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Like others have said, a restocking fee is illegal. But you weren't asked to pay a restocking fee, you were asked to pay £20 for a courier to deliver one amplifier and collect and return another. This fee wasn't compulsory, you had the option to make your own arrangements at your own cost if you wished to do so. You took advantage of that offer and the cost was slightly less than the originally quoted £20. That doesn't mean that the suggested £20 charge was excessive - there are associated overheads which haven't been accounted for in this narrative, possibly insurance, etc.
The changes to DSR's will apply to contracts starting this Friday. The statutory 'cooling off' period will be extended to 14 days. The new regulations mean that sellers must provide buyers with full details of their rights to cancel at the time of purchase and give the retailer the right to make a deduction from any refund if the buyer has reduced the value of the returned goods by handling more than is necessary to establish their nature, characteristics and function. Ultimately this would be for the court to decide but a starting point would be if more use had been made than what could reasonably be expected in a shop. The seller can only impose a deduction if this has been made clear in the information given at the time of sale.
So for guitar stuff, I would suggest that you will still be allow to plug it in and play it, much as you would in a shop.
I mean, I'd be the first to admit that some buyers take the piss (but I'd say that applies to some less than scrupulous sellers, too). Either way you do it, some people are going to go right up to the line (maybe even way over it) and chance their arms.
I think it's perfectly reasonable if you buy something (especially if it's really expensive) to have the option to send it back if you don't like it, if you weren't able to try it first. If you're in a shop you can try first. DSRs are there to provide a level playing field (ish).
If I think the law isn't protecting me enough, I'll just stop buying online- so shops need to be careful what they wish for. I've never actually returned any guitar gear because of DSR (I was darn close with that Genz Benz El Diablo head, but it had the decency to die so technically I returned it because it was faulty), but knowing I have the option of returning things means I'm actually willing to buy in the first place. (Yes, I've returned several things which were faulty, but that's a different kettle of fish as I hope most would agree.) I'm sure I've bought around 20 guitars, maybe 7 or 8 amps, and dear knows how many pedals online. Would those shops rather have no DSRs and not have had my business in the first place?
I think it was Sporky who said over on the old forum (this is paraphrased, obviously): "No-one is forcing shops to sell online, if they don't like DSRs they can just sell from their bricks and mortar shop." I agree- once you sell online, you're bound by those laws.
The other thing is, people act like DSRs are screwing over the little guy- plenty of shops go above and beyond DSRs because they have the clout to do so. For example, Thomann has a 30 day money-back period, and a 3 year warranty. That's nothing to do with DSRs. Again, if I think I have better protection with a certain shop I'm going to buy from them.
I see what you're all getting at and to be fair, they weren't arsey at all about me returning it unlike some stores I've dealt with when the item actually had faults/flaws.
Thanks for all the opinions!
It's people abusing it like that that are the problem.
I said used to. She packed it in years ago because eBay stopped being a viable place for a dealer in that kind of stuff to be. My brother and another friend of the family also make some of their income from selling used items on eBay, and both are agreed that eBay has pretty much turned on sellers. In fact Rachel told a story of somebody buying a camera, and then saying they never received it. As some of you will know, this means an automatic refund by ebay, from the seller's paypal account, and then you just hope that you have some proof that you sent it and that eBay is in a mood to listen. A bit of minor sifting through the cameratti revealed that the buyer had a blog, and had proudly posted pictures of his new camera. So not just some shady rip-off-valuable-shit-on-ebay scammer, but an actual proper vintage camera enthusiast had stolen a really nice camera from her. Hard to maintain faith in humanity sometimes.
People often talk about doing things like this but seldom do. The inconvenience and cost of return is usually enough to put them off. I dare say it may happen on occasion but is unlikely to happen frequently enough to be a problem. Is it any different in asking a guitar shop if they have any more of a particular model that you can try before buying only one? That may seem like less hassle to you in the shop, but may be a problem to the retailer, particularly if they do business online like almost all do and they have to go to the hassle of packing those guitars up again for online sale - then explaining to the buyer why it had been opened and there were a couple of pick marks on the scratchplate.
