Extended Warranties

[enodreven]

Hi,

 

We were visiting our elderly relation yesterday when the subject of extended warranties came up, apparently she has been paying yearly to extend what she believed was an extended warranty on her video player that would pay for someone to call at her home to repair it if it went wrong. This was she believed just an extension of the original warranty that her husband had taken out when they first purchased the video some 8/10 years ago and that they had previously used around 5 years ago when exactly what she thought would happen i.e.. someone called and carried out a repair at her home.

 

However, the reason for her raising the subject of warranties was because she had telephoned them during the week because the video had started to malfunction and was told that they no longer made house calls and haven't done so for a few years and that at 82 years of age she would need to actually transport it herself to the shop where she originally purchased it and they would decide if they could repair it or if not they would make some form of compensation as to the replacement value

 

While we are discussing this with the warranty company ?

 

Please double check if you have any elderly relatives as they may be paying for this type of warranty like our relation believing that it will remove the necessity for them to have to worry anyone as the items will be repaired in there homes and also paying more for the extended warranty than they could purchase a new appliance for ?? SO PLEASE CHECK ??

 

Hope this helps someone, as we are really annoyed that we didn't check what she was doing earlier

 

Brian

[Mel E]

Brian,

 

You make a very good point. Personally, the only insurance I ever buy is either legally mandatory (motor, etc) or for extremely high value items (house, contents, motor comprehensive).

 

For electrical and electronic goods, it is a waste of time, since:

 

- the vast majority of faults occur within the first year, which is covered by the manufacturers warranty

 

- EU rules that are now law in the UK make the retailer responsible for 6 years (yes, that is six!) for any faults that occur that are due to poor design or manufacture. The item has to be 'fit for purpose' for this length of time.

 

Of course, most retailers claim to have no knowledge of this and will try and refer you to the manufacturer, but the small claims court will certainly do otherwise.

[Clive]

Mel,

Can you quote chapter and verse on this. Which bit of legislation, when introduced into the UK under which act of Parliament, what its number is? where it can be found (on the web) etc.

Quoting it as "seen on the MMM forum" is OK but having chapter and verse to insert into the salesmans fundemental orifice is fat mor gratifying!

 

On electronic items I totally agree with your phylosophy.

 

One small thought, in America a Guarantee is 6 months at best, but the prices are all lower than over here to reflect this.

 

Happy Christmas

 

C&J

 

 

 

 

 

[Guest Frank Wilkinson]

Mel E - 2006-12-17 1:09 PM Brian, You make a very good point. Personally, the only insurance I ever buy is either legally mandatory (motor, etc) or for extremely high value items (house, contents, motor comprehensive). For electrical and electronic goods, it is a waste of time, since: - the vast majority of faults occur within the first year, which is covered by the manufacturers warranty - EU rules that are now law in the UK make the retailer responsible for 6 years (yes, that is six!) for any faults that occur that are due to poor design or manufacture. The item has to be 'fit for purpose' for this length of time. Of course, most retailers claim to have no knowledge of this and will try and refer you to the manufacturer, but the small claims court will certainly do otherwise.

This six year warranty business is in danger of becoming a bit of an urban myth, just like people being gassed in their motorhomes!

In England and Wales, we currently have a six years liability period for sale of goods rights (limited to six years by the Limitation Act 1980). This means that compensation can be claimed against the supplier of the goods for up to six years after purchase, providing it can be shown that the defect was present at the time of sale, and it was reasonable for goods to last that long. Clearly, this does not cover wear and tear faults nor is it a durability requirement. 

What this means is that your Sale of Goods rights last six years, not that a product is expected to last for six years without any form of breakdown. It would not be reasonable for instance that a cheap camera costing say £20, should be repaired for nothing if after five years of satisfactory use, it develops a fault owing to wear and tear. The important part of this act is that the product must have been defective in its manufacture and that the fault must have been there at the time of sale. If you can prove that there was an inherent fault at the time that you bought it, you will have a case. However, common sense tells us that if a product works perfectly for three or four years then it cannot really be claimed that it has a inherent fault.

