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Friday 2 March 2012

Do you lose your consumer rights if you lose your receipt?


I don't have the receipt





Here's a response I received from @sharafdg in relation to a faulty electronic item for which I had lost the receipt for:

Sharaf DG Online Hello Paul Mercer, we thank you for agreeing to the paid service. As a policy, we offer after sales services to customers with reference to the sales invoice. We expect our customers to retain the invoice as proof of purchase. The policy is in line with the authorities governing consumer laws. The retailers keep the record of their customers for their internal usage.
19 hours ago · 


Is Sharaf DG's response correct? I don't think so. It is my understanding that you do not lose your consumer rights if you lose your receipt. A receipt is a proof of purchase and is useful for confirming you have purchased a certain item from a particular store. If you don't have your receipt you could perhaps produce another proof of purchase such as a bank statement or credit card slip. Indeed, some retailers, may not insist on you providing the original receipt.

Just to support my understanding that you do not lose your rights if you lose your receipt see the following link to the famous UK consumer rights campaigner Which?
http://www.which.co.uk/consumer-rights/sale-of-goods/returning-goods-your-legal-rights/your-rights/

Here's an extract from that link:


"I don't have the receipt


The good news is that if your item is faulty you should not need a receipt to return it - your rights don't depend on you having one. However, without a receipt you need another way of proving that you bought the item from that shop. The best way to do this is with a bank statement or credit card slip. However, this may not confirm exactly what you bought – if they sell a number of things at that price, they might not be keen to refund you.  To avoid any problems, it is always best to keep the receipt for any expensive items. "

It is certainly good advice to keep your receipts for expensive items BUT it is good to know how a store will treat you if you lose your receipt as I am sure that genuine consumers would prefer to shop at stores where their rights are not lost when their receipt is lost.  Is it fair that a retailer can avoid its rights to a customer because the customer lost his/her receipt?  



2 comments:

  1. I really don't know if consumer rights as a concept exists in Bahrain.

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    Replies
    1. I think too many people in Bahrain give up on their consumer rights and i hope this blog will (1) encourage customers to claim what is rightfully theirs and (2) expose retailers who do not give customers their rights

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