CactusBraph0x

#ConsumerRightsAct #Currys #KnowYourRights A rant for @currys, who are currently breaking the law. Normally I'd let it go, but your customer service is a shitshow and your desire to wash your hands of the faulty items you sell is illegal. On 10 October 2025, I walked into your Exeter shop and bought a PCSpecialist computer. This was the birthday present for my 12-year-old. A present they'd been dropping hints about for months with the subtlety of a child who remains terrible at poker. They'd saved their own pocket money towards it. I topped it up. It was, genuinely, a lovely moment. For four months, it was perfect. Homework. Games. The full experience of being 12 in 2025. On 22 February 2026, four months and 12 days after purchase, it stopped working. No final farewell. It just… stopped. My child sat there pressing the power button with increasing desperation, and nothing happened. The machine that had cost a significant amount of adult money, and a not-insignificant amount of 12-year-old pocket money, was dead. Fine, I thought. This is what a receipt is for. I'll call Currys (the shop I bought it from, with my money, as a birthday present for my child) and they'll sort it. Your staff told me that my contract wasn't with Currys, and that I should contact the manufacturer. They also told me to go in-store with the machine to have it looked at. I went in-store. The in-store staff told me to call the number I had just called. I called again. I was given the phone number for PCSpecialist. Phone → store → same phone → manufacturer. A perfect circle of not helping. A masterpiece of redirection. If it weren't happening to me, I'd almost admire it. Now let's talk about the law, because I think someone at Currys may have forgotten it exists. The Consumer Rights Act 2015 is not a suggestion. It is extremely clear on this point: when you buy something from a retailer, your legal contract is with that retailer. Not the brand on the box. Not the manufacturer. Not some third party you've never met. The shop. The one that took your money and handed you a receipt. Within the first six months of purchase, the law presumes the fault existed at the point of sale. I don't have to prove the computer was faulty when I bought it. Currys has to prove it wasn't. The burden of proof sits entirely with them. During this window, I am legally entitled to a repair or a replacement, and if either of those fails, a full refund. We are currently inside that six-month window. I bought it on 10 October 2025. I complained on 22 February 2026. I am four and a half months in. The law is not ambiguous about what happens here. What makes this particularly spectacular is that Currys' own published policy acknowledges the six-month framework. It is written down on their website. They know the rules. They have typed them up and put them on the internet. They are simply hoping that their customers are too tired from the runaround to actually enforce them. PCSpecialist are entirely blameless in this story. They manufactured a machine. Currys sold that machine to me. My dispute is with Currys. Directing me to PCSpecialist is the retail equivalent of Tesco selling you a gone-off chicken, and when you try to return it, handing you the farmer's phone number. The farmer didn't sell you the chicken. You don't have to knock on the farmer's door. You go back to the supermarket. This is not a controversial legal position. It is just how shops work. My 12-year-old has been without their birthday present for a few days now. They have been, I have to say, considerably more gracious about this than I have. They haven't complained. They've been patient. They are, in this situation, the bigger person — which is a sentence I never expected to write about a primary school leaver, but here we are. They shouldn't have to be patient. They should just have a working computer. So this is where we are, @currys. I know my rights under the Consumer Rights Act 2015. But before I go down the small claims court route, and start contacting every journalist in my network on a slow news day, I am giving you the opportunity to do the right thing, in the hope that public accountability is more efficient than your customer service helpline. A child saved their pocket money for this. Sort it out.