The washing machine stopped after five weeks. The phone you bought as a gift for a relative overseas failed before it was unwrapped. The sofa arrived in a colour that is not the colour on the website. In each case the shop says something that sounds official — the warranty is with the manufacturer, you have to contact them, we only refund unused items — and in each case it is worth knowing that none of those sentences describes your legal position.
People who have bought in more than one country get caught out here in a particular way. British consumer law is not weak, but it is enforced through a court system that is genuinely different in each of the four nations, and the routes are not interchangeable. A person in Manchester and a person in Glasgow with an identical broken laptop do not fill in the same form, do not go to the same kind of court and do not read the same guidance page. Knowing which one is yours before you start saves a fortnight.
Replacing something that failed is money you had not planned to spend, and while you are getting it back, small everyday income helps: apps such as I am Beezy pay you for viewing content, which quietly covers part of the gap.
What does the law actually give you when goods are faulty?
The Consumer Rights Act 2015 applies across the United Kingdom, and two of its sections do almost all of the practical work.
Thirty days to reject outright
Section 22 of the Act sets the time limit for the short-term right to reject as the end of thirty days beginning with the first day after ownership or possession has transferred, the goods have been delivered, and any installation the seller agreed to has been completed (legislation.gov.uk, version in force, consulted 16 August 2026). Inside that window you are not asking for a repair and you are not negotiating. You are rejecting the goods and asking for your money back. The clock starts on delivery, not on the day you opened the box, which is why an unopened gift can run out of time while it is still in its wrapping.
After thirty days, one repair or one replacement
Section 24 of the same Act gives you a right to a price reduction or a final right to reject where, after one repair or one replacement, the goods still do not conform to the contract. That is the sentence to quote when a seller proposes a third attempt at fixing the same fault. You agreed to one go. The law did not promise them more.
Your contract is with the seller, never with the manufacturer
A manufacturer's warranty is an extra promise sitting on top of your rights, not a replacement for them, and it is not the thing you should be arguing about. The retailer who took your money is the party responsible for goods that do not conform to the contract, and being told to contact the manufacturer instead does not transfer that responsibility. Say so in one line, politely, and keep dealing with the shop.
The card you paid with is often the strongest lever
This is the part that surprises people who have shopped elsewhere in Europe, because the British protection is unusually strong and unusually old.
Section 75 makes the card issuer liable alongside the seller
Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act 1974 provides that where a debtor under a debtor-creditor-supplier agreement has a claim against the supplier for misrepresentation or breach of contract, they have a like claim against the creditor, who is jointly and severally liable with the supplier (legislation.gov.uk, revised version in force, consulted 16 August 2026). In plain terms, if you paid by credit card, the card company stands behind the shop. That matters enormously when the shop stops answering, closes, or is based in another country.
Where section 75 stops
The same section does not apply to a claim relating to a single item with a cash price of £100 or less, or of more than £30,000. Note the shape of it: the item's price is what counts, not what you happened to pay on the card, and a deposit paid by credit card on a larger purchase can still bring the whole item inside the protection. Debit cards are outside section 75 altogether.
Chargeback is a different thing, and it is not a legal right
Chargeback is a scheme rule operated between card networks and banks rather than a statutory protection, and it runs to its own deadlines. It is often the only route for a debit card, and it is worth asking for. But do not let a bank present it as the same thing as section 75, because it is not, and the time limits are shorter.
| Route | What it rests on | When it is the right one |
|---|---|---|
| Short-term right to reject | Consumer Rights Act 2015, section 22 | Within 30 days of delivery, for a full refund |
| Repair, replacement, then rejection | Consumer Rights Act 2015, section 24 | After 30 days, once one repair or replacement has failed |
| Claim against the card issuer | Consumer Credit Act 1974, section 75 | Credit card, item priced over £100 and not more than £30,000 |
| Chargeback | Card scheme rules, not statute | Debit card, or where section 75 does not reach |
| Court claim | The civil courts of your nation | The seller refuses and the sum is worth the fee |
Where do you actually take a seller who refuses?
Here the United Kingdom stops being one country. The Act is the same everywhere; the procedure, the form and the building are not.
