Computer Act!ve - UK (2022-05-25)

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15

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Contact

Punch Technology

CASE CLOSED

Can I challenge

unauthorised

PayPal payment?

Issue 632 • 25 May – 7 June 2022

As a subscriber to

Computeractive,

I’ve been following

the arguments

for and against Windows 11.

Your recent articles provided

me with the impetus to

see whether my desktop PC – bought

for £700 from Punch Technology (www.

punchtechnology.co.uk) two years ago –

would be compatible.

I contacted Punch support, and they sent

a detailed reply. Basically, I

had to perform a BIOS update

before installing TPM 2.0. I

contacted a local computer

store, who estimated a cost of

between £120 and £150.

So, I went back to Punch

support, who patiently guided me through

all the stages getting the PC ready for an

Punch told me how to upgrade to Windows 11

A

After first

emailing us

Paul got back

in touch to say that AVG

had given him a full

refund. Under the Consumer Contract

Regulations, customers are entitled to

refunds for digital purchases as long as

they don’t ‘use’ (ie, download or activate)

the software. It seems as though his AVG

subscription was set to be automatically

renewed, either through PayPal or AVG’s

site – or probably both. We’ve advised

Paul to cancel any recurring payments

on the sites.

Digital River is a global payments

Q

On 6 April, a payment of

£74.99 was taken via PayPal by

Digital River, Ireland, for a year’s

subscription to AVG antivirus. This

payment was taken early because my

existing antivirus wasn’t due to expire

until 21 April. PayPal rejected my

argument that this payment was

unauthorised. Can I get my money back?

Paul Archer

platform that uses

PayPal to collect money

for its customers, one of

which is clearly AVG.

What it doesn’t do is

handle refunds or disputes, which is a

huge problem for consumers.

Hopefully, there will be fewer cases

like this in future, thanks to a new law

being proposed by the Government to

force companies to remind customers

that a free trial or cheap introductory

offer is coming to an end, and before an

existing contract automatically renews

(see Issue 631, page 9, and http://www.snipca.

com/41701).

Am I due compensation for missing parcels?

Q

I live in Jersey, and in March this

year I used Jersey Post to send

two parcels of chocolate to two

different addresses in India. One parcel

hasn’t arrived, and the cost of postage

was £32.98, although the contents were

only worth £15.27. I didn’t pay for this

parcel to be tracked and Jersey Post won’t

offer me a refund. Can you advise me?

Stalin Kumar

A

Chocolate obviously falls outside

our technology remit, but we’ve

included this case because we

know many readers regularly post items

sold online, and will be keen to know

whether they can get a refund even if

they didn’t pay for tracking.

Jersey Post says that compensation

is available for lost parcels (www.snipca.

com/41859), though claims must be

made within 80 days of the item

being sent. The maximum you can

claim for uninsured non-tracked

parcels is £15 plus postage if you’ve only

proof of postage; and £30 if you can also

prove the value of the contents. With no

proof of postage or cost of content the

reimbursement is in local stamps.

By comparison, Royal Mail’s

compensation starts at six first-class

stamps for lost items deemed to have no

intrinsic value. Its maximum is the

“lower of the market value” of the lost

item plus £20 – or £50 for Royal Mail

Signed For.

Visit http://www.snipca.com/41871 for details,

and to make a claim.

CASE CLOSED

update to Windows 11. That will be the

next step, and one I’ll perform with fingers

crossed.

Barry Pugh