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You have been warned ! LG and John Lewis

31st July 2020 @ 6:06am – by Geoff Farr
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Ed: We received this from local resident Geoff Farr. AudlemOnline invited John Lewis Customer Services to respond on 27/07/20 but have not received a response

You have been warned


26th July 2020


Some of you may know that I have been very recently widowed.
It therefore follows that my only evening companion is my television.

My children and grandchildren have urged me to modernise and suggested that I should scrap my steam driven TV and have a TV which would give me iPlayer and other Catch up TV.

Accordingly, after much research by my granddaughter, a set was selected which would give me these facilities.
It was decided to order it from the "John Lewis Partnership" as they have a good reputation for Customer Services.
The set chosen was made by LG and is a brand new design with many good reviews on the internet, and came into production in 2020.

When the set arrived it was erected and switched on. In that instant (and not before) it was discovered that the iPlayer was not available.
A phone call to LG revealed that the set is not compatible with the current iPlayer signal .Therefore no iPlayer.
It may be compatible at some unspecified time in the future but not now.

Accordingly the John Lewis partnership was asked that in accordance with their declared returns policy, would they come and collect the set and send me one that is compatible with iPlayer. They absolutely and point blank refused to consider my reasonable request because the set had been switched on.
There is alas, no method of discovering that it is incompatible with iPlayer without switching it on, for this is not made clear in any technical description
by John Lewis. I would go as far as saying that this detail is either carelessly omitted or intentionally omitted.

In the same email as the curt refusal they also add that the BBC have yet to validate each new design before enabling iPlayer on it. They further go on to explain that LG is renowned to be so far ahead of current technology and they have included the facility before the BBC have activated it. They do not indicate when it will be activated.

And to complete my education they impart the information that "Smart" TVs collect personal data as soon as you switch them on (did you know that?) and due to Data Protection regulation, the retailer will not receive them back for this reason.
Factory reset notwithstanding which would delete any personal information, John Lewis still will not receive them back.
They conclude their email with the pious hope that the matter will not inconvenience me.

At no time during the entire transaction was any of the above information made available to me through printed or spoken word.
This brings me on to other important matters. The John Lewis Partnership publicly announced that due the COVID 19 they intended to extend the time available for their returns policy. Nowhere did they add "BUT NOT FOR TELEVISIONS". In fact they have never declared a policy of not allowing purchasers of televisions to return their faulty goods.

Furthermore what happened to the Sale of Goods Act which states fairly plainly that a retailer may not sell an article which is not of the standard for which it is intended?
I do not recall an addendum excluding the purveyors of TV sets from the "Sale of Goods Act".

And where does this leave me? £650 poorer and still no iPlayer.

Take Note

You have been warned


Geoff Farr

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