How can I prove that my tablet has an inherent fault?

QI bought a £199.99 Samsung Galaxyga Tab S2 8 tablet (pictured)p from Argos in Novembervembmbermb 2017. It worked veryry well for about three weeks,eks,ek but then I noticed it hadd started to warp andd nowno the screen has cracked.cked.ckedck I don’t remember iff it was charging whenn it happened, but neither Argos nor Samsung will help me. A sales assistant in Argos told me that I’ve causedausedau the damage. I definitelynitelytelyhhaven’t,’t so what can I do?

Amazon has come to the rescue for Computeractive reader John Hardman, who was getting no help from Amazon Marketplace seller Digimedia UK, which soldd hihim a defective Freecom external hard drive (see Issue 519). Although John was well outside Amazon’s 90-day ‘A-to-z Guarantee Protection’ ( www.snipca.com/26724), the company refunded him the cost of the drive (£67.36) as a goodwill gesture.

John thinks the reason Digimedia refused a refund was because he’d paid using an Amazon gift card, and was therefore not covered by Section 75 of Consumer Credit Act. He assumed this meant he wasn’t. Not so. Any purchase over £100 is covered, including those made by gift cards - as long as the initial purchase of the gift card was made using a credit card. Digimedia would have been correct to refuse a refund on the grounds that John’s purchase was under £100. But that doesn’t absolve it from dealing with an inherently faulty product. Less than six months had passed since purchase, so John was entitled to a repair, replacement or refund without having to prove the hard drive was faulty.

Confusingly, Digimedia claimed that Amazon’s terms and conditions allowed it to dismiss John’s claim. We don’t know what it was referring to, but it’s irrelevant anyway because a company’s terms can’t override statutory law. It hasn’t responded to our calls for clarification.