The Nvidia Defect Forum

Hello Paul,

I have contacted PC World and surprisingly they have still not acknowledged the letter, report and supporting evidence for the report I included in my letter.

I am in the process of filing a small courts claim but just wanted to double check a few details with you. I have amended the recommended text for the "particulars of claim" field on the money claim website and have included at the end:

"I am therefore seeking a refund of the purchase price and associated cost of contacting the retailer by phone and post, the time I have spent researching this issue and the cost of the engineer's report."

The last part I added just to cover myself for the extra costs. Does that look ok to you?

The laptop refund I have requested from PC World is for £587.19 as the purchase price was £600 but vat was reduced at that time. I have added £35 (£7 per hour X 5 hours) for time spent researching the problem. A further £5 to cover the cost of post and phone calls and finally the £65 for the report.

This comes to £692.19 which I have entered and saved in the amount claimed field. I have ticked the intrest box and the recalculated sum is £752.19 including court costs (i think).

I have not submitted the claim yet because I just wanted some advice as to whether this seems reasonable or not. PC World once again stated that they had not read my letter and suggested I fax them another copy of the report to which I replied that I do not have access to a fax machine and that I was going to proceed with a claim. I don't think I am being unreasonable since they have had my letter since the 12th and today is the 22nd. They did try to "escalate the issue" but also stated how this may prove unsuccessful which in my opinion reveals their delay strategy. Still it would have been nice to hear what fantasy nonsense they could have dreamt up to continue to refuse my refund.

Many Thanks,

Cheers,

JP

Hello JP,

The paragraph you added looks ok. It sets out your wishes fully and does not seem unreasonable.

I have to say though you should give them a couple more days. The reason being they have only had the letter for six days and you could be seen as being unreasonable if you rush into the action without fully giving them an opportunity to comply.

I am not saying you should give them weeks, but I would say a few more days would be in order.

That way you have acted reasonably by giving them longer than seven days even though it states on the letter that time is of the essence.

I hope you don't mind me saying this.

Best wishes

Paul
The Admin Team

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Hello Paul,

Thanks for the reply. I think your right and that I should wait a few more days. As you say I don't want to rush into the next stage and appear unreasonable for not giving them the chance to respond.

I will give them until next week I think just to make sure that they have had enough time to go through their backlog. At any rate I am intrested in what their response will be.

Thanks for the advice.

Cheers,

JP

Hello Paul,

I called PC World today and they have finally acknowledged receipt of my letter. I was informed that they would still only offer a fixed price repair. I questioned why they appeared to ignore the contents of the report to which they replied "we are confident that a repair will address this issue and this is our resolve."

I tried to discover once again why they were so confident that a repair would "resolve" this issue bearing in mind the contents of the report. They gave me the usual line about how they had successfully carried out repairs that had solved this problem in the past but they could not give me any specific examples or a guarantee, except the 90 day fixed price repair guarantee.

So it seems I have to go down the small courts claim route. I am surprised that they offered me no new excuses as to why I should accept the fixed price repair. I really expected something other than "trust as, we know the repair will resolve the problem as we have done this before."

Do you know if and how they will attempt to defend this in court?

I suppose I will find out eventually but I am curious as to why they just tried to fob me off and did not even make an attempt to persuade me to accept the fixed price repair.

Many thanks,

JP

Hello JP,

They will simply say in their defence that they offered you a repair to which you refused.

Your response to this line of defence would be that they were not prepared to give you a written guarantee that the board they were using would not be as inherently defective as the board it was replacing.

I am also mystified as to why the part numbers of the boards being used are such a closely guarded secret?

Why, if they have so much confidence in these boards, can't they give out more details so that their claims can be checked and verified?

Everything about the Nvidia defect seems to be done in a cloak and dagger style. Including the BIOS updates, the board tweaks and the retailers insistence that the replacement boards will be ok when we know for a fact that the replacement boards are failing.

