The Nvidia Defect Forum

Hi Paul/Ciderboy/Guys

Following my last posting (Mar 8 12.19pm) I still have some questions re: the filling in of the Court Allocation Questionnaire. Luckily yourself (Paul and Ciderboy) have managed to answer most of my questions on other member's threads that I have followed (e.g.Vlastimil).

Questions:
My reading of the court information is that I would be a 'Lay Representative' as I am doing this on behalf of a friend. In this case do I have to declare myself a 'witness' (Question D) or can I just turn up with the claimant making no mention of who I am (and what role I will be playing) before attending court?

I am instructed to attach a copy of my 'Expert's Report' (Lapcure Report) to the completed questionnaire. In question G Other Information it asks for 'any other information that will help the Judge manage or clarify the claim, including any information that you consider should be supplied by the other party.' Question: How much (or indeed how little) information should I supply at this stage? and should I be requesting any info from Comet?

I'd be grateful for your thoughts

Lamorna

Be happy to swap notes with you re: our common laptop and approach to Comet

Cheers and thanks to all.

BarryT

That's very good of you barryt, at the moment it seems pretty straight forward so far in that I'm in the process of getting a report after which I'll see what they have to say. Do keep us posted.

Hello Barry,

I am not sure of the answers to your questions but will ask our eminent friend Ciderboy.

He will know the answers to your questions for sure.

I will send him a PM and see if he can help.

Best wishes

Paul
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Please note that I am not legally qualified and I only offer my own personal advice. You are advised to seek professional legal advice for formal clarification of advice I give.

Paul - thanks for pointing me in the direction of this thread.

Barry - hello again and apologies for missing your earlier post about the Allocation Questionnaire.

OK then, if you're acting as a lay representative then you shouldn't need to declare yourself as a witness. However, I would include a note to point out that you're intending to do so.

There used to be a form to fill out before the hearing to apply to act as a lay representative but I'm not sure if it's still needed. Bear in mind that I've only ever seen two of these forms come in in a large number of years working at a court.

I've had a quick look on the HMCS web site & can't see any form listed - it might be worth contacting your local court to check.

Question G: It's safest at this point to provide everything you intend to rely on at the hearing. If nothing else it'll show Comet that you're prepared (although they probably knew that as soon as they saw that your report was from Lapcure ).

You might want to drop it into the court in person - the postage could get expensive as there's so much evidence available!

If you do go in then ask the counter clerk how far ahead they're currently listing Small Claims hearings - it'll give you some idea when yours is likely to be.

Feel free to ask any other questions - I'm sure Paul will pm me again if I miss anything

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Please note: I am not legally qualified and therefore any postings I make are just my own personal opinion based on my experience of working for a number of years at a busy County Court.

Hi Paul/Ciderboy

Thanks for your comments and advice.

Ciderboy

I will take on board your comment to let the court know about my role in any proceedings.

I also agree with your comment ‘there’s so much evidence available!’ That said Comet’s defence states that they are not denying there is a problem with the GO6100 chip but they do not agree that there is a problem when it is in this model of laptop (their evidence being that HP have not included it in their ‘list’).

So to answer Comet’s defence, my evidence needs to:

provide ‘strict proof’ that my laptop has failed as a result of the NVidia defect (Lapcure report – job done!)

if possible show evidence of proven failures of this chip in this model of Laptop where other retailers have accepted the NVidia defect as the cause of the failure and refunded/replaced (I have 2 examples to date from this forum). Obviously this also shows that the Lapcure report has been accepted as ‘strict proof’ of failure and laptops not on the HP ‘list’ are failing and other retailers are accepting this. I also have detail of the Compaq F500 series ‘limited service enhancement’ (the F500 appears to be a ‘clone’ of the HPG6000 with GO6100 gpu). I could search out lots of other examples of retailers accepting failures not on the HP List but would this be necessary?

Also Question G ‘other information’ on the Allocation Questionnaire asks claimants for information ‘that will help the judge to manage or clarify the claim’ - do I need to supply sufficient info to ‘educate’ the Judge about the whole NVidia saga. I am happy to do this and have the material to do so but don’t want to go into information overload if it is not needed. Also I intend to rely on the Sale of Goods Act – do I need to attach a full copy of this also?

If you have any other pointers I’d be grateful.

Sorry to seem to be labouring the point but if I/we do end up going to court I want to make sure I have provided everything I need to the Judge in advance. Also I hope that by asking these questions (and you kindly answering them) that others on the forum will benefit.

Thanks for your invaluable assistance.

