Dealing with faulty goods FAQs

When you buy privately

I saw a bike advertised in the classified ads in my local paper. It sounds ideal but my boyfriend says not to touch it because you have no rights if there's something wrong with it. Is he right?

He's mostly right. When you buy from a private seller, you have little protection: the principle of 'caveat emptor' (buyer beware) applies, and there's no legal requirement that anything you buy is of satisfactory quality or even fit for purpose.

However, goods do have to be 'as described' so the seller can't get away with selling a rusty, damaged bike if it was described as being in excellent condition.

The shop has closed down

The DVD player I bought a couple of weeks ago has just gone wrong. I bought it in a local shop's closing-down sale, and it's not there any more. Because the problem has occurred so soon, I contacted the manufacturer and asked for my money back. They've offered to repair it but won't give me the refund – can I insist on a refund?

No. The right you have under The Sale of Goods Act to reject and get your money back is only against the retailer.

The only remedies the manufacturer has to offer are those they set out in the manufacturers guarantee, so unless it specifically says it will offer to refund the cost of a faulty item, you will have to accept a repair or replacement.

Proving responsibility for a fault

I bought a new television four months ago which has now developed a serious problem. I took it back to the shop and they've said I must have done something to cause the problem, and won't do anything about it unless I could prove the fault was there when I bought it. Is this true?

The retailer is wrong; if something proves to be faulty within the first six months from when you buy it, the law assumes it was faulty at the date of purchase and the onus will be on the trader to show that actually you were at fault, for example, by dropping or failing to properly maintain the item.