Best wishes

Paul
The Admin Team

_________________
=======================================================
Calculate the minimum refund that you would be entitled to.
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Do you need an engineers report?
=======================================================

If you like what you see on this forum and would like to help then please post links to this forum in other forums or blogs. The more people we can help the better.


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.

Hello Paul,

After a month and a bit there have been a few developments with my ongoing quest for a refund on my laptop so I thought I better update my thread.

After my last conversation with PC World I made my small court claims against PC World. During the initial 28 days I received a letter from DSG stating that they were aware of the claim and any correspondence should be sent to them directly as opposed to PC World. Then after the 28 days had gone past I checked the moneyclaim website and checked to see if any defence had been submitted which it had not. So I requested judegement by default which the website allowed me to do so.

Unfortunately 2 days later I checked the website and discovered that my request for judgement had been rejected and PC World had filed a defence. A few days later i received PC World's defence from the court and a few days after that I received the same defence from PC World. Here are the main points of their argument:

"The defendant does not admit that the goods are incapapble of a satisfactory repair or are inherently defective as alleged or at all."

"The defendant will contend and aver that the goods are of satisfactory quality as required by section 14 of the sales of goods act 1979 (as amended)."

"Further, the defendant will contend and aver that the claimant has in any event accepted the goods by virtue of section 35 of the 1979 act. Specifically the defendant avers that:
(a) the claimant has retained and used the goods for a resonable period of time without intimating
that he rejected them; and
(b) that the claimant has during the period of time referred to in 10 (a) above had a reasonable
opportunity of ascertaining that the goods were in conformity with the contract."

"Further and or alternatively, the defendant contends that under section 11(4) of the 1979 Act a claimant who has lost the right to reject the goods can only treat any breach he may prove as a breach of warranty."

"Accordingly, the defendant denies that the claimant is entitled to reject the goods or any part thereof or that he is entitled to damage as alleged at all."

"Save as in herinbefore specifically admitted or not admitted the defendant denies each and every allegation contained in the statement of claim as though the same were herin set forth and traversed seriatim."

So i think the crux of their argument is that I am not entitled to a refund because I had the laptop long enough, refused the repair and there is nothing wrong with it in the first place and even if there is because I discovered it after having the laptop for just over a year I am not entitled to anything other that what than the fixed price repair.

The court also sent me questionnaire which I need to complete before the 24th of May. Its pretty much straightforward but I am not sure about section E, experts where it asks:

do I want permission to use an expert's report at the hearing? to which I would assume Yes is the right answer.

The next questions are have you already obtained the report and do both parties have a copy to which the answer is yes.

The next question asks if I want the expert to attend to which the answer is no unless you want a long trip down to Bristol Paul!

The next question asks that the court may order a single expert who can be instructed by both parties, if you think this would not be appropriate, please say why, to which I assume I would just leave blank since I have nothing to hide.

There is also another section I am not sure about, Section G which states other information that may help the judge manage or clarify the claim so I was wondering if you or anyone could advise me on any evidence I should include in this section such as the press statement from Nvidia about the defect as well as some details about the test completed by lapcure or anything else that will need to be considered.

Any advice and feedback would be great. I am sorry to leave such a long post but everything seemed to happen at once after a period of it all being pretty quiet. I am hoping as many have pointed out on the forum that they will not turn up to court or offer a settlement before to save legal costs but I just want to make sure that I am doing everything in the right order. I was also concerned that my rejected request for judgement by default may go against me, even though it was only made since the moneyclaim website had not been updated with PC World's defence, probably since they waited to the last second to fax it to them.

I think its useful to post the details of the defence in case anyone else gets this far and is not sure what to make of it, but it does seem like a semi-legal smoke screen to fob me off further and accept that £600 laptops are only good for 12 months after which case you should throw it away and buy another one.

Many thanks,

JP

Hello JP,

Don't worry about PC World's defence, I have replied to it point by point below.

Defence point 1



Well, if that were the case why are they so unwilling to give a written guarantee that the replacement parts that will be used will be free from the inherent defect?

