Catalogue returns faulty goods advice please

[Bernie259]

Hi, my wife ordered a hoover from her catalogue she has been with over 20 years and had no problems. When the hoover arrived we discovered it had an intermittent problem with picking up, a family member who had already bought one from same catalogue tried it and said it was not working like hers, so my wife arranged for it to be returned clearly marked faulty, however, the catalogue tried twice to send it back to us and my wife told the delivery man she had not ordered a replacement. She then contacted the catalogue company to explain the situation that the hoover had an intermittent fault and she did not require a replacement as she needed one urgently and bought one locally. Their reply was the hoover was a non returnable item at it had been used, we wrote again saying we returned it due to the intermittent fault, it would pick up then stop, no blockage then be ok only to repeat, we said we had a legal right to return goods we felt were faulty, they said their engineer looked at it and it was working ok so they would hold the hoover for 6 weeks and if we didn't agree to re-delivery it would be disposed of and we would be charged, the value is £93.

Where do we stand here, it seems a bit heavy handed, we were not offered a copy of any report, if the problem is intermittent it may have been ok when they looked at it, surely a customer with no expertise should have to prove a fault? And do we have any rights under the "Distance Selling Rules" as it was returned within 14 days? I dont believe their company rules can override UK Consumer protection Law, I would be very grateful for any advice before we write to them again. Thank You

[ostell]

The 14 days distance selling rules is if you don;t like something you ordered on line then you have 14 days to return it unused as you didn't like it. What you should be looking at is the Consumer Rights Act 2015 This allows you to reject faulty goods within 30 days. It's up to you whether you want repair, replacement or refund. Try again mentioning the act.

If you do a google search for "consumer rights act" you will get quite a few helpful explanations of the act rather that the plain legislation.