# Regulatory Compliance Category > Consumer Protection Act Forum >  Shipping cost on faulty items?

## rhettyj

Hi all,

I recently bought a few PC parts but had to send back 2 of them because they were faulty. 

The problem is that I ordered them online and they were shipped to me (in PE) from Joburg, so they therefore had to be shipped back. The problem is that i was told by the store (Rampage-Gaming) that I would have to pay for the shipping back to them. It cost me R171 to ship them back and when I told the courier about my situation they were quite shocked and suggested I check if that was against the Consumer Protection Act.

Is it against the CPA? Im a student so R171 is a lot of money to me  :Smile: 

Any help would be welcome, Thanks

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## mother

I suggest you first check the Terms and Conditions. You must have agreed to certain Ts and Cs when you purchased these items. Postage or Courier fees for returns are generally covered in there. Personally I can't see how it can be fair practice to expect you to pay for it, but I'm not sure what the legal position would be if you actually agreed to it in the Ts and Cs. 

What I imagine they're doing, is to make sure the parts are genuinely faulty. It could be that you just changed your mind, and want to return it under false pretences. Perhaps, once they've checked your return, and find that it is legit, they will refund your courier fees.

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## johnwarner75

You should ask them to refund the costs. Companies usually refund costs 'if' their items are inspected and found to be faulty, and they refuse if they were ok

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## Justloadit

Warranties cover replacement of faulty workmanship or premature failure due to component malfunction, they do not include cost of transport, in many cases with in a 50 Km radius they may collect and deliver in these cases. I am sure that if you read the contract or terms and conditions it states this. 

The transport is always a bone of contention due to the cost of shipping to remote regions, in which the transport cost may be higher than the product cost.

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## Dave A

Section 56 of the CPA reads:



> 2)        Within six months after the delivery of any goods to a consumer, *the consumer may return the goods to the supplier, without penalty and at the supplier’s risk and expense,* if the goods fail to satisfy the requirements and standards contemplated in section 55, and the supplier must, at the direction of the consumer, either—
> 
> a)        repair or replace the failed, unsafe or defective goods; or
> 
> b)        refund to the consumer the price paid by the consumer, for the goods.


The supplier is responsible for the shipping costs of the returned items, regardless of what they've got in their fine print (assuming of course the purchase was made after 1st April 2011).

Contact the supplier and insist on a refund of the shipping costs you have paid. If they don't pay up, make another post here and we'll talk about the next step.

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Mark Atkinson (20-Aug-11)

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## Justloadit

> Section 56 of the CPA reads:
> 
> The supplier is responsible for the shipping costs of the returned items, regardless of what they've got in their fine print (assuming of course the purchase was made after 1st April 2011).
> 
> Contact the supplier and insist on a refund of the shipping costs you have paid. If they don't pay up, make another post here and we'll talk about the next step.


Ok, but there is no mention that the supplier shall ship said goods at no cost back to the customer, so there may be a loop hole here.

What if the customer took the goods to another country, and wants to return them? hmmmmm lots of problems here.

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## Dave A

> hmmmmm lots of problems here.


Oh yes, there are lots of problems that go with section 56 - just not the ones you see.




> What if the customer took the goods to another country


The supplier shouldn't have supplied defective goods, then the problem wouldn't have arisen. Why should the consumer be out of pocket. *Replace* means just that. Remove the faulty goods and replace them with non-defective ones, wherever they're at. I have little doubt a tribunal would rule in favour of the consumer on this one.

And it gets worse - it's not the supplier's choice as to which option they want to impliment. It's the *consumer's* option.

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## Justloadit

> The supplier shouldn't have supplied defective goods, then the problem wouldn't have arisen. Why should the consumer be out of pocket. *Replace* means just that. Remove the faulty goods and replace them with non-defective ones, wherever they're at. I have little doubt a tribunal would rule in favour of the consumer on this one.
> 
> And it gets worse - it's not the supplier's choice as to which option they want to impliment. It's the *consumer's* option.


Whilst I fully agree with your statement, in the majority of cases, this is completely out of the suppliers hands. I manufacture products, and have to purchase raw materials from a number of other suppliers. Once you have made some goods, and one of the components fail, you as the last person supplying has the biggest loss, as happened to me recently. The supplier refunded me for the defective batteries, but my product was all the way in another country. Cost me a small fortune to replace the faulty batteries, DHL, customs - and I had sold the goods at cost to get the business.

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## Dave A

Ouch!

(Although I *think* you can pass the cost upline if that's where the problem started)

There's certainly a lot of pain we're not used to hidden in the Consumer Protection Act  :Sorry:

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## IanF

We had a case where with our webshop that a customer insisted on a full refund as our wrappers had hairs on and where unhygienic. As this was our first complaint we said send the wrappers back and we will refund, no mention was made of shipping. When we got them back we couldn't see any hair even through an 8x magnifying glass. We wrote back and asked for the banking details and said there was nothing wrong with the product and we would resell it so we will give an ex gratia refund as promised. The reply came back the wrappers weren't as envisioned. The refund was given excluding transport and we haven't heard anything else.
So you will get customers who try there luck. It will be interesting to see if they take it further.

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