H Have Ib I been misled i about laptop b battery?

We sstand up for your legal rights

QI believe I’ve been misled into buying an HP Probook 440 G4 laptop from Laptops Direct ( www.laptopsdirect.co.uk). I bought it because HP claims it has up to 15.5 hours of battery life, but I’m lucky if I get anywhere near 10. Laptops Direct has told me to take it up with HP. But HP won’t provide any proof of battery life to me. Can you tell me what my rights are?

James Lung

AJames can sue Laptops Direct, thanks to a change in the law in 2014, which allows consumers to sue traders directly over misleading claims. Previously, they’d had to go through a consumer body such as Trading Standards or the Office of Fair Trading. But the criteria for suing a company for making misleading performancemancema claims is strict and complex. A claimim must be made against the trader (Laptopsaptopsap Direct in this case), not the manufacturerufacacturer (HP). It must be made within 90 dadays of receiving the goods. And it’ss very important that any misleading information played a ‘significant part’ in the buying decision, and only if the ‘average consumer’ would have believedieved the claim.

However, the hardest thing to prove is that the trader deliberately misled you. It’s not enough to show that it accidentally gave inaccurate details. James’s next move should be to seek legal advice from Citizens Advice ( www.snipca. com/25948). If he wins he can be awarded damages, receive a full refund, or get a ddiscount on thehe price paid. d

It may be easier for James to claim the laptop’s poor battery life means it is inherently faulty, and seek a refund under the Consumer Contracts Regulations. But he would need to prove that the battery’s life is so short that it constitutes a fault.