Shop won't refund or exchange faulty toaster!

[AcorgicalledTiffany]

So about six weeks ago I went to DC's school as they were holding an autumn fair. I bought a book of raffle tickets, £5 in total, and later found out I had won a prize. All prizes had been donated by local businesses for free advertising I suppose, not sure how they got involved but there we are.

I won a brand new four slice toaster, it said on the label it was "worth" £49 and had been donated by a local hardware shop. All was ok until last week when one side of the toaster stopped holding the bread down. So I took it back to the shop where it had originally come from. Man in the shop said there was absolutely nothing he could do as it was a gift to the school, which I really wasn't happy about. He said I could try contacting the manufacturers, so I went home and called them and they said no way could they do anything as this toaster had been out of production for almost FIVE years!!!

So back I went to the hardware shop and told this to the man, I was really cross by now as it was obviously some old stock he'd given away which he admitted it was, he said it was something he'd had in the stockroom for sometime and that he hadn't had such expensive toasters for sale for a while as nobody seemed to buy them, all of this of course is not my problem. The only thing he said he would be prepared to do for me would be to order me a new toaster and sell it to me at the cost price, he showed me the suppliers catalogue and the cheapest one he could get that is anything like this was over £30, so obviously I told him no.

I am really peed off about this as he got free advertising for his shop only its backfired now! As I will be telling people to avoid the place. But why should I lose out?

You took a gamble and you lost. Get over it.

He'd had it in for five years, though?!

And if he had given it in good faith, he would be mindful that he'd promised a toaster to the winner, apologise and replace it with a new one that did work.

To be honest, even if he doesn't have personal integrity in something like this, you'd think that from a purely business perspective he'd be keen not to undo all the good publicity by risking losing all future custom from OP and all friends and family she might mention it to.

In the present day, small local electrical shops will almost certainly have a much smaller range and much less competitive prices than the big online retailers. The massive reason why people choose to buy from them is because of their knowledge of the product and the fact that, if something goes wrong, they will resolve it for you with minimal fuss. If they're going to fob people off when something does go wrong anyway, there's no incentive whatsoever to bother using them.

We have a long-established family electrical firm in our town and I specifically made a point of using them to buy something that I could have got cheaper online, because I thought it was a good thing to support small businesses and also it was new technology, and I wanted to be sure of having a straightforward solution if anything went wrong. It did go wrong and they just didn't want to know. This was several years ago, and ever since, every time we want electrical items, we now just ignore them and go straight to Amazon.

The gamble is meant to be in whether you win a prize or not for your money; not whether any prize that you do win will be fit for the described purpose!

It was older than that. The manufacturer said it was out of production almost five years, so goodness only knows how long he'd had it for.

It was bad luck for you the toaster developed a fault but you can’t expect the donator or manufacturer to repair or replace it for you. It was a gift donated to the school to help raise their funds so irrelevant that it’s an old model. If you want a latest model, buy it from a shop. 😂 or you could complain to the school who may refund your ticket cost.

Whew, what kind of business can sustain itself by keeping stock in for that long?! At the very least, you'd expect them to cut their losses and free up stock space by reducing the prices - preferably whilst they were still current (but still replacing them if they do turn out to be faulty).

I'm wondering if he'd had one of those customers we read about on MN retail threads - the kind who stamp their feet and make a scene, insisting on receiving a replacement for a very old item that has eventually broken after many years of good service (and which they may not even have bought from that particular shop!) - and he saw this as a way of getting rid of the duff returned one; maybe hoping that the winner would be like the majority of people on this thread who think it pathetic to expect a prize to function as promised and/or not link it back to his business.

I find this post very cringy. I would leave it. I find this post embarrassing. Please don't show yourself up.

It's not the fact that it's an old model per se, but rather that it is broken. The offered prize was a new toaster (which any reasonable person would obviously expect to work as normal) and the received prize was a broken toaster!

