H Samuel - watch purchase

[gsharpe]

Hello, newbie here!

 

Having a bit of bother with H Samuel at the moment, I was hoping somebody could give me a bit of support re: how I should proceed.

 

I was bought a watch recently as a present from an H Samuel store while I was on holiday. Firstly, the woman tried it on me (it was far too loose) and said I would need two watch links removed but I would need to pay for it first. I bought the watch and she removed the links, but it was unbearably tight (both of us struggled to get it off my wrist) leaving me with cut marks on my wrist. So she went back and put one link back in, which seemed better.

 

I took it home and that night, put it on. Unfortunately after about twenty minutes of wear, it started to irritate and because its quite bulky, made my wrist very sore and very red - so I immediately stopped wearing it. Disappointed, I resigned myself to just wearing my old faithful watch.

 

The following day, when I was back home, I took it to my local branch of H Samuel to ask for a refund. I was abruptly told by a rude assistant that they weren't willing to refund as the watch had been "customised" by having a link removed. She also told me I "would have been told this at the time".

 

Now, I wasn't told any of this at the time (in fact the sales associate at the original store was possibly a mime artist in disguise) and I don't know where I stand. She told me to contact the original store, which I did. The rather helpful Assistant Manager then told me that she wasn't aware of any H Samuel policy to refuse refunds after having links taken out.

 

The Assistant Manager then took charge, and called my local store as well as her Customer Services department before phoning me back with some bad news - after making some calls, she said that my local store are apparently perfectly within their rights to refuse my refund, and H Samuel Customer Services agree that because the watch has been "customised", they are unwilling to do a refund.

 

At what point did I lose my right to a cooling off period? Especially as I was not told of this? It isn't convenient to go back to the original store, so what do I do?

 

Any thoughts?.... if not, anyone want to buy a watch? Haha :S help!

 

Graeme

[gyzmo]

I would hardly call it customised - it's not as if you had your partner's pet name engraved all over it and painted in spotted pink an blue. Even if it had been, where it is faulty or not as described then it would not matter.

 

The question is : is the watch faulty or not as described? To be honest, imho (no expert on watches at all) it doesn't sound like it, though hopefully someone may be able to argue otherwise. Maybe there is an argument that a properly fitted watch should not do this? I dunno.

 

The other option of course is looking at what their terms of refund are (ignoring anything that conflicts with statutory rights). If it does not exclude returns of "customised" items, then they are attempting to introduce a term post conclusion of the contract.

 

Even then, how about having the other link put back in so it is no longer "customised"?

 

Failing everything else, would one of those things that you put underneath straps help?

[nefrete27]

hi.

what will you say about this?

my boyfriend give me a engagement ring from h. samuel. it is a 1/2 carat diamond ring (christmas kiss ring) which was avable christmas time for £499 and original price was £999 but the ring was to big so I went to exchange it...and I have noticed that the diamond has got a big influsion or watever they call it so they cheked the size of my finger and offered me another christmast kiss ring but this time diamond was yellow and than they offered that they will find me another ring ...so I went week later to collect the ring. I took it home and guess what? It has got black dot on diamond and another gray mark about (1mm big)so I have seen 3 christmas kiss rings and all of them had something wrong with diamond. after that I went to shop again and now the christmas kiss ring is again avable for £999 and when I have asked if they can exchange it the answer was yes but I can only exchange it for the same ring or another ring for the price of £499 and if I would like to exchange it for diferent ring 1/2 carat diamont and price of £999 I need to pay the difrence of £500. and the odd think is that the diamonds on diferend than christmas kiss rings (same price of £999 and same carat 1/2) do not have marks visible with naked eye. so can any one explain what is going on? I understand that if someone offers the same size of stones in the same price they should be same quality and if so why they don't want to exchange my ring for diferend ring in the same price if stone is what you pay for?

[Conniff]

Because they were probably a special purchase to put on sale.

 

There are laws concerning price reductions, can you remember exactly what was written on the price reduction label?

[nefrete27]

hi. it was christmas offer and after christmas the price is again £999 as the price of diferent rings same carat, same size of diamond.

[binglebongle]

To the OP, I used to work at H Samuels and we NEVER had that policy. It could be a new one that has been introduced in the last couple of years, but we always refunded or exchanged watches whether links had been removed or not. It's absolutely ridiculous to not allow this. Did you get this issue resolved? I would definitely complain about this to head office. It SHOULD be within the 30 day refund guarantee.