429331 29-Feb-2020 16:15

**Update**

Out of the blue 2Degrees Customer relationship manager stepped in and finally sorted this out.

They've replaced the headphones with a pair of AKG N700 NC headphones!

I've got to wait ten days after lodging the Disputes tribunal case (so Wednesday) to withdraw my claim.

I contacted FairGo prior to them responding and didn't get a response, so presume they weren't interested.

Handle9

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#2429338 29-Feb-2020 17:07

It's funny how once you made a formal claim they settled. It appears that they deliberately made it hard for you so to try and save money. Once you took action they immediately settled. It's really poor from 2degrees that it had to go that far.

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