Pretoria - When I bought my laptop from a national electronics chain, the salesman made a point of telling me, as he rang up the purchase, that I should keep the box in case I wanted to return the laptop.
“That doesn’t apply if the laptop is defective,” I told him.
He responded: “It does – we’ve just had Consumer Protection Act training.”
The CPA’s “implied warranty of quality” is only six months, and that period passed without the laptop imploding on me, so I never did get to “box” with that store over what the CPA says about original packaging when it comes to defective returns.
But the question pops up in my inbox a lot, so here’s the deal.
If you take something something back to a store because you’ve changed your mind about it or it’s an unwanted gift, the store is not legally obliged to take it back at all.
The CPA requires stores only to take responsibility for goods which become defective within six months of purchase.
Okay, there is an exception – if you buy something as a result of a direct marketing offer, you have a “cooling-off period” of five business days in which to return it for no reason, even if it is not broken. But in that case, you must provide the original packaging or you’ll be made to pay for repackaging.
With a traditional purchase, there is no such “out” when it comes to non-defective goods.
Many stores do take back non-defective goods, as a customer service, but in such cases they get to make the rules, and, understandably, they have to do with ensuring that they can sell the goods to another customer without having to go to any extra expense or trouble.
Such as insisting that the goods are returned in their original packaging.
But if the item breaks within six months, thanks to the CPA you are entitled to return it to the store for your choice of a refund, repair or replacement.
Provided that you have proof of purchase, of course, and that a store assessment does not reveal user abuse.
So does the store have the right to insist that the broken item be returned in its original box, failing which it can only be repaired, not replaced or refunded?
In a word, no.
The National Consumer Commission’s legal director, OC Thupayatiase, told Consumer Watch that “the consumer’s right to return any defective goods cannot be defeated by the fact that the packaging of the goods has been disposed of”.
He added: “This is so because, firstly, it was necessary for them to take it out of the box in order to determine whether it was in working order, and secondly, because in terms of Section 56, the packaging requirement is not mentioned as a reason for the basis to determine whether the supplier can accept the goods or not.”
So there you have it.
It is not necessary for you to hoard your computer, microwave or TV box for six months in order to be able to return the thing for a refund, repair or replacement should it break during that time.
And don’t let any store employee tell you otherwise.
Last month, Kosta Papageorgiou bought a Samsung TV from Makro in Montague Gardens, Cape Town, and two weeks later, when one of its functions was not working, he asked the store about a replacement.
“They declined because I had thrown the box away, and told me to contact Samsung,” he said.
Samsung, in turn, told him to go back to Makro.
“So I did, and was told the TV would have to be repaired rather than replaced because I didn’t have the box.”
Annoyed, Papageorgiou tweeted about it, alerting Makro and Consumer Watch.
Makro then did an about-turn, accepted the faulty TV, credited Papageorgiou, and he has since bought another TV from the store.
“So if I didn’t make a big fuss publicly, I’d have been forced to go out of my way to have a brand new product fixed.”
I asked Makro about its “box” policy.
Responding, Makro’s finance manager Glenn Smith said the company did not require the original packaging with respect to a CPA defective return.
For many years the company had had a “peace of mind guarantee” in place, he said, in terms of which customers could return any goods within 14 days for an exchange or refund, provided they were unused and in their original packaging.
“This 14-day refund policy might have created some confusion which would have led to the frustration caused in Mr Papageorgiou’s case,” he said.
“Our staff in the respective returns department treated this as a ‘14-day exchange’, and not as a defective product, given that the product was returned two weeks after purchase.” - Pretoria News