Faulty item.

[annm3448]

On 5th March, I purchased a factory refurbished Hewlett Packard printer from Printer Maintenance Ltd which was offered for sale at £129 with a 6 month warranty.  Only a few weeks after the warranty period ended, the printer developed a fault, giving an error code and suggesting that the print head was either missing or incorrectly installed.  We'd had no occasion to interfere with the printhead, other than to replace 1 of its 4 ink cartridges, so I contacted the company through Ebay.   

Their initial response was to say that they would "speak to their engineer and get back to me"  Four days later, I chased by email for a further update and got the same response.  In the meantime, we were in urgent need of a working printer for some important documents, and with no further help or assistance forthcoming  from Printer Maintenance Ltd, I went ahead and purchased a new print head from a different supplier, in order to return the printer into a usuable condition.  However, 2 days after buying the print head and with a total of 17 days having elapsed since I had originally contacted Printer Maintenance about the fault, the same person sent me a new email stating that I could return the printer to them for repair or replacement. 

As I live in Essex and they are located in Cheshire,  I replied again stating that it would be entirely impractical and costly for me to return the printer to them.  I was also advised by Citizens' Advice that it was the company's responsibility - not mine, to arrange for the return of the printer.  However, I added also that as we'd needed to have the printer working, I had purchased a new print head and stated that I would be grateful for some measure of cash compensation towards the cost of the print head,- but I received no response

Bottom line is that the new print head cost £123 in addition to the original purchase price of £129 and the Citizens' Advice have stated that we should NOT have needed to spend such a large sum of money on a replacement part so soon after the expiry of the warranty period.  In respect of which, I wrote a formal letter of complaint on 25th November to Printer Maintenance Ltd, and chased up for a reply on 9th December, but this company has made no further reply or any kind, either to my letter or follow-up email.