customer service/returns policy with gak?

[Stu-khag]

Hello,
anyone had any experience of gak returns policy?
My wife lovingly bought me a sigma acoustic (the exact model I wanted which I had tried elsewhere)
It turned up in tune but pretty filthy (could have been cardboard box dust I guess) with really mucky strings, a couple of rust marks on the frets and a slight blemish on the side of it (looks like a finish fault-barely noticeable under natural light ). It doesnt play that well either.Quite difficult to play in fact. I'm guessing its come straight from warehouse.
Should I be paying for its return/collection and am I right in requesting that if they send another one that they have a look at it before its sent out ?

[molan]

From the Distance Selling Regulations:


Returning goods
Only if it is covered in the contract and the written information can you require the consumer to pay for the cost of returning
the ordered goods. You are not allowed to make any further charges, such as a restocking charge or an administration charge.
If you do not include these details in the required written information then you cannot charge anything. You can never require consumers to pay the cost of returning substitute goods. If the goods are faulty or do not comply with the contract, you will have to pay for their return whatever the circumstances.

The most important thing in this is that you have to contact them within 7 days and state the reasons for returning. If you miss the 7 day deadline it can get more complicated.

If they are sending unchecked items straight from a warehouse then I think they should state tis in the terms somewhere. However, I'm not 100% sure about this.

A lot of people send things out without checking them and, in fact, a lot of customers refuse to even accept goods that have been previously opened. Personally I'd always expect a guitar to have been checked over and, from a decent shop, set up properly so it's playable etc before I received it.

[Big_Stu]

There was a write-up in the Grauniad last month about such things & the law is that if it's faulty goods they're supposed to pay everything, it's only when you've changed your mind on something & they're doing you a favour by refunding or changing the item where you should pay.
Getting them to do so is another thing altogether, there was a lot of talk of "small claims court" persuasion etc.

You could start by checking with the Trading Standards (or whatever it's called these days) in GAK's area not yours, to see if they'll back you up & remind them of your rights if they decide to not play fair, this especially works if GAK have a history of returned goods, which their local office would have heard about.

[Musicman20]

I am an expert in returns, unfortunately.

GAK have always been pretty good with me. They picked up a 6 week old Markbass amp as I hadn't even checked it in that time. Turns out it had been packed badly by the UK distributor (luckily they don't use this distributor now) and the plug had taken a gouge out of the paintwork.

If its within the 7 days you are MORE than within your rights to ask for it to be picked up/changed/refunded at no cost to you.

If a store doesn't follow this they can get in serious trouble.

[Stu-khag]

cheers for the responses!

[Stu-khag]

just an update, they've been very apologetic and are replacing like for like so fingers crossed this one will be fine.