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Your rights after buying a new pin on here

mission65

mission65

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Tony Molloy
Having seen comments in a for sale thread for a very new Stern pin, people were asking if Pinball heavens warranty was transferable ?

I believe the answer is on the web site and is a big no, so even though the pin may be only a month old you have no rights of redress against Pinball Heaven, or Stern.

Having looked on line, you also have no claim against the seller on here as they are second hand goods from an individual.

If you buy from eBay you have rights because you are purchasing from an account, and if you buy through a credit card / paypal even more rights.


Please feel free to amend the above as I am no legal expert and have just visited consumer sites.


Also be aware that a lot of sterns boards are very expensive, and so you could be buying a huge money pit , so factor this in before you buy second hand.
 
I have no idea about warranties

But when you buy second hand, you are arguably taking less of a risk than buying new in box ....
  1. The niggles that new games come with have probably been sorted by the first owner
  2. You can see the thing, play it, test it out
  3. You can research what common problems these games originally had, and what owners/ manufacturers have done about it
  4. You pay less for the thing, and that saving may well eclipse the real value of a warranty
  5. There will be plenty of reviews out there, so you can make a more informed choice about what to buy in the first place
 
Seems fair to me, if you buy second hand it should be sold as seen, the risk you take for a substantial saving on NIB price.

My recommendation if buying a Stern is stick with SAM (2006-2014 World Poker Tour - The Walking Dead), I've owned/own quite a few of these and reliability has been rock solid, not a single board fault. My pre 2006 Whitestar's have been 100% too, but only own a couple. As for Spike 2014 onwards, time will tell but there are a lot of doubters about the quality of the boardsets, there have been a few problems with node boards.

Also worth noting, I believe PH's warranty on JJP pins is transferrable if originally purchased from them?
 
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I thought a 12 month manufacturers warranty is still valid no matter how many people own it. May be wrong.............
 
They do seem to sort out design faults though, for instance I got a node fix kit for free from PH for Ghostbusters,and I was the third owner.
 
What is the logic of the warranty expiring after the first owner, besides financial / disincentivising the second hand market? I mean its the same pin at the end of the day, and the first owner isn't necessarily any more careful or considerate than any subsequent owner?
 
mission65 said:
If you buy from eBay you have rights because you are purchasing from an account, and if you buy through a credit card / paypal even more rights.
Click to expand...

Not true. As far as Ebay are concerned, if you send a courier OR if you go and collect (as we usually have to do with these things because of the size), it is deemed that you have had chance to check and accept the quality of the item. Try claiming via Ebay/Paypal for something that you have collected or had collected... No chance. Also, the fact there's an account doesnt make it any safer.

Is like the "IF you win something you are legally obliged to BUY it" - BS - Ebay slap your hand, they put a black mark against you. No-where is Law enforcement involved.

The BEST form of warranty is to see something, play it, take it away. We know these things break too easily... The plus side is that most of us here know OF each other, or know someone that knows... etc 1,000 times safer than a complete stranger.
 
Tucks said:
I thought a 12 month manufacturers warranty is still valid no matter how many people own it. May be wrong.............
Click to expand...
Warranty is only valid based on the terms it is provided and it is from the manufacturer. So if subsequent buyers are stated to be excluded, they are excluded. A purchase (and therefore contract) is between the customer and the retailer, so unless otherwise stated, retailer "warranty" is between the customer and retailer. The Consumers Rights Act is between the customer and the retailer which provides enhanced rights (between customer and retailer) irrespective of warranty. Again though, this contract is only between customer and retailer. When you buy a 2nd hand machine, it's individual to individual and no company is involved, so unless explicitly covered by a transferable warranty, you don't have one. That's my understanding anyway (and could well be wrong :eek:)
 
Stern warranty is only 2 months on most of their parts.

I think PH warranty is something PH offers as an extra so that's why it's not transferable after first owner.

Could be wrong but that is my understanding.
 
if you buy it from your buddy, could they assist with contacting the manufacturer as if they still own the machine and they've only lent it to you. :)
 
Durzel said:
What is the logic of the warranty expiring after the first owner, besides financial / disincentivising the second hand market? I mean its the same pin at the end of the day, and the first owner isn't necessarily any more careful or considerate than any subsequent owner?
Click to expand...

