Dabs.com

YOUR COMMENTS Post your comments or and experiences of this company on the Sounding Board

A description of the good or service offered and what happened.
In January 2007 I bought a Fujitsu-Siemens laptop for £600. Shortly after purchase the DVD drive fell out, and later stopped functioning altogether - rendering the laptop unusable. As I reported the failure slightly outside the warranty period Dabs.com refused to repair it, even claiming that I must have damaged it myself. In the end I took them to the small claims court for the cost of the repair and was awarded £300 plus £30 costs. They claim they have now sent the money, but as the court has 'now awarded me a refund' they are demanding I return the laptop to them (at my own cost) or they will re-invoice me!

What have you attempted to do so far?
Obviously having to take them to court to get them to repair a laptop is bad enough. This final twist with them trying to coerce me into returning the laptop is terrible. My communication about this matter has been with 'Scott' (no surname given) from their customer services department on 28/08/2008. On the same day I received the judgement from the court (27/08/2008), ordering Dabs.com to pay me £330, I received a returns note from Dabs with no other communication. I emailed them on the 29th to ask what the returns note was for (thinking that perhaps they were offering to do a repair or perhaps offer a full refund to compensate for their previously awful customer service). The returns note states: "The return of the goods is at your expense if outside of 12 months. With our preferred carrier*, you pay a flat fee from £7.95+VAT." In response to my enquiries Scott replied: "We are not offering a repair also. You need to return the goods to us as we are refunding the amount you have given details on in your original email below. Please arrange for these goods to return to us. If the goods are not returned to us we will have no choice but to re-invoice you for these goods." "No further refund is available. You have had a refund via the courts." He is claiming that the *compensation* ordered by the courts (less than the cost of the laptop) is in fact a refund and that I must return the laptop. I have not yet received the court ordered compensation and I have no intention of giving them my laptop.

Why you feel your complaint has not been fairly or properly addressed by the company?
The court has ordered them to pay me compensation for them failing to repair my faulty laptop - in accordance with the Sale of Goods Act. They are obviously upset that they have been ordered to pay this compensation and are demanding that I return the laptop. I am worried that they will invoice me and attempt to give me a bad credit record because of their bad faith.