71–80 of 324 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Which is entirely irrelevant in Australia as the consumer law is based on expectations and the value of the item. If I buy an expensive fridge and it fails in 5 years due to a faulty component, then that is up to the retailer and manufacturer to sort out between themselves as to who wears the cost of replacement or repair.
How do we know whether this was an expensive oven?
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?
Although we didn't explicitly have a consumer court, we have a court department in both municipal and Provincial Courts. (ศาลจังหวัด/ศาลแขวง... แผนกคดีผู้บริโภค)
People can file a complaint themselves both in-person or via e-Filing system. Although very tedious to do so, at least in my opinion, it still workable.
Same as the blog's author, any plaintiff I've help with, need some patient and times on both evidence collecting and consulting with the court's appointed lawyer to draft the complaint. But, for the case against big company at least, it mostly worked out for them.
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The question I ask straight back at you: how long do you think an oven should last?
This is an interesting question; Netherlands has a similar law, and the general guidelines for stuff like ovens is, depending on the purchase price: ≤ € 199 2 years € 200 - 299 3 years € 300 - 399 4 years € 400 - 499 5 years € 500 - 599 6 years € 600 - 699 7 years ≥ € 700 8 years Note these are just guidelines and not fixed rules. On one hand this seems rather short to me, on the other hand, it's kind of a "you get w…
Courts will, and have in the past, throw this table out, if you make a reasonable argument why you could expect a longer lifespan.
I'd be curious to hear about stories of this working in the U.S., if ever.
Sadly, the US doesn't seem to have particularly great consumer guarantees - you just have to rely on warranties given as an extra marketing point by a company. In more developed countries like Australia, NZ, and the UK, warranties last less time than the guarantee offered by consumer law and only exist to try and confuse consumers into not asking for repairs after the warranty expires (but not necessarily the consume…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you've been conditioned by anti-consumer companies who want you to BUY BUY BUY to expect that. Ovens should last 20 years or more, and if you're sold a faulty product, it's fair to expect it to be fixed. Luckily there are still a few countries at the bottom of the world with good consumer legislation.
You do realize that in the end the manufacturers will just increase prices or move production to low-wage countries, no?
But that price increase will go into longer-lasting parts, because that costs a lot less than needing to replace every unit halfway through the warranty period.
And since the 20 year oven is a lot cheaper to build than two 10 year ovens, the per-year price to the consumer will go down.
MHBKD recently made a video on Apple testing lab [1], and one thing he talked about and that was kinda new to me is seeing repairability as a spectrum. I.e. on one side is "indestructible" product and on the other is "perfectly repairable". And that those properties (being hard to damage/destruct and being easy to repair) might be mutually exclusive. In a hindsight it seems obvious, still this video was the first tim…
> 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 the device larger, yes - but increases strength while not hurting reparability.
The "problem", imo, is two-fold: 1. Apple does not care too much about making repairs easy. If it costs $100 to make a board they can charge a customer $500 to repair, or $800 for a new phone, it's easy for them.
2. (Some) people prefer sleeker designs. Samsung has its active range of phones, CAT makes durable phones - but many prefer a smaller thickness/bezel etc. This means that when tech improves to make smaller bezels, manufacturers decrease the bezel a little and add protective padding a little... haha no. It's only bezel reduction. Because it sell, I suppose.
For example gorilla glass/protective glass has improved in technology, but thinner screens (for thinner devices) have eaten up the benefits of stronger tech.
The real "killer" argument? The presence of companies like Framework. I'm typing this out on my FW13 & its build quality is really good. Perhaps a 10 year old thinkpad may be similar or better, but this is almost certainly thinner. But it is almost definitely more repairable.
It's possible, but requires companies to offer products, and people to use and buy them.
I disagree. I have a similar situation right now. Washing machine is leaking when load is anything bigger than light load. Initial guarantee claim to Whirlpool was sent 8 weeks ago. It's dead, no response from anyone. Under consumer rights shop should refund, but claim is without response for 3 weeks (14 calendar days is upper limit according to EU law + local regulations). Today I was supposed to contact the lawyer,…
We are not alike. As soon as it costs them several tens of billable hours (people on phone, someone making appointments, discussions, emails, lawyer doing it's thing etc) I'm all fair game and will definitely spend my time screwing with them simply to make them pay even if I lose in the end.
Since I'm going to be frustrated when I'm being screwed over I see no reason not repay that and to act out that frustration in the worst possible way I can manage for the companies involved.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Apparently not in Australia.
Well there was no court case. Considering the cost of sending a lawyer attend the hearing and the potential risk of creating a precedent, it may simpler and cheaper to send an engineer when someone complains too loudly...
If they got invited to a hundred cases at the same time, they'd send a lawyer and perhaps even would tweak the design to include some extra $1 parts which actually work.
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…
Some of them hook up to a mobile phone by bluetooth to track how you brush. The thing is once the battery dies the £150 toothbrush is useless, it's' sealed so replacing the battery isn't trivial.
I think in the battery may last a fair bit longer now.
Electric tooth brushes are quite an improvement over a normal tooth brush.