Buyer Beware, or consumer rights?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Interested to know your views on this weird situation with an electronic product.

I bought a ‘My Cloud’ NAS from Western Digital - this is a rather basic and not especially robust backup solution - essentially just a single hard disk that has a network interface and a few other features, but I wanted it for one specific feature - the ability to drop a file on it, and delegate the process of syncing/backing up that file to cloud storage in Google Drive, OneDrive, or similar.

The product page in the WD online store mentions this feature, and the various documentation downloads go into more detail about it. It was reduced in price, so I bought it.

When it arrived, I discovered that I have to create an account with WD specifically to use the thing - not ideal, but OK. I created the account and the first thing I saw when I logged in was the message ‘Support for your My Cloud device is changing - Click here for more information’

I followed the link, and it turns out that all of the ‘apps’ for the device I just bought - including the one that does cloud sync, are already unsupported, as of 15th January (before I purchased). It’s not even possible to install the app and use the last released version - it’s gone. The only remaining function of this device is to use it as a local, network attached disk. The product page on the WD store is still advertising this device, and *still talks about features that are already gone.

So I went to return it. On the RMA portal, there is a category of complaint ‘missing cloud services’ - I requested and received an RMA, I returned the item (shipping at my own expense) and waited. I included a covering letter in the box to say I was returning it for a refund because it was not as advertised and the missing features render it not fit for purpose.

Nothing happened for a month, then a parcel arrived. It was another device of the same model - they had just sent me a replacement, which would also be useless.

I raised a support incident, describing the above. The response (summarised):

  • You only have 30 days to return an item, this has now expired, so you can’t return it now.
  • You can’t return it anyway, because the replacement that we sent to you is a different serial number from the original purchase.
  • As compensation for your troubles, we could give you a discount voucher for your next WD purchase.

I don’t think this is right, because:

  • My consumer rights (specifically, in the UK, the Sale of Goods Act 1979 ) are not affected by the limitations of WD’s internal return policy of 30 days.
  • The serial number of the replacement device is irrelevant, because the RMA process clearly regards these devices as fungible.
  • Section 13(1) of the Sale of Goods Act states that goods must correspond with the description given

I have responded with these points to the support incident. No response yet and I think they’re probably going to ignore me until the case closes automatically.

The only factor that might be weakly in their favour is a smallprint disclaimer at the bottom of the product page saying ‘Services may be changed, terminated or interrupted at any time and may vary by country.’ - however, I did the research prior to purchase and there was no way to discover that the services being advertised, that I wanted, had already been terminated. This was only disclosed to me after purchase.

I think they’re in the wrong on this. What do you think?

2

As you bought directly from WD, I’d say they’re absolutely in the wrong.

3

Seems pretty straighforward. The product you bought does not work as advertised. It should be clear on the store page that the device is no longer supported by the company.

4

Wow! Bummer.
I don’t think you can do much but maybe get on the phone and try to get a human to speak to.

Call your states Attorney General, about it. They may have an consumers hot line. Many other people may have called, about them.

5

If, as it seems, you bought directly from Western Digital, then there are two additional steps you can take, both of which are more tedious than difficult, and both of which is the current version of complaining over the phone until you get a manager/decision maker. You can go online and give their product (old and new) 1 star reviews, which will likely prompt an automated effort to get you to improve the results - which will allow you to escalate your complaint.

Be warned, a lot of these review sites will actively attempt to use machine language to remove actual complaints about the product! This happened with a recent GE product that had 2 (!) failures during it’s one year warranty and which customer service actively lied to my wife about during the second one by denying it was still under warranty (!!!). It took @ 7 days of back and forth emails to get it serviced the second time, and at no point did I get much of anything other than ‘oh, that’s so sad’ - so you may get your compensation, but don’t expect consequences. -sigh-

The second is similar, but do the complaint through the BBB - which is what it took to get SiriusXM to cancel their service and refund me, which is sadly not exactly uncommon for their business model. To be brutally honest, making it insanely difficult to get service out of these companies is a feature to their model, not a bug. And they bank on the trouble not being worth it. They are perfectly happy to put you on hold / transfer / delay delay delay at your expense of time and mental health - your experience is already dead by that point, you’re not going to buy from them again.

It’s only when there are consequences for their future business (from low reviews to BBB low reviews) that they have any incentive to listen to you.