Consumer Rights Question

[pogo]

Thats all sounding pretty good so far, keep the news coming.

I've just had a thought though, and I know this is going slightly off topic but, if wiredworm is successful with this then where does it leave us with the appalling failrate of the 360. Surely nobody should have to pay the £80 (I think) charge to fix their console? I know M$ are now fixing consoles for free after the years warranty, but thats only for red ring of death failure, not anything else.

Yes, with the well documented design/manufacturing problems with the 360, and the fact they're still only three or so years old, no-one should be out of pocket if one fails of it's own accord. So if it self-destructs in some other way than the RROD failure you should be protected.

(There was a nice long write-up, though with no new info, in the Guardian today: The truth about the Xbox 360)

The US is different. There if it's not covered by the extended RROD warranty and more than a year old I think you have much weaker rights. It might still be worth contacting MS though, to give them the chance to avoid the bad PR of another out-of-warranty failure. Or there's always one of the many class action suits.

[WiredWorm]

Another update for anyone who might be interested.

I'm still persuing the matter of my broken TV. I thought that Hitachi Capital (the people who provided the deferred credit agreement for my TV) had ignored me but it turned out that the dimwits had just replied to my previous address instead of using the address given on my letter of complaint.

Luckily the letters have eventually found their way to me.

They're willing to pick up the complaint and handle it - they've asked for a copy of my original invoice, details of any warranty on the TV and a written agreement that they can release my details to any relevent parties (such as a Company which may be required to inspect the TV). I've given all this information to them today so we'll see what happens next. It looks like they're basically going to do the running around that I would have otherwise had to have done myself - so yay for them!!

The fault with it turning itself off (or at least the display going off) has got worse. To the point that some evenings it's doing it every 10 minutes or so.

[WiredWorm]

Ok, here's the latest in the sage.

The Credit Company were very very quick to reply - in fact the letter arrived this morning and I only wrote to them on Monday.

They feel that a 42" LCD TV costing in excess of £1000 should only last 3 years (or 36 months). Mine is now 32 months old.

They are therefore willing to give me a cheque for the princely sum of £125.68 because of the problem (that's £34.42 per month for each month of the 'life' remaining on my TV).

Personally I think the offer is pretty poor. They've come up with a figure of 3 years but i'd like to know where they got that from. Not got the letter with me at the moment but i'll be speaking to Consumer Direct about it to see where I go from here. I can see the threat of Small Claims Court looming.

[WiredWorm]

Just found an interesting section in the FAQ of the Samsung Support Website. It states that a Samsung LCD TV have an expected lifespan of 60,000 operational hours.

Now, if I left my TV on for 24 hours per day for 365 days in the year then that would still mean a lifespan of 6+ years. So the 3 years they've quoted is just way off the mark. At most i'd say our TV gets used for about 8 hours per day - which means in the past 32 months we've had just under 8,000 hours of use from the TV.

[Dio]

Excellent argument to use with them, and I'd agree that an established baseline of 6-10 years in perfect working order seems far more sensible.

[WiredWorm]

It's not just Samsung that stipulate 60,000 hours either. I've found a dozen or more sites which give figures ranging between 60,000 and 80,000 hours of operating time. I think Samsung played safe and went for the lower end of the range.

Apparently the offer they've made is non-negotiable and they'll be sending me the cheque in 10 days. Quite amusing how they worded that because it really doesn't matter if they want to negotiate or not - if necessary i'll take the matter through small claims court and we can argue it there.

Is it not also the case that by offering compensation they've effectively admitted liability? I half expect the cheque to turn up with a letter with 'Without Prejudice' plastered over the top of it.....

[polyhex]

They feel that a 42" LCD TV costing in excess of £1000 should only last 3 years (or 36 months). Mine is now 32 months old.

I had a similar issue with my Samung TV going wrong and being 14 months old at first the internet retailer told me to go away, but a quick mention of the sales of goods act, resulted in a phone call from the MD and a brand new TV....

Anyway during my research and a phone call to Samsung the guy at the end of the tech line stated Samsung have to keep spare parts for their TVs for at least 5 years...as that's how long they believe they should last. They where very helpfuly and very aware of the sales of goods act, but also told me if all else fails to give them a call and they could offer a preferential discount on a new TV - don't know if that meant £10 off or £1000 though.

[WiredWorm]

This just gets better - but I must admit that the credit company are particularly quick to reply. I replied to them saying that 3 years life expectancy for a TV was just crazy and quoted my Samsung figures back to them.

They've responded yesterday with this. I've split it into pieces so I can comment on various aspects of it.

We advise that under section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act we have equal responsibility to that of the retailer and should any faults develop with the manufacture of a product we will take action to resolve this.

Fine - that's what i'm asking them to do and they seem to be trying to deal with it. The only issue is that the 'compensation' they've offered is laughable.

The manufacturer of your product provided a 12 month warranty on this item, this being the period in which a manufacturing fault would be most apparent.

Fair enough - most apparent maybe but that doesn't mean that a manufacturing defect couldn't appear later, especially as usage of a TV set can vary drastically between households.

We feel that 3 years is a more reasonable time in which a manufacturing fault to become evident and made our offer on this basis.

Woah there!! They offered me a shade over £100 in the original letter and calculated this by saying 'we would expect a product of this nature to last 3 years' and then offering me £34.42 per month for the 4 months difference between the 36 months the TV should have lasted and the 32 it actually has.

The above quote is quite true - and a manufacturing fault HAS become evident on my TV within 36 months of purchase. That doesn't mean the compensation should be based on the period where such a defect is detected. Surely it should be based on the period that is the life expectancy of the TV. As mentioned previously Samsung give an operable life on these TV's of 60,000 hours which equates to just over 6 years (if left on 24 hours a day, 365 days a year) or just over 20 years (watched an average of 8 hours per day, every day of the year). I'm a realist and understand that it's not likely that my TV will last 20 years but I feel that 3 years for a £1200 TV is a bit crap.

Any views people?

I think the next letter will be my last to them - probably with a threat of taking them to small claims court.

[zip accident]

small claims court.

Isn't the small claims court limited to a maximum of £500? or has that been changed?

[WiredWorm]

The maximum through small claims now is £5000. The amount it costs to bring a case before them varies depend on the amount of damages you're seeking.

I think a figure of £500-£600 is fair - that equates to half the original value of the TV which I think is fair given that it's lasted well under half it's life expectancy.

[kalmar]

The above quote is quite true - and a manufacturing fault HAS become evident on my TV within 36 months of purchase. That doesn't mean the compensation should be based on the period where such a defect is detected. Surely it should be based on the period that is the life expectancy of the TV.

I think that's the angle you want, and I think the relevant phrase is "fit for purpose". It wasn't fit for the purpose of normal use for anywhere near it's published life expectancy.

How long have other people got out of these big flat screen tellies by the way? I've always been a bit suspicious of them, and wasn't even going to consider buying one until my CRT gives up (a cheap Goodmans set now in it's 12th year- plenty life left in it yet I think).

[WiredWorm]

The irony is that we use this large LCD panels at work for displaying information to customers at a number of our sites. They're generally left running from around 8am in the morning until 8pm at night - so that's a good 12 hours period. I think the oldest one we've got is about 5 years at the moment - which means it's served us for 21,000 hours without a single problem.

[WiredWorm]

Spoke to Consumer Direct. They've referred the case to local Trading Standards. They'll be in touch within 5 days apparently.

All good fun.