Furthermore, how can they say that your laptop is not inherently defective at all?

It did not take me long to go to the HP support website, type in your model number DV2820, view the past versions of the BIOS for your laptop and found this:- http://tinyurl.com/33ylq9h

You will note that this BIOS update page states:-



Note the "Fix/Enhancement" states that the update turns the system fans on at the lowest speed.

Reading further into the HP support website it also states the following:-



This is proof that from as early as 8th April 2008, HP were fully aware of the potential for the premature failure of your laptop - hence the need to switch the fans on to keep it cool.

Now, if I could perform that quick check why didn't PC World? instead of trying to defend this action they should have checked their facts before making the ludicrous statement of "The defendant does not admit that the goods are..... inherently defective as alleged or at all."


What is more startling is that this BIOS update was released BEFORE you purchased your laptop. This means that HP were fully aware of the problems with these laptops yet still they continued to sell them or allow their sale.

PC World may not have known this, but the evidence speaks for itself.


Defence point 2



Do you think that they actually believe that statement?

How can your laptop be of satisfactory quality when it breaches the Sale Of Goods Act for a number of reasons, namely:-

1) Durability (Your laptop is certainly not durable)
2) Free from defects (Your laptop is not free from defects)
3) Satisfactory quality (with an inherent defect it is not of satisfactory quality)
4) Fitness for purpose (with an inherent defect it is not fit for purpose)

I will again refer to the BIOS update and the fact that HP knowingly allowed the continued sale of these laptops even after the updated was released. Does this fall under Section 14 of the Sale Of Goods Act? I think not!

Defence Point 3



What a load of baloney the above is.

How were you to know that your laptop was inherently defective? Had they told you at the time of sale that the laptop was doomed to fail prematurely would you have purchased it? Of course not!

If the laptop had failed within the first 12 months would you have reported it straight away? Of course you would.

So how could you report the fact that your laptop was inherently defective until such time as you were aware of this fact?

At the end of the day this defence point is irrelevant as the laptop in question is inherently defective and you have SIX YEARS to take action. The fact that you have kept it for a certain period of time is totally and utterly irrelevant.

Defence point 4



Well, you haven't lost the right to reject the goods as the goods are inherently defective. This is not a breach of warranty either. It is a breach of the Sale Of Goods Act and a breach of your Statutory Rights.

Again, more baloney from the kings of baloney.

Defence point 5



Rubbish! Sorry to have to keep repeating myself but the goods are inherently defective and they have a duty and a responsibility to rectify this. What are they trying to say? That they can sell you an inherently defective laptop that has already been "tweaked" by HP so that it will work past its warranty date only to be then told that you cannot reject the goods?

Is this really a high street company or is it a back street, here today gone tomorrow take your money and run company?

If it is the former then they should stop trying to dodge their responsibilities with these nonsense defences that it cannot hope to win with and just refund their customers who were unfortunate enough to have purchased one of these defective laptops.

REMEMBER, YOUR MODEL OF LAPTOP HAD ALREADY HAD ITS BIOS TWEAKED PRIOR TO YOU PURCHASING IT IN ORDER TO PREVENT THE CATASTROPHIC FAILURE OF THE GPU

Let them try and defend that in court!

If you have any questions or queries then please let me know.

Best wishes

Paul
The Admin Team

_________________
=======================================================
Calculate the minimum refund that you would be entitled to.
FAQ's
Why you should not accept a repair
Links to evidence
What is the Nvidia Defect?
Step by step help to getting a refund
Do you need an engineers report?
=======================================================

If you like what you see on this forum and would like to help then please post links to this forum in other forums or blogs. The more people we can help the better.


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.

Hello Paul,

Many Thanks for the destruction of PC World or DSG's poor attempt to make a defence against my claim. As you pointed the worst aspect of their defence is where they state that i had the laptop for a "reasonable amount of time" and did not complain about my laptop being defective. I am disgusted at the way they think this is reasonable in their opinion and part of their defence. As you say it would be interesting to see them attempt to use that sort of argument in front of a judge.

