Don't take bs from vendors when exchanging goods

This goes especially for technology equipment…

Thing which happened to me yesterday:
Bought a 1 TB external hard drive. When plugging it at home the box didn’t power on properly so I returned to the store. They checked it… and… it worked! Then I asked them to check with my power supply instead of theirs and it didn’t work.

Of course, in consequence, I asked them to replace the entire box (not just the power adapter cause who knows what else is broken of that unit), they refused it, with some weird explaining to me how it is done “in Taiwan” and that they only want to give me the new power supply from another box.

So, after venting some air, they agreed to give me back my cash. No idea why they didn’t simply make it a pure RMA case and send the entire box back.

I took another box then and wanted to give them the money they just returned :laughing:
But now they refused to sell it to me (in Germany and France they wouldn’t have the right to do so without legitimate reason, not sure about Taiwan).

So (as Nova is) I went to another store, got the same box, 150 TWD cheaper, which of course I could not resist to tell to the previous store… :bow:

If you run into similar trouble here are is my advice:

  • Always get a receipt (doesn’t have to be a fa piao if you want to save some cash) but at least some kind of receipt that you got it there
  • Bring a witness if you want to exchange goods.
  • Get in touch with the consumer protection agency, (02-2886-3200) or Police fraud hotline (165)
  • Only see getting back cash as last option (cause it will likely break your relationship with the seller)

I just want to add that electronic shops like to put those little circular stickers on things you buy and mark the date of purchase on them. They sometimes will look for those stickers to determine date of purchase so make sure you do ask for those stickers before you walk out the door.

Also the law stipulates that merchants have to accept returns for defective goods purchased over the internet within the last seven days. You may be able to get refunds for web purchases under this law as well, but YMMV.

And engerim, I think the shop refused to let you return the whole thing because the RMA paperwork is probably a bitch for them to take care of and since they have to pay for the inventory they probably will just swap out the cheap accessories or parts from another box.