What are my consumer rights?

[Notwhattheywere]

My formerly favourite store, John Lewis, seem to have ditched their commitment to great customer service. I'm now looking for some advice about my consumer rights as I've run out of patience with them.

I'm starting a new very full time job on Monday and wanted to replace my 6 year old unreliable phone with a new one so I could be confident that my children could contact me and I them with no problems whilst I am at work.

Whilst I was visiting family 250 miles earlier this week I went to their local John Lewis store and bought an iphone se in rose gold. I have no interest in phones so didn't take it out of the bag until I was back home the next day. I charged it up, put in my sim card and started the set up process. My teenager appeared and I showed her the phone at which point she said "that isn't an se". We looked at the box- it was a 6s which is a lot more expensive.
I called the store we bought it from several times to try to talk to the John Lewis staff member who sold it to me to avoid him getting into trouble- it got routed through to their central call centre every time. The family member 250 miles away visited the store to try to speak to the man- he wasn't working that day. I called again, gave all the details of the issue and explained I would 100% need a new phone fully set up for Monday. I was on the phone for ages as their system for raising a case kept crashing.
I had no response so called again this morning.

I finally had a call from the store 250 miles away who said they would come up with a plan and get back to me. They called after lunch and left a message saying I would have to return the 6s and process it before they would send out an se. ( This would mean I would have no functioning phone for at least a week.)

I called back and told them that unless I had received a rose gold se, as I bought in good faith in their store this week, I would just use the 6s as I need a phone for Monday. I should add that I prefer the se as it is the same size as my old broken phone.

I don't blame the original assistant, everyone is human and makes mistakes, but JL's response has been awful. My nearest JL store is over an hour away and doesn't have any rose gold se phones in stock.

I feel I've been honest in pointing out their mistake as soon as I discovered it and very patient but I need a functioning phone this weekend.

Should I just keep the phone they sold me in the store? What are my consumer rights? What about the warranty?

They're probably detecting you as a fraudster as no one cashes out that kinda dollar unless they know exactly what they're buying.
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Whether the box is open or not you have the right to send back the phone. it might be worth you driving an hour if you really don't want the phone as you'll need to hand it back for an exchange.

What does your receipt say you have? An SE or an S?

Did you pay the higher price? Is the one you want available online? If so, I’d buy the one you want online, if you have the funds available that is, you might be able to get it click and collect near you tomorrow, possibly, then return the unwanted one.

Pp - 250miles is not an hour drive.

Op - so you paid for a cheaper model and received a more expensive product. Is that right?

Exactly- I asked the shop assistant for a rose gold se- he went and got one from the back, I paid for it, discovered next day when back home that it was a 6s in rose gold.

I paid the se price and it says se on my receipt.

I’d be tempted to keep it. 🤨 You are correct though, you wouldn’t have the warrantee.

Is anyone familiar with consumer law?

I don't want to buy another as I don't want to spend that much more money, I wanted to have it for tomorrow at the latest ( which is ironically why I bought it in store, not online, to avoid any delivery issues) plus given their hopeless response so far, I wouldn't trust them to refund me for the"wrong" phone as I don't have a 6s receipt and I've already opened it and used it.

I’m sure you could return the one you have if you want to and swap it over, or indeed keep the one you’ve got but with no warranty. The phone has the wrong bar code on it, as it will have been scanned at the till. I don’t know what consumer law has to do with it now though.

My ideal solution (which I have requested from JL) is that someone eg delivery driver or courier, delivers an se tomorrow and at the same time collects the 6s phone. I requested this but no one has contacted me at all.