Leaking Aldi kettle - warranty

[Harry Bloomfield]

I am about to tackle Aldi over a kettle bought in January, earlier this year. Yes we have the receipt of purchase. There paperwork suggests it has a 3 year warranty.

As I understand it, our warranty is with the retailer, Aldi - but having taken stuff back to them before - they always try to refer you to the manufacturer with claims.

How set in law is it that the retailer is responsible for dealing with these matters, rather than substituting it with chasing an help line?

I have just been onto the help line and it seems to belong to Aldi. They want it posted off with an RMA, which involves a lot of extra messing about, versus just taking it back to the store it was bought from. The help line seemed to concede once the law was pointed out to them, that we are only responsible for returning it to the store though

- once I took over the call.

[michael adams]

You only need to take it back to the store. However the reason that Aldi can charge low prices is that they skimp on stuff like having store staff specially trained up to deal with returns.Basically they make their money by having staff stacking shelves and manning tills and so they'll try and bulllshit their way out of it. Unlike people like Tesco who everyone likes to moan about, Aldi and Lidl don't seem to have information desks, not the ones I've been in anyway. "Oh but they're so much cheaper..."

I very much doubt if any of the floor staff have a clue about returns you may need to get hold of a manager, stick a prinout under his nose if necessary, and insist he finds and signs a returns form for you on receipt of the goods. They presumably had such forms printed although whether the manager can find them may be another matter.

michael adams

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[Peter Parry]

Your warranty or guarantee is with whoever gives it, this might be the retailer or the importer or the manufacturer amongst others. Any such warranty can have conditions such as requiring you to return goods to a specific address.

However, as the saying goes "this does not affect your statutory rights" - see below.

As far as a warranty is concerned It isn't. You need to read the warranty document to see what it gives you.

Under the Sale of Goods Act you have certain statutory rights. These are all with the retailer. Amongst other rights any failure of the goods within 6 months of purchase is presumed to be due to a fault present at the time of sale (unless the supplier can prove otherwise).

It comes down to what you want. If you take the item back to Aldi they will probably just refund what you paid. If you particularly like that design of kettle and the shop has none then sending it back for "repair" gives you some chance of receiving a new replacement and certainly of getting your money back if there isn't one available.

[alan_m]

And stand in any checkout queue until the till operator sorts it out and/or calls the manager over to sort it out.

[alan_m]

[ARW]

Probably hot tea or coffee:-)

They will. And the louder you shout the faster the refund.

[alan_m]

Who do you think pays for all that extra customer service? A lot of the major supermarkets say that they have to drastically cut costs in order to be competitive on food pricing - I wonder what will go first?

In my experience, all of the staff in Lidl/Aldi appear to be able to cope quite well with customer refunds albeit they do have this policy of trying to direct customers to their web/mail based warranty service on goods purchased over a month beforehand.

[michael adams]

All that does, is penalise the other customers.

It's not their fault that Aldi tries to fob people off.

Unless you believe those other customers deserve to be punished for simply shopping in Aldi.

I've got no objection to people chaining themselves to metaphorical railings - good luck to them - just as long as they're not going to chain me up too.

michael adams

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[michael adams]

The point at issue here is who constitutes "the retailer" - when it comes to returning goods. The actual shop where the goods were purchased or their head office or warehouse ?

While there's nothing specific in the legislation -

If you buy something mail order then its advisable to keep the packing as this can be used to return the goods without damage to the warehouse.

If you buy something in a shop you don't get any packing materials. So on those grounds alone its unreasonable that you should be expected to return the goods to anywhere other than the shop where the item was purchased, as the customer can't be expected to necessarily know what packing materials would be necessary to prevent damage in transit.

michael adams

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[Dave Plowman (News)]

If it were Lidl, they'd just give you your money back, if you have the receipt. Thought Aldi were the same?

[tony sayer]

Best bet is to start quoting this;-)

Makes them think your going the be a LOT of trouble and bother for them:)

[DerbyBorn]

"michael adams" wrote in news:minie3$bok$ [e-mail]:

Why do some people seem to enjoy making the working day unpleasant for the poor member of staff - how would they like it?

[DerbyBorn]

They are unlikely to be able to replace it as they won't have any in stock.

[ARW]

The customers that shop in S&M like to be punished.

[ARW]

Why should a refund or an exchange for a faulty item be an unpleasant experience for a member of staff?

[michael adams]

It probably won't be unpleasant for the member of staff at all. They'll possibly welcome the excuse to get a break from running stuff through the till non-stop. They'd probably be quite happy to sit there for ten minutes waiting for the manager to show up as they're probably trained to diffuse the situation rather than get into confrontations. Whereas people in the queue behind a fuming Mr "I know my rights" might well have already been waiting ten minutes in that particular queue .

michael adams

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[Dave Plowman (News)]

Rather take something back to Lidl than Ikea any day of the week. Even with the latter's dedicated 'returns' or whatever area.

Just do your shopping at Lidl and the return at the checkout. No real point in doing a special journey - they're not going to run away.

[Roger Mills]

Why would they cause damage to the warehouse?

[Dave Plowman (News)]

The lean numbers of staff at Lidl means you don't get them standing around chatting to one another. Unlike my local Tesco. When I'm trying to get help with their stupid self checkout. With a flashing red light on top. A very loud siren might be better.

[michael adams]

Commaist !

michael adams

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