Although most people wouldn't blame the school or want them to be out of pocket, there are actually strict laws surrounding the licensing and organising of raffles. Failing to supply the prizes as advertised in pursuit of financial gain - even for a good cause - can get you into serious trouble.

How much would a competition prize have to be worth before you wouldn't find it embarrassing to challenge the supplier if the prize failed to materialise?

It wasn't broken though was it. It worked and 6 weeks later developed a fault.

So this business is getting of rid of defective electrical items by donating them as charity prizes and posters think this is perfectly acceptable???

Fuck sake!

@AcorgicalledTiffanyYou could try reporting him to Trading Standards for donating defective electrical goods.

I also think you should post about this dodgy practice online via social media. The business owner is clearly a chancer who has donated old stock in return for free advertising. Shady business owners like that deserve to lose their business!

Hmmm...thank goodness the raffle prize wasn't a new car that broke down in 6 weeks. How many MNters would just suck that up?

Some of us buy raffle tickets solely as a way to help whoever is selling them. Most of us have no expectations of a prize, sometimes we win things we have no use for. We just shrug our shoulders and move on.

I don't know anyone who would behave the way OP - and you - because a prize was faulty and I'm so thankful I don't know people like this in real life.

Did you miss the part where it worked perfectly well for six weeks? Did the retailer have a crystal ball and know that after six weeks it was going to develop a fault?

You have not rights, you didn’t buy it from him. Can’t believe you didn’t realise that, you’ve shown yourself up here. Don’t repeat this story to anyone. You’ll look foolish!!

@Politicians247UnderwearExtinguishingService this is seriously like something out of Viz Letterbox. Hilarious 🤣

If, instead of asking sponsors for raffle prizes in exchange for publicity, the school had sold/given out a programme of the event and charged local businesses a price for their advert in it - and the shop owner had paid them for his advert with what he knew to be counterfeit banknotes... I wonder if people would be saying "leave the poor guy alone" then?!

🤣😂😆😂🤣

There are no cake ingredients that when old would make anyone "violently ill" 🤣😂

This thread has really brought out the nutters.

Embarrassed for you, OP. It was a free toaster!

Unfortunately Neveranynamesleft,
I think that your post calling the OP 'Karen', is just as bad as the OP's OP. Please only ever call someone Karen if that is their actual name. I think it is awful to use someones perfectly normal name as an insult, and no, my name isn't Karen, and I don't personally know anyone with that name.

Maybe he is inundated with requests to donate something to lots of local charities and that is what he does he donates. Charities clubs groups looking something for free regularly. Bearing in mind costs for small businesses are choking them. Ask someone to fix it and if it works you still got a bargain. But having lots of time to hunt down the shopkeeper looks appalling whilst you supported a school event for the huge value of one pound or 5 pounds. I have had worse happen with a £50 ticket raffle for a family holiday accommodation where it was legally allowed for the donater to win the prize through family syndicate!! ( tax purposes issue). If the toaster had been donated from a non business person would you hunt them too. Just drop the hunger to win on this occasion as there are bigger issues to put time into.

Your contract is with the school not the hardware shop or the manufacturer, so if you want to make a complaint you need to make it with the school and get back the price of the raffle ticket because that is all you paid for. How many tickets were in your book? Let’s say 5, so you lost a quid? Same as the other four tickets that won nothing, but you contributed to the school funds.

You being completely unreasonable taking it out on the hardware shop, and you have pretty much ensured they will never donate to the school again.

But strictly speaking the supplier of the prize, from the OPs perspective , was the school. So that’s who she should go back to, IMO.

I would be so embarrassed to act this way. You got a free toaster, it doesn't work so throw it in the bin. You're not owed anything.

Of course he gave away old stock. He could have given nothing but chose to donate an item he had spare. Clearly no good deed goes unpunished.

You are OTT . You have no recourse because the toaster was a raffle prize . The retailer has absolutely no obligation to you. And neither does the school. The school sold raffle tickets and you bought the chance to win a prize. Simple .

Put it in the bin and move on with your life.