England and Wales: a money claim in the county court
The service on GOV.UK is a claim to a county court for money you are owed by a person or business, and its guidance applies to England and Wales only, pointing readers elsewhere for the other two routes. It is done online, the court fee depends on the amount claimed, and it is the process most British guidance silently assumes.
Scotland: simple procedure in the sheriff court
Scotland uses simple procedure, described by the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service as a court process designed to be a speedy, inexpensive and informal way to resolve disputes, for claims for payment of a sum of money where the value is £5,000 or less. It is heard in the sheriff court by a sheriff or a summary sheriff, the rules for claims started on or after 31 May 2023 apply, and the claim is normally raised in the sheriff court for the area where the other side lives or has a place of business. If you live in Scotland and you have been reading English guidance about small claims tracks, you have been reading about a different system.
Northern Ireland: small claims through the Civil Processing Centre
In Northern Ireland a small claim is one where the value claimed is not more than £5,000, and the Civil Processing Centre at Laganside Courts processes all cases at the start, transferring a disputed case to the appropriate office for hearing. The route excludes personal injury, road traffic accidents, libel or slander, title to land, a legacy or annuity and property of a marriage. It is an online application, which matters if you are dealing with a seller from abroad or on someone else's behalf.
| Where you live | The route | The limit |
|---|---|---|
| England | Money claim in the county court | Fee scales with the amount claimed |
| Wales | Money claim in the county court | Same service as England |
| Scotland | Simple procedure in the sheriff court | £5,000 or less |
| Northern Ireland | Small claim via the Civil Processing Centre | Not more than £5,000 |
Replacing what broke, with I am Beezy covering part of it
A refund that is going to arrive in six weeks does not help you this week, and the appliance still has to be replaced. That gap is where people give up and accept a bad offer from the shop.
Small, regular, and not dependent on anyone agreeing with you
The mechanism takes one sentence to explain: on I am Beezy, videos, articles and advertisements are content you are paid to view, and active users report between £4 and £13 a day. It is not a substitute for the money you are owed. It is the thing that stops you settling for half of it because you needed a fridge on Thursday.
Receiving it while the refund is still disputed
Earnings land on a domestic account without the delay a cross-border payment would add. That distinction matters here for a second reason: if you also send money to family abroad, every transfer out of the United Kingdom involves a currency conversion, so compare the amount that arrives rather than the advertised fee.
The order to do it in
Most claims that fail do so because they were started in the wrong sequence, not because the buyer was wrong on the law.
Gather before you write
Find the order confirmation, the delivery date, the payment method and any photograph of the fault. The delivery date is the one people cannot produce later, and it is the date that decides whether the thirty-day right is still open.
Write once, in writing, and be short
State the date of delivery, the fault, which remedy you are asking for and which section you are relying on. Give a deadline of fourteen days. Send it by a route that leaves a record, and do not conduct any of it by telephone, because a call you cannot quote is a call that did not happen.
Stop doing three things
Stop using the item once you have rejected it. Stop accepting repeated repair attempts without saying in writing that this is the last one. And stop chasing the manufacturer, whose warranty is a separate promise that has nothing to do with the contract you made in the shop.
Buying for someone abroad, or from a seller who is
Two situations come up constantly and are handled badly by generic advice. The first is a purchase made here and sent to a relative in another country: the contract is still yours, made with a British seller, and it is you who claims, not the person holding the broken item. Keep the delivery confirmation for the address the goods were actually sent to, and expect to be asked to return the item at the seller's cost, which is worth agreeing in writing before anything is shipped back.
The second is a seller who turns out to be based outside the United Kingdom, often trading through a marketplace. Pursuing them directly across a border is slow and frequently pointless, which is exactly the situation section 75 was built for: if you paid the qualifying amount by credit card, you have a claim against a British card issuer that answers to a British regulator, and that is a far shorter road than a foreign court. Where a marketplace operated the checkout rather than the seller, ask in writing who the contracting party was, because the answer decides who you are claiming from.
The short version to keep
Thirty days to reject outright, one repair or replacement after that, and the credit card issuer standing behind any single item priced over £100. Then, if it still goes nowhere, the county court in England and Wales, simple procedure in Scotland, small claims through Laganside in Northern Ireland — and a claim worth less than the fee is a claim to walk away from with a good review left honestly. While the refund works its way back to you, I am Beezy is free to join and starts paying for the content you view the same week.
