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How to get stuff repaired when the manufacturer don't wanna: take 'em to court

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Re: How to get stuff repaired when the manufacturer don't wanna: take 'em to court

#181

Post by throwaway7ahgb »

bell-cot wrote: post #89
promiseofbeans wrote: post #36

We've got a similar thing in New Zealand: the Consumer Guarantees Act. The people who sold the broken thing to you can either fix it, replace it, or refund you the cost of it. The decision is unfortunately up to them, so they sadly often replace things rather than fixing them. Consumer NZ is usually used as the independent source for expected product lifetimes: https://www.consumer.org.nz/articles/appliance-life-expe…

15 years seems darn short for an oven. The (electric) one I have now is from the late 1960's, and perfectly functional. At church, our (gas) kitchen oven is about a century old - and the last service man we had said that it should be good for another century, if we're careful not to let it rust out.

Ovens CAN last for 15 years, but should ALL of them?

Who gets to decide how long something gets to last for?

Re: How to get stuff repaired when the manufacturer don't wanna: take 'em to court

#182

Post by ndiddy »

macNchz wrote: post #160
Youden wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wasn't as simple as them wanting to make more money: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zb7Bs98KmnY Key points from an AI summary: - Incandescent bulbs had to balance factors like light output, efficiency, and lifespan - hotter filaments produced brighter, whiter light but reduced bulb lifespan. - Longer-lasting bulbs were less efficient and produced dimmer, yellower light, so they were not simply "better" products b…

Well, without the cartel there could have presumably been bright white, 1000 hour bulbs on the shelf next to dim yellow 2500 hour bulbs, and people could have chosen accordingly. Additionally, the companies set up a whole compliance regime with bulb testing and fines, not for bulbs being too dim, but for bulbs that lasted too long, which I think clarifies the intent more than anything else.

There were long-lasting bulbs on the shelf, but they were niche products because they produced poor quality light and were inefficient. Here's an example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQpqyt3oeqk . Note that it consumes 40 watts but produces the same light output as a standard 25 watt bulb.

Re: How to get stuff repaired when the manufacturer don't wanna: take 'em to court

#183

Post by divan »

divan wrote: post #101
user_7832 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disclaimer: I haven't seen the video (I'm in a quiet place right now.) > And that those properties (being hard to damage/destruct and being easy to repair) might be mutually exclusive. I disagree on a fundamental level. You could say such a thing when talking about really small (micro/miniature) devices. But as size increases, the validity of such arguments rapidly goes down. A phone case/bumper for example - makes t…

> I haven't seen the video ... I disagree on a fundamental level. Right )

For those who are downvoting. This was an extreme example of a debate not worth having.

There is no better way to show that you don't care about truth and only care about defending your current opinion than to say "I don't know your arguments, but I disagree".

Re: How to get stuff repaired when the manufacturer don't wanna: take 'em to court

#184

Post by xattt »

al_borland wrote: post #146

My dad usually writes the CEO and has pretty good luck getting issues resolved, with a lot less trouble than a court case.

The trick is to figure out the corporate email name format, find out the names of the members of the board and email them.

Re: How to get stuff repaired when the manufacturer don't wanna: take 'em to court

#185

Post by gpderetta »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #159
BiteCode_dev wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US, the UE and China have wildly different approaches to many important topics, and the fact they are all affecting the entire world has the tendency to break political stale matches and balance things out. It shows that diversity is a good thing, you end up having to compromise no matter how rightful you feel.

The problem is people keep trying to stamp the diversity out. The model in the US is nominally to have few regulations limited to things like enforcing contracts and antitrust laws and pricing major externalities, then leave the rest of it to free market competition. That isn't compatible with a model where regulators are trying to run the economy, because then the regulators get captured by industry and thwart rathe…

Do US consumers buy less Made In China stuff than EU ones?

According to ustr.gov, US imports from China in 2022 were worth $562.9 billion.

According to eurostat EU imports from China were 627.3€ billion, so a significant difference (note the currency).

As a rate of the total import/export they are actually quite comparable.

Re: How to get stuff repaired when the manufacturer don't wanna: take 'em to court

#186

Post by throwaway7ahgb »

Redneck-Tech wrote: post #73

Absolutely blows my mind how many people have fallen into the trap that is "SMART" devices and "POWER EFFICIENT" appliances. Only to find out just after the warranty runs out that they ultimately invested in a hawt piece of trash. There is no pride in manufactured goods anymore, imho there's not much pride in anything nowadays. Not surprising when a burger engineer at McDonald's makes more money than even an entry le…

You're not wrong but misguided.

Consumers voted for this a long time ago, people want cheap s*t. There are manufacturers that do take pride and their products can last a lifetime if not easily repairable. Guess what, nobody actually wants it. (except the HN crowd aparently).

Re: How to get stuff repaired when the manufacturer don't wanna: take 'em to court

#188

Post by madaxe_again »

drra wrote: post #178
madaxe_again wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does, but there’s a get-out - meta just say that they don’t operate in Portugal, even though they do sell to Portugal, and therefore there’s nobody to claim against. I’d have to go to a higher court, and again, the calculus here is that it’s not worth the consumer’s time - I don’t want to spend years and thousands of euro fighting over it - so the quest just went in the trash, and I’ll never buy anything from them…

The European Small Claims Procedure[1] might be helpful. [1] https://e-justice.europa.eu/content_small_claims-42-en.do

Huh. I was not aware of this - will give it a go, thanks!

Re: How to get stuff repaired when the manufacturer don't wanna: take 'em to court

#189

Post by AnthonyMouse »

throwaway7ahgb wrote: post #179
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is people keep trying to stamp the diversity out. The model in the US is nominally to have few regulations limited to things like enforcing contracts and antitrust laws and pricing major externalities, then leave the rest of it to free market competition. That isn't compatible with a model where regulators are trying to run the economy, because then the regulators get captured by industry and thwart rathe…

Doesn't the US allow "diversity" by allowing different states to pass laws that their residence find important? I'm pretty sure CA has some specific right to repair laws. Also, this (to me) is a strange use for the word diversity.

States and localities can pass their own laws but they can't remove the federal ones, and federal laws preempt state laws. Naturally large corporations then make a point to capture the federal regulators.

Re: How to get stuff repaired when the manufacturer don't wanna: take 'em to court

#190

Post by seabass-labrax »

gwd wrote: post #4
Tistron wrote: post #3

Does anyone know whether and how this translates to other places in the world? For me, it's the most interesting with EU/Sweden. We don't have courts like this do we?

I've got a friend who claims to have sued dozens of companies in the equivalent in the UK; he called it "Small Claims Court", but perhaps it has a more specific technical name. Here's an example: https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/law-and-courts/legal-syste...

Apparently they are no longer called 'small claims' officially, but everyone I know still calls them that.

The N1 form is to be sent by post[1] and there is also an online version which can be used in some cases[2].

[1]: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/65eb13af62ff4...

[2]: https://www1.moneyclaims.service.gov.uk/eligibility

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