The logic isn't to punish or hurt the second hand market, but we were finding some 2nd, 3rd or even 4th owners who were adding mods, blowing the stuff up claiming under warranty etc. When we sell a game we carefully consider who is buying it and where they are (to support them) etc.

Most problems with pinball, as you will all know, is from moving them! So a pin could be moved from one end of the UK to another but I've still got to fix it FOC when its rattled down the motorway network! That had to stop. Lets say I sold a game to Manchester, easy to support, local to me, he sells to Aberdeen but wants a on site service visit as per 2 year warranty ! Cant happen.

As @mark9 says, we still support sending out manufacturer upgrades to subsequent owners.

Phil
 
What roughly is the most expensive single item that could go wrong on in a NIB stern (for example). Would help in deciding which route to go. And of course we all need a healthy second hand market . For those who bought nib to sell on but also for the distributors because without it those people wouldn’t be able to make space to buy the next nib surely?
 
Ok so probably the most expensive part to a spike stern is the cpu as always there is a lot of negative hype over how much they cost awwww they are a thousand quid yes maybe brand new but electrocoin do a good advanced replacement service at a affordable cost and part is normally with you next day it comes with a clear cost invoice stating if the faulty product is not returned in a months time then you will be accountable for the full cost of the part sadly people seem to think they can keep the old exchange part then moan when get slapped with the full bill
Out of all the spike pins in the uk I think only 2 cpu failures
Both first time owners and replaced foc by Pinball heaven
 
Same as any pin. Try buying a sys11 cpu or even a wpc one. Not cheap but highly unlikely to be irreparable unless acid damage. At the show how many spike games went wrong?
 
philpalmer said:
The logic isn't to punish or hurt the second hand market, but we were finding some 2nd, 3rd or even 4th owners who were adding mods, blowing the stuff up claiming under warranty etc. When we sell a game we carefully consider who is buying it and where they are (to support them) etc.

Most problems with pinball, as you will all know, is from moving them! So a pin could be moved from one end of the UK to another but I've still got to fix it FOC when its rattled down the motorway network! That had to stop. Lets say I sold a game to Manchester, easy to support, local to me, he sells to Aberdeen but wants a on site service visit as per 2 year warranty ! Cant happen.

As @mark9 says, we still support sending out manufacturer upgrades to subsequent owners.

Phil
Click to expand...
Good points well made. Hadn't thought about the geographic aspect of providing the warranty, or mods etc.
 
Back when I was but a young snapper, I worked in Currys. I was always trying to punt the extended guarantee to folk. But the amount of people who said to me that any product sold in the UK, had to last a minimum of 5 years. If it didn't, the manufacturer was liable to repair or replace by law.
Loads of people said that to me. It must of been some old myth that people believed.
The same people used to say "how much for cash" to me too though haha
 
Horsey said:
But the amount of people who said to me that any product sold in the UK, had to last a minimum of 5 years.
Click to expand...

Not quite true.

"Consumer experts say retailers are exploiting ambiguous legislation to wriggle out of their responsibilities. Ministers, however, claim the law is quite clear. The Sale of Goods Act offers protection against faulty goods even when the manufacturer's guarantee has run out. The act says goods must last a reasonable time - and that can be anything up to six years from the date of purchase."

So - Would be an interesting time (Sorry Phil!) if someone was to argue that these machines are built to a high level to withstand the general public in pub or Club surroundings, however are not able to withstand the small and challenging environments such as the home.

I am conscious however that Phil provides as much support as he can, and as demonstrated above, will go above and beyond and support those of us in the hobby. I'm just wondering how long it is before someone drops £8k and had issues, so tries the above - £8k isnt an insignificant amount of dosh!!
 
The problem here is that we all know that Pinball manufacturers are struggling with grotesquely inefficient production techniques and inadequate product testing.

If the threshold were 1990 Mercedes Benz reliability, the damned things would cost twice as much.

We also all know that they get released with rubbish wet varnish, design faults... and that the early customers are effectively guinea pigs.

If a retailer were expected to sell these 1990 TVR standard devices with 1990 Mercedes quality, they would just stop selling them or get customers to sign a waiver.
 
If any mods are done, surely that invalidates warranty! Does on our equipment instantly and we enforce that.
 
These aren’t Mercedes prices they are Ferrari, I would expect them to work for at least 5 years at a thousand pounds a board, and I am pretty sure so would a court.
 
That sounds good, fair that they get the old board, how much to exchange Phil and is there a time limit eg 2 years etc
 
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