Independent report for retailer – Indesit Fault

[Corvay]

My Indeset IDF125 dishwasher stopped working recently. Thanks to the helpful posts on this board I tracked it down to a possible fault with the inlet valve which for £15 I figured was worth a try.

Unfortunately this does not seem to have fully fixed the problem. The initial problem was lights 2+3 flashing, now light 3 no longer flashes which I gather could be the pump/heater which looks more costly/complex to fix.

As my dishwasher is only 18 months old I’d thought I try the retailer Argos. As expected Argos came back with the usual not our problem outside the 1 year warrenty, which I’m fairly sure is not the case:
http://www.whitegoodshelp.co.uk/faulty- … goods-act/
http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov. … 38311.html

I’ve found in the past with other retailers when you ask them to put this in writing they usually cave and as expected Argos did. However, they have asked for an independent report to confirm the fault, which of course has to be from indesit.

When I spoke to indesit even though it’s stated in their customer guide that the drying light is a fault, they will need to send an engineer out to do the report…which costs the same as fixing it (£109.99). How convenient.

Argos did say they will re-imburse me for the report when I rang them back. I’m a little nervous that I’ll pay this and Argos will try to wriggle out some how or the engineer will blame the fault on something I’ve done. Has anyone else followed this path and can offer any advise?

[kwatt]

Re: Independent report for retailer – Indesit Fault

It is a bit of a gamble, doing what you are attempting IMO.

If the report that you get states that it’s just a fault and it was not something that was inherent or a defect from new then you may well be left with the bill.

Proving that is often, at best, very difficult as no repairer (beyond determining wear etc) will be able to point to exactly why a component has failed. If you get a report which states that the “XX widget” has failed then that’s just a failure and the SoGA doesn’t protect you from that really.

What Argos are probably assuming is that you are attempting to claim under the six year rule but that would mean that you would have to prove that it was an inherent fault from point of sale. Pretty hard when it’s been working away fine for over a year.

If Indesit inspect I reckon they’d simply report the failure and, unless the cause was very obvious, wouldn’t go into why the particular component or components had failed.

Plus, Indesit are hardly likely to confess that their product has an inherent flaw, true or not.

HTH

K.

[Corvay]

Re: Independent report for retailer – Indesit Fault

Thanks for the feedback.

There isn’t any need for Indesit to confirm it’s a flaw as I understand, the onus is on Argos to prove the fault wasn’t there from the start. Although I admit I’m no lawyer.

I take your point that this is risky and I’m guessing noone has done this before that you have heard. I’ll wait for the letter and then push that this is unreasonable cost/inconvenience. Then arrange repair through indesit and take it from there. I find persistance often pays off.

Thanks

[kwatt]

Re: Independent report for retailer – Indesit Fault

No, it is up to you after the goods are six months old to prove that the fault was there from point of sale. If you cannot do so, Argos don’t have to do a thing or pay for anything at all.

Argos could just let you get that report which, in all likelihood won’t be able to determine with certainty that the fault existed from new, then tell you that they have no responsibility for it.

And yes, it has been tried before. Many times with different retailers, I’ve not seen a successful attempt where there hasn’t been a recall or something involved.

Several large retailers, I believe, even have have standard response letters for these types of claim as they are fairly common.

K.

[QUICK FIX]

Re: Independent report for retailer – Indesit Fault

at times customers just take your breath away…….would they try this if it related to a car no because the dealership would kick it right into touch.any way off to put my round pegs into square holes….. 😆

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