Friday 23rd April 2010 - Court HearingI turned up at Leicester County Court at 09:40 for the court hearing. So there I am just sitting down staring at individuals who could possibly be the representative of Comet PLC, until 20 minutes later I'm approached by an individual who introduces himself as the 'Trading Standards' manager of Comet PLC
In a 'movie like' scenario he requests to divert us into an office for a discussion. At the beginning of the discussion I began explaining to the NVIDIA defect and how the problem occurs. What shocked me was that
the representative assumed the Hard Disk Drive was the defective component and not the GPU, this is shocking despite all of the information I've personally sent to Comet and all being backed and furthered with an engineer's report... After arguing through this topic the representative then
offered one of two possible settlements: 1. 50% of the original value of my laptop (£600).. or .. 2. an exchange for a new laptop at 1/2 original value of my laptop. After the months of suffering without of laptop and grief experienced with Comet's poor customer service I declined both offers and originally I had opted through the allocation questionnaire that
I have no intention of a settlement and wish to receive a result directly through a court hearing.
The next topic of discussion was the free repair in which
the defendant convincingly argued there are 'defective free parts' available for the repair and I simply countered with "where is your evidence? can you demonstrate proof of these defect free parts?". The representative acted oblivious to the previous question and still insisted his words were true and that
HP had informed them the parts were defect free. Eventually the representative mentioned the list of laptops subjected to the HP warranty list and that was the peak of the argument, I promptly stated "My laptop model is not featured on the extended warranty list so in theory does not suffer from the defect. However this is not true and has been confirmed by a documented engineer's report. How is it possible that HP have confirmed with you my laptop is one of the defective models?", I then continued "So HP are therefore lying here either to you the retailer or me the customer, how can you trust HP's word that they are able to repair the product using the same parts but ones that are defect free?". In addition to this I questionned exactly 'who' would repair the laptop and the representative answered the Comet repair team, of course I asked if he could provide the same guarantee but he was unable to. This conversation lasted for a total of around 30 minutes and we eventually sat down next to each-other and remained silent.
Here's the amusing bit, at 11:30 the representative had to temporarily leave the premises in order to top up the parking meter for his car, during the time of his absence were called up for the hearing but with respect I requested that the judge wait a further 10 minutes for the representative to return.
Finally we entered the court room which matched ciderboy's description. It's an office, equipped with an office style table where a well educated senior judge is seated and deals with your case. Both me and the defendant sat down, the judge introduced himself and instructed us on the proceedings of the court hearing (the recording, permissions, etc).
This is important! The 21 page document I created for the hearing was never used and the only documents I used was the engineer's report, receipt and the final letter before action.
The judge/court does not wish to acknowledge any previous cases and will only take into account your own. [b]The most important item on my defence was the 'Sale of Goods Act 1979' and it seemed to create an impact/interest on the judge, this led to me explanation the product being of poor quality in contrast to the amount paid for it (overheating, dead battery, wireless issue) and being sold a product without knowing of the defect[b]. To top it all off I explained "The laptop developed a defect in September 2009. I contacted HP at first and was quoted $400 for the repair. After some research I discover the video chip is inherently defective and am required to contract the retailer under the Sale of Goods Act. After months of arguing my rights it is now April 2010, I've now been in the same situation for 7 months", also including the issue of being a university student and the poor, unprofessional customer service from Comet's end.
The judge dismissed us and we both waited for a further 15 minutes until returning for the judge's decision. He sat us down for 5 minutes at first explanation his discovery of certain articles in the Sale of Goods Act and concluded that I were to be compensated a certain amount of the value of the laptop due to usage period of 2 1/2 years, £700/£1105. He then asked if I required to claim for any further costs in which I replied £100 for the hearing fee, £65 for the initial court fee and £65 for the engineer's report. Overall the figure totalled for £930 which I can honestly cannot complain about.
And that's the end of it...finally. A little upset about the judge's decision of the £400 reduction whereas other people are receiving a full refund. The cheque should be sent to me next week if the representative sticks to his words.
I do apologise for making a long winded post and will attempt to break it down for people who'd like a listed version of the events.
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