I do however agree entirely with Mel B about the value of extended warranties. I never buy them and would recommend that people put the cost of the warranty into a separate building society account. At the end of ten years you'll be showing a healthy profit. I have even extended this to private health insurance. Three years ago I decided that it was becoming expensive so each year I put an amount equal to my and my wife's annual premium into a separate account. In four years' time it will be worth £25000, which will pay for a lot of medical care. I know that I'm taking a risk but it's a calculated one based on my state of health and the fact that I have sufficient capital to fund an operation should I have needed one in the first year or two, and of course there's is still the good old NHS for emergencies.

I am a retailer and we offer extended warranties but I have strong views about their worth and my staff are told fimly that they must never be pushed onto people as happens with most of the large electrical retailers for instance.

The reason that we offer them is that some people actually want them! This six year business is not a six year warranty, as I hope that I've explained above and if a video recorder for example, developed a wear and tear fault after three years, no Small Claims court in the land will force the retailer to pay for the repair and some people like the security of knowing that for five years or so they are protected against any repair costs.

[chas]

I think we all know the benifits of using Nationwide cards abroad, but have many read the fact that if purchasing many goods or electrical equipment with the credit card you have an extra years insurance cover, making 2 years cover for free. chas

[Mel E]

Frank,

 

Frank,

 

Sorry if you think I over-simplified things: I thought that saying:

 

"faults that occur that are due to poor design or manufacture. The item has to be 'fit for purpose' for this length of time (i.e., 6 years)"

 

was explicit without being over-complicated. Of course you wouldn't expect a £20 camera, or a £25 DVD player, and so on, to be repaired if it went wrong after 5 years - it simply isn't worth it. So I should probably have said :

 

"The item has to be 'fit for purpose', given normal use, for the period of its design life or 6 years, whichever is shorter."

 

But an expensive plasma screen or LCD screen should last, with normal use, for that period.

 

I am not sure what you mean by 'normal wear and tear'. I believe that, using the normal understanding of 'normal wear and tear', that manufacturing or design faults are covered by the legislation. I expect my home cinema projector to last, but I accept that the lamp has a defined life. But a projector I buy to use with my laptop computer should be able to cope with being moved around, packed in its bag and being unpacked (lamp aside) because that's what it's sold as being able to do. But normal maintenance items - such as cleaning the laser on a DVD/CD player - are not.

 

As another example, a certain range of Philips CRT TVs have a well documented design fault that means the infrared receiver that receives signals from the remote control, fails, often after less than two years. It's not the remote at fault (though many people are persuaded to buy a new remote) but the receiver. It's an expensive repair (over £100) and is covered by the legislation - it is not normal wear and tear but a design fault and an important one because the TV is useless without the remote control working.

 

Clive,

 

The last time I looked for definitive information, I found it on the 'Which?' CA site. But a Google search will reveal all sorts of sources.

[Guest Frank Wilkinson]

Mel, I'm glad to say that you do appear to understand it fully but the problem is that many people don't read the posts properly and there is no doubt that there are those who now assume that if their product goes wrong after working perfectly for three years that all they have to do is go into the shop and bang the counter and spout on about the EU six year warranty law!

I just wanted to be more specific to counter this growing expectation about a mythical six year warranty as I can promise you that there are people out there who now think that their £20 camera should be repaired or replaced for nothing it it goes wrong after five years.

[Mel E]

Frank,

 

As ever, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing! and often a very frustrating thing to the person to whom the little knowledge is being passed on!

 

Here's a link that explains the purchase rules very clearly; unfortunately the full explanation of the six year rule is in a subscriber only section.

 

http://tinyurl.com/y4u9yn

 

Mel

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[enodreven]

Hi,

 

Thanks for all the information, but the main point i was trying to make is if you have any elderly relatives just double check that they have a clear understanding of what they are signing up for and that they are aware of the conditions.

 

Brian