Those who read my blog regularly may remember that I treated myself to a new laptop for Christmas. It’s a Compaq Presario CQ60. I knew I should’ve stuck to a Dell.

Typically, 6 months in the battery started playing up. When unplugged for a while it doesn’t always charge when plugged back in. So in July I took it back to PCWorld and they fobbed me off, saying it wasn’t part of the manufacture’s gaurantee as it wasn’t part of the computer!! Okay, I thought. The computer cannot work without the battery when unplugged so how it isn’t part of the warranty I fail to understand. And also seeing as my year’s warranty is with PCWorld and not Compaq, I knew their excuse was a load of poo. So I left and came back home. At the store was no time to argue.

The next day I went on-line and got the number for Consumer Direct. SJ had told me about them and I knew they could help. Sure enough they were wonderful. They informed me that I was well within my rights to ask for a new battery as the computer was less than a year old and that I should write to PC World quoting the Sales of Goods Act 1979 and that I’m aware of my entitlement to a new battery. I was advised to give them 10 days to respond and if they didn’t I was to write to them again, giving them a further 7 days with the promise (not a threat) of taking them to court if I don’t receive either a response or a new battery.

I have already written to them once, to which PCWorld failed to respond. So I sent a follow-up (registered) letter last Thursday and they have a until the end of the week to respond to me one way or another.

Isn’t it funny how these companies think that once you’ve bought goods from them, they no longer have to respond to the consumer when written to. I suppose they’re hoping I’ll just give up and go away. They don’t know me too well, do they?

I’ll be interested to see how this goes. Stay tuned.