PC WORLD COVERPLAN (TECH GUYS, KNOWHOW) Breach of contract

[pcworldproblem]

Hi, Im not sure if this is posted in right place, I wondered if anyone could advise on a situation with PCWORLD .

 

I am a very small business and I have coverplans from pcworld

 

Im told Pc world have rebranded from techguys/whateverhappens to Knowhow.

 

Terms of my contracts state:

 

For desktop PCs, printers and word processors

If we can’t fix the problem over the phone, you can have a service call at your premises (not including Hewlett-

Packard printers or printers under £100). The service call time will depend on parts being available.

 

There is no "we reserve the right to change contract terms at any time" stated on the contracts but they have now re branded to KNOWHOW and have DOWNGRADED my policy which no longer offers the call out service stated above

 

as it was a business contract I have business terms printed on the back of my reciept and it says

 

40: If either party wishes to make any changes to this agreement or the underlying terms of the contract for goods or services they must be agreed in writing by an authorized representative of each party.

 

They did not contact me to advise that they have re branded nor did they contact me with new terms of contract they simply just dont offer the onsite repairs anymore, Which I doubt anyone in my position are aware of until they have a fault with a product and have the unfortunate experience of dealing with them:-x.

 

Am I legally entitled to claim back the full amount of premiums paid from the date I took out the policy as they have clearly changed the terms of contract?

 

Thanks in advance

[MathewLisett]

well if you or they didnt ask or agree to the changes then who ever made those changes are in clear breach of contract.

 

I would expect you would need to go via small claims court to get things sorted, after of course you educate yourself with soem backup when communicating with their head office over this matter, if they still say your fault etc, then go small claims.

[joka007]

hmmm...

 

ok basically,

it doesnt matter whether the company has rebranded or not, what matters is that they have to honour whats on the agreement...

 

lets talk this through...

 

the whole point of this coverplan agreement is let me spell it out loud and clear... SOLUTION....

so you report a fault,. because of this contract, they will provide a SOLUTIONNNN...

so it states they will send engineer etc...

 

somewhere along the lines What’s not included:

 

We will not be responsible for any failure to carry out our obligations

under this Support Agreement if it is caused by any circumstances

outside our reasonable control.

 

meaning at that time, if they dont have contracts which engineers to repair in house, then if they repair in repair centre, then that covers their back.

meaning they are NOT breach of contract...

 

hope that helps...

[MathewLisett]

from my understand as its a business agreement and it doesnt state the "at any time we can change any details without warning" then its a case of the contract can not be changed without both sides agreeing to the terms.

 

i can only see "if it is caused by any circumstances outside our reasonable control." being part of when and if they have a part in for repair NOT as part of when a contract changes becuase that is in the control .

 

so i still believe THEY would have had to tell you of the changes in advance and still both sides to agree to the new contract terms.

 

and i also believe they rebranded a few years back to "knowhow" when most of the time they dont know how and simply and randomly ask each other for an asnwer...as i foudn out with a simple networkign question.

[my-spirit-soars-free]

Outside our reasonable control is not a get out for breaking a contract.

 

If I charge people to park on my drive, and put that clause in the contract, I am still not going to get away with selling the house but continuing to collect the money - the sale of the house is under my reasonable control.

 

In the same way, whether a company employs staff to honour their contracts is under their "reasonable control" - unless the reason why they can't is outside of their control. "We want to make more money" is not such a reason - the government calling up all repair technicians to repair the armies hardware might be.