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?

It was an early version with limited function. That's what obsolete means. No one would have wanted it.

Yabu. I'm shocked someone can act like you

It's annoying, but it's a school raffle. Try and get it repaired.

I can't believe people are saying that it's a problem that the toaster was old. It's a toaster - they don't go off! It was working when it came out of the box so the shop didn't supply a faulty toaster. I doubt the shop owner gave the item to gets loads of great advertising (it really won't) - he probably just wanted to support a local school. It's a mistake he won't make a second time I suspect.

I think the main point about this fiasco, which was made by another poster was that this toaster was faulty and could well have caught fire or given you an electric shock.

The bloke who runs the shop sounds like a real miser and a piss taking get . I bet someone returned that toaster years ago because it was faulty even then

I an also surprised that the school even include Electrical goods in their raffle prizes.

Many Charity Shops no longer accept Electrical goods Due to liability and insurance problems .

Contact Trading.Standards for advice

And have a quiet word again with the school.

I’m quite jealous that you have the time and head space to dedicate to such a non issue.

It was clearly defective, then.

A toaster is meant to last far longer than that as a basic minimum standard. If you'd bought it from them directly, instead of them supplying it via the raffle, would you shrug and just ignore it if it only lasted six weeks?

They would obviously not have to bear the loss themselves, as they'd return it to their supplier and get a credit/replacement for it... well, they would if they hadn't had it hanging around unsold for maybe a decade, or taken in an old broken one from a scene-making CF customer who bought it many years previously.

I reckon, by telling OP to go to the manufacturer herself, instead of taking charge of it themselves - a common sign of a shoddy, poorly-run business - they knew they were sending her on a wild goose chase that would achieve nothing.

Their happiness to waste her time like that is really not showing them in a positive light.

But what's the point in holding a raffle at all, then? Why not just ask for donations? Yes, nobody is banking on a school fete raffle ticket bringing them a life-changing prize, but the chance of a serendipitous decent thing to win always increases interest and participation.

It should be a win-win, as the school/charity/good cause don't have to provide the prize themselves, but instead they 'buy' it from the donor with publicity for them. The business got the publicity and the goodwill, but reneged on their side of the deal after the event.

There's a world of difference between winning a perfectly good bottle of wine that you pass on to somebody else because you personally don't drink alcohol, and a faulty - and quite possibly dangerous - electrical appliance.

Indeed. I haven't seen them for a few years, but some local fetes used to have stalls whereby you could win a car - an actual brand new car - if you threw 6 sixes in one throw.

Obviously it drew an enormous amount of interest and huge publicity for the local dealership that supplied the car. In reality, the odds of winning were infinitesimally tiny - and the garage would usually buy insurance against somebody winning it - but if you did beat the odds, you would indeed become the owner of that brand new car.

As you say, if luck was on your side - and they then brought out a beaten up ancient jalopy as your 'prize' instead of the shiny new car they had displayed and offered - I can't see many of the people on this thread just accepting it nonchalantly.

No, but if it hadn't been extremely old stock, they could have returned it to their supplier and got the winner a replacement.

I love crazy Viz tips and letters as much as anybody, but I don't see how it remotely applies to somebody making a clear promise and then deciding that they just couldn't be bothered to keep it.

I presume you're aware that local organisations do frequently sell advertising space in event programmes and local newspapers in order to make it viable?

OK, then, if you want to analyse the minutiae of every analogy... how about if a local restaurant offered a free three-course meal for two as a prize in a local raffle - also of course courting the good PR; not annuncommon prize.

Somebody wins it, goes for the meal, and then they and their companion go down with food poisoning immediately after. All well and good, and just something to laugh about and put down to experience because they hadn't paid the restaurant directly?

Hahahah get over yourself.

Who ya gonna call? Toastbusters!! 😆😆

How on earth is it a 'good deed' to knowingly offload dubious old stock on to a charity/good cause under the guise of it being a desirable, useful thing to win?!

That reminds me of the threads we see where people have family members who perpetually bring them bags of broken and filthy old toys 'as presents for their children' when they clearly are only good for the tip.

I'm sure nobody from the school PTA held a gun to the business owner's head until he handed over a prize, if he didn't want to or couldn't afford to.

Have you ever had the unenviable task of sourcing raffle prizes. I held a quiz night in the summer and it's fucking stressful. He would have been asked to donate, probably felt duty bound, looked in his stock room and thought "this will do". If anyone had come to me complaining one of their raffle prizes was faulty I would not be impressed, and I imagine he felt the same way. But you've done him a favour, he won't be donating again. Seriously dude, it was a raffle prize, just chuck it away and remember why you got the ticket........ for the good of the school or whatever the cause was. No one cares about raffle prizes, it's just the cherry on the top of a good day.

It's quite a leap between a toaster that stopped holding the toast down after 6 weeks (which may have been a mechanical lever) and it electrocuting someone or catching fire!

Jeez. Poor fucker donates something in good faith and then is expected to refund you. Just leave it. There will be no small businesses left at this rate. Do you want to live in Amazon Land with no real shops at all. Because that's where we are heading.

There’s no contract between you and the shop owner. Your rights under the CRA 2015 will apply against the promoter of the raffle (the school/PTA) as they supplied the toaster to you. You are actually legally entitled to this prize so they should arrange repair, replacement or a reasonable alternative (I’m guessing £50 cash as the toaster isn’t replaceable).
Please don’t report, harass or badmouth the guy. His legal responsibilities have been met.

It wasn't really in good faith, was it?!

Personally, I'd rather have a world with old-fashioned small shops that were treasured and well-used for their expertise, customer service and integrity.

If you're only going to run a shop with a small, limited selection of goods, at considerably higher prices, but with no care for the customers at all, and no interest when things go wrong, why exactly would people value you over Amazon - who do actually have a very comprehensive and straightforward return and replace procedure for faulty items?

It's not enough to just open a small shop, growl at people with the very minimum of service and then start wailing about people not supporting small shops when they naturally go elsewhere.

Obviously we don't know if this man is surly and unhelpful with everybody in his shop, or whether he's super helpful and nice as pie to standard customers; but I'm not getting good vibes from how he treated OP.

The true spirit of Christmas

What's dubious about an old toaster, new and unused? Do toasters have best before dates now?

It's a sodding raffle prize, given for free. OP has already said it was working when she received it, the fact that it's broken 6 weeks later is no fault of the guy running the business. OP got 6 weeks of free toast and has absolutely no rights whatsoever to demand a replacement of the thing. Fair play to him for sticking up for his business, frankly.

Next time I'm sure he'll just say "No, fuck that" because of OP's ridiculous actions.

Well that's a non sequitur if ever I saw one.

Exactly. It was an autumn fair.