Easily avoided by using insured, tracked and signed for postage. I always do this with things that I sell on eBay that I wouldn't want to take a hit on, it means you're covered if it goes missing / gets lost, and the buyer has less chance to be unscrupulous. I've sold hundreds of things on eBay with only a couple of problems in 14 years. The vast majority of folks are honest but we get the impression that deals always go badly on eBay because these are the stories we tell and the stories we hear. When was the last time somebody told you about that time they listed an item for sale, someone bought it, they posted it, the buyer received it?
I agree that eBay offers a lot of protection for the buyer, and it can appear skewed in their favour but I think this is probably the best way - Sellers in general, especially now, are more experienced than buyers and should be more clued up on how to ensure things go smoothly.
Unfortunately, that has tarnished my view of the retail system, and as a result I now only buy from the box shifters knowing I have the full weight of consumer law behind me. I never hesitate to invoke any lawful right to impose my will for customer satisfaction.
So while some customers extract the urine, many more high street retailers have been practising bad selling methods for many years. One of the biggest culprits was the music retailers in the 70s and 80s. I got ripped of so many times ( new Fenders with no case, etc.) that it left a sour taste in my mouth. Admittedly the balance as gone too far the other way.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
(a) Yeah. I remember that thread- it was about pretty expensive guitars. Now, obviously some people have more money than others, but I kind of get the feeling that most wouldn't be able to do that because it'd go way over their credit limit. And refunds can take a couple of weeks to process when you consider postage both ways etc.
Personally, I wouldn't do it anyway, both out of principle and also because I'd be concerned that karma would bite me in the ass and something would go wrong. But if you asked the shop first if it were ok, and if they agreed (big "if", obviously), there's probably no problem in it. As you said, in a shop you can try a bunch of different things and the whole point of DSRs is to give customers buying from afar a similar experience to buying in a shop.
(b) Agreed. Obviously I'm biased as I only buy stuff (and very, very rarely), and I don't necessarily agree with all of Ebay's rules, but there's sort of a method to the madness to it, as well. It's to encourage people to buy- again, if I didn't think Ebay would side with me as a buyer I wouldn't buy. I had one thing go wrong on me, totally not my fault, and I felt very, very lucky to get out of it. It certainly didn't feel like Ebay always sided with the buyer, at one point I thought I was going to just have to put up with it and chalk it down to experience.
It's pretty much like I said above- there are definitely buyers who take the piss but there are also sellers who do as well, and if you come up against one who digs his/her heels in (not responding to messages etc.), you can sort of understand why the law (or Ebay policy) is the way it is.
Agreed.
I see people moan all the time about bad service in a store. Is it any wonder when buyers use them to demo a product and then buy it online just so they can get some extra rights? Do the research before hand (something the internet is very good for, find a shop with the product in stock and give them your money. Feeding the online beast only puts more money in Googles pocket and brings the scenario of no high street to visit closer to reality. I can't imagine a world where I couldn't go and try a guitar, pedal or amp face to face, have a coffee with the salesman and talk gear quite possibly getting a suggestion that could change my mind for the best. If I d get home and don;t like it, I have never had a problem returning it. If I'm in the market to buy something, a credit note for me would be fine. The store has given me their time and expertise and they deserve the return on their investment in stock holding, staff knowledge and most importantly, a place to actually visit and talk to people. Not do all the business through a cold faceless email.
The other thing is, everyone is different. I prefer to be left alone and left to get on with it- that "personal service" kind of makes me feel uncomfortable, quite frankly. I don't really want to have a massive chat with a salesperson, I want to get to try the thing properly. The cynic in me also wonders if that chat is a sales tactic to either butter me up or to prevent me from concentrating properly to make a good decision.
I think it's fair enough wanting more rights if getting to try the thing in the shop doesn't really let you see what something is really like- if I buy online I can try with all my other gear. As I said above, I haven't made use of DSRs yet- but it's nice to know I have the option. And it's also nice to know I have the law to fall back on, not just a shop's niceness- I've seen signs in shops here saying all in-store sales are final, for example.
And people may well have genuine reasons why they can't get to a shop, as well, it's not always just laziness.
Nice opinion you have of the people who paid your wages, by the way. )