Best regards
barryt

When I was researching my G6065EA I came across the link to the Compaq F500. From memory, I discovered that the mainboards shared the same part number and therefore must be the same. When I get home tonight I'll see if I've still got the notes I made.

At the end of the day I would say that it's more important (and harder to defend) to prove that the GPU is inherently defective rather than showing that retailers have paid out on non-listed laptops although a bit of both is always useful.



Don't worry about a copy of the SoGA - I would like to think that most judges would have a reasonable idea about this (although make sure you take printouts with the relevant bits highlighted in the unlikely event that it goes as far as a hearing).

I also wouldn't go too far with info on the defect at this stage - I'm sure Pauls reports describe it well enough for the judge to get an idea what's going on. Just be prepared to provide full info before the hearing date (preferably at least 14 days before).

It's a fine balance - if you don't provide enough info then the judge won't be able to work out what's going on, if you provide too much then they won't have time to read it all. When dealing with the allocation to track then they will probably read the claim form, defence and Allocation Questionnaire and only glance at other documentation.

One thing to bear in mind; in my experience the majority of District Judges (and Deputy District Judges) are not very technically minded (although this has improved in the last few years as they've all had to use their laptops) so you have to make sure that you don't get too technical with them.



No problem at all - I'm fully aware that there are a number of people getting close to this stage with their claims so the more info we can get on the forum the better.

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Please note: I am not legally qualified and therefore any postings I make are just my own personal opinion based on my experience of working for a number of years at a busy County Court.

Hi Ciderboy

Thanks for your prompt response.

I now have a better idea of what I will supply 'to help the Judge manage or clarify the claim' without overloading him/her at this stage.

One final question, I assume I will be able to introduce additional evidence/information prior to the hearing (if indeed as you say it gets that far!) - is this correct?

I appreciate your continued assistance

Regards

Barryt

Hi Barry and Pauls,
Just to let you know today I got my defence back from comet, I also have 2 g6031 both failed, and my defence letter must be your copy lol
Hayley

Hi Paul/Ciderboy/garthwd/vlastimils/pauls/hayley3686/Lamorna and others moving ever closer to legal action against Comet!

Just to update you all, following advice from Ciderboy, Paul and viewing threads from others at the same/similar stages in their proceedings against Comet, I have now submitted my Allocation Questionnaire.

As a consequence of the ‘standard/cut and paste’ defence put forward by Comet’s ‘legal’ team and advice from Ciderboy I have restricted the information to the judge (submitted as an attachment to the AQ) to a copy of the Lapcure Report and a copy of my Letter before Action (which was accompanied by a copy of the Lapcure report) sent to Comet. The content of these two documents more than covers their 2 defence points of

‘it’s not on the list and the claimant needs to prove it failed as a result of an inherent defect’
and
‘if the laptop had an inherent defect why has it lasted for almost two years?’

as well as the Lapcure Report giving a brief but concise introduction to the NVidia Defect and a bit of it’s history.

I have also made it clear that I am not just ‘rejecting the laptop and claiming a refund’ in their words but exercising my consumer rights under the terms of the Sales of Goods Act 1979.

A couple of bits of information that may be useful to others gained from my conversations with the Case Manager at the Court are:

If you are doing this work on behalf of someone else (as I am) you are classed and will be acting as a ‘Lay Representative’ at any hearing and need to make the Court aware of this within the Allocation Questionnaire.

Also errors need to be pointed out. In my case the Claimants surname had not just been misspelt but changed to another surname (similar but not the same) you need to point something like this out on the AQ and indicate where your details have ‘changed’ (on what documents). Comet had used a different name on their Defence and the Court had used this name on the Allocation Questionnaire. The cynic in me says it could have been Comet trying to pull a fast one, but the realist tells me that it was just yet another error on Comet’s part!

Paul

On a separate point, there appear to be a number of forum members at the same/similar stages of their battles with Comet who have all received the same/similar defence from Comet and as a consequence posting the same/similar questions to you and others in relation to e.g. the Allocation Questionnaire. Would it be timely to start a separate Comet thread and say a more general thread explaining the AQ and encouraging those affected to post their experiences on to a specific thread. It should certainly save you a lot of time (when do you sleep?) and effort. Also it would certainly help when looking for specific points of evidence (e.g. how many people making claims to Comet have been told their Laptop is ‘not on the list’ and eventually how many people who have been told this have been successful? etc)

Let me know what you think and what input I/we(forum members) can provide.

Regards and thanks to all


barryt

yes that would be great to start a separate comet thread to help other members to find their answers easily. Well I mean it's easy enough now but would be even easier.

thanks everyone and especially Paul