I wanted to ask whether you think it would be a good idea to include in the evidence part of the questionnaire I received (where it asks for supplementary information) whether I should write in that section some detail such as the bios update before the laptop was purchased, or whether I should just mention this if and when it comes to court?

I really don't think it will come to that but just in case I was wondering whether additional information or evidence could be included just to clarify things a bit more for the judge.

Once again thanks very much for the last post. I was annoyed to say the least about the nonsense they sent me as a defence. Its quite shocking how bad they treat their customers and how unreasonable they can be.

Many Thanks,

JP

Hello JP,

I agree with you about how shocking Comets behaviour is.

What is more shocking is how they now seem to be saying to customers "so sue us"

How totally unprofessional is that?

I am just drafting up a supplemental document that I will email you once complete.

This will fully document the BIOS update that was made available by HP for your laptop.

I will also detail in that document how this was released BEFORE you purchased your laptop.

It is important to include a copy of the document with your AQ and I would also forward a copy to Comet telling that that this will be additional information that you will rely on in court.

I hope this is good for you.

I will email you a copy once it is complete, probably later tonight.

Best wishes

Paul
The Admin Team

_________________
=======================================================
Calculate the minimum refund that you would be entitled to.
FAQ's
Why you should not accept a repair
Links to evidence
What is the Nvidia Defect?
Step by step help to getting a refund
Do you need an engineers report?
=======================================================

If you like what you see on this forum and would like to help then please post links to this forum in other forums or blogs. The more people we can help the better.


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.

Hello Paul,

It has been just over a week since I sent off my allocation questionnaire with my laptop's report and the supplementary bios report. I also sent a copy of the supplementary report to DSG retail.

Today I received a letter from DSG stating that they have "reviewed the circumstances surrounding my claim" and are "satisfied that the matter can be resolved in the interest of both parties." Apparently they have "worked out" the "depreciated" value of my laptop at £405 which according to DSG takes into account 15 months use and a life expectancy of 4 years. Apparently the life expectancy takes into account that laptops are portable and so "they suffer more from the stress of everyday use than a static pc would."

DSG claims to have spoken with HP who have informed them, that a repair is still a "viable option" despite "that this is contrary to the views expressed by the maker of the report" and so they are "prepared to make the following offer in order to bring this matter to a satisfactory conclusion." :

"1.) A free of charge repair and reimbursement of the cost of your report and court fee OR

2.) £405 cash settlement and reimbursement of the cost of your report and court fee. This option will be subject to the return of your laptop."

Although option 1 does not make sense I think what they are offering is the fee of a fixed price repair which I believe is £229, plus the report costs of £65 and the court cost of £60. So this would all together be £354. The second offer would therefore be £530 which is the £405 + £125 for the report and court fee.

At the end of the letter there is an additional paragraph which states:

"...the offers cannot be reffered to in court until such a time as the judge has heard all the evidence and has made his ruling. At this point the content of this letter may become relevant if the question of expenses are raised in the event that you fail to better the offer."

I think this is them trying to say that I cannot use this letter as evidence in court until after a ruling has been made as it may make them look bad and as such not allowed as they are just trying to make a resolve so that it does not go to court.

Considering the laptop originally cost £600 and I paid £587.19 (due to reduced VAT at the time), I am not sure whether these offers are satisfactory as they do not take into account the trouble I have had to go through to get this far. Furthermore it is clear that until now they have ignored the contents of the report and this is evident in their defence which I find insulting considering one of the defence points, states that I did not complain about the laptop being defective and retained it for a reasonable period of time until the fault occurred. How that forms a defence remains a mystery but seems part of the entire fobbing off process you have to go through to make them acknowledge there is a problem in the first place. I think this is something for which I am entitled to some form of compensation.

Any advice and feedback would be great.

Cheers,

JP