Trivia (XLVI) - The Executive Customer Relations Representative

Incoming:

My name is Esther Reynolds and I represent Executive Customer Relations within Amazon.co.uk and in this capacity, your correspondence has been brought to my attention. 

I am sorry to hear of the difficulty experienced with the Canon PowerShot S95 Digital Camera (High Sensitivity 10 Megapixel, 3.8x Zoom, 3.0 inch LCD Screen) received in the 20th of October 2010 from your order #203-6918744-1001102. 

The European Directive 1999/44/EC allows for a claim to be taken (under certain circumstances) for a period up to two years in accordance with European Law, and up to six years under UK law. 

This does not imply that an item has a warranty of two years or six years respectively. It merely permits an individual to make a claim under certain circumstances within that time period, e.g. should a fault be proved to have been inherent in the first six months. 

Amazon do not provide the warranty for this item. We do, however, cover our obligations under the relevant legislation such as the Sales of Goods Act 1979 in the UK. Under the Sale of Goods Act, a consumer is granted recourse against a seller of goods if those goods were defective at the time of purchase. This may include, in certain circumstances, repair, refund or replacement but only to the extent that doing so is not disproportionate to the value of the goods, having regard to the use the customer has already had of the goods and the nature of the goods. 

You purchased your product approximately 18 months ago and, until recently, have used it successfully and reported no fault with the product. Given your satisfactory use of the product for a period of time which exceeded the manufacturer's warranty period, it is not established that the product did not conform to the contract (i.e. was defective) at the time of purchase. 

Amazon.co.uk is therefore not under an obligation to offer any additional assistance in repairing or replacing your product. 

However, although we do not have any obligation to do so under the Sale of Goods Act or otherwise, in this circumstance as a measure of good will we would like to offer you a choice of the following resolutions: 

1. An Amazon.co.uk gift certificate to the value of 61 GBP.
2. A refund of 46 GBP. 

Please reply directly to this e-mail to confirm if you wish to accept either of these offers as a full and final settlement in this matter and I will make the appropriate arrangements. 

Please note that the manufacturer is often in a better position than the retailer to deal with technical problems affecting their products. Therefore, should you wish to pursue this matter, we would encourage you to contact the manufacturer to see if they are able to provide you with any further assistance. They may be in a position to offer a repair service or could provide you with information on relevant charges for an out of warranty repair. 

Thank you for your attention to this email. 

Regards,

Esther Reynolds
Executive Customer Relations
Amazon.co.uk
http://www.amazon.co.uk