Important to know:
SHOPPERS are wasting tens of millions of dollars buying extended warranties for goods that are already covered for free under little-known federal consumer laws.
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/national/millions-wasted-on…
Extended Warranty - you don't need it
undercut on 12/01/2013 - 09:20
Last edited 12/01/2013 - 23:15 by 1 other user
Last edited 12/01/2013 - 23:15 by 1 other user
Comments
they just rehash it for dummies
Old news is old :/
So after reading this, I presume that my Panasonic 3d bluray player purchased in November 2011 and has recently stopped working Is potentially under a warranty as its expected to last more than 14 months??
Proving I can find the receipt should I begin talks with ACCC or the retailer?
Seems to be covered as per the article. You should take it up with the retailer, they are aware of the laws and should fix/replace it without any problem. I cant see any retailer arguing that 14 monhs is a reasonable lifespan for a tv
Hey man,
Yes, I would give it a red hot go. Laws cam into effect in Jan 2011 and so long as it cost more than $99 then it should be expected to last more than 12 months (I would argue at least 24 months).
You should always begin talks with the retailer. One of the first questions the ACCC or ombudsman will ask is whether you have tried to resolve the issue with the retailer.
Cheers and good luck,
Billretailer many replace it. if u go court you will most like lose company have is past take people to court and lost i know customer that has 64,000 for tv cost less then 1600 to buy.
please don't post here again.
its still very argumentative
ie. argue with a manufacturer that something should be repaired at the 18 month market
manufactuerer umms and ahhs
owner goes to fair trading
fair trading cant force shit
back to square one
Ok thank tonyjx I will give it a go. Little effort for potential replacement. Its not a Major issue we hardly used the player when it was working.
worth a shot
i mean there's nothing to lose on your behalf if you call up and ask them the for an out of warranty repair at 14 months
be polite
get a job number or incident number and a supervisors name
call fair trading and let them bash it out
14 months failure is unacceptable IMO and should be for anyone even china brands
again, just because fair trading says they should replace or repair, doesnt mean its legally bounding
it comes down to what is least lost to the company… they lose a customer? so what? panasonic (or apple or whoever) is a big name and losing one customer is no big deal
The consumer guarantees in the Australian Consumer Law don't really provide consumers with any greater rights (and obligations) than the implied warranties and conditions that existed in Federal and State and Territory legislation prior to the ACL. The ACL MAY set out those rights and obligations in a clearer way. Importantly, the laws are national for the first time, so that there are no longer regional differences.
The failure to arm consumers with knowledge of their rights must rest with the ACCC (and the TPC before it) and the State and Territory offices of consumer affairs/fair trading. The consumer protection laws in the Trade Practices Act were enacted in 1974. Retailers have been able to lord it over consumers and still do, because the law is not known by the majority of consumers.
Lets all do some more Harvey Norman bashing … what I LOVE about this article is the blatant lie "Harvey Norman says it no longer offers the extended warranties since the new laws came into force.", and then all the comments below it showing what BS this is :)
This article is all well and good, but as 90% of consumers probably have no idea about this law, stores will continue to try and sell extended warranties until they pass a new law that bans the practice.
If the ACCC / Consumer Affairs etc were serious about this, they'd force retailers to have signage, advertising the facts (we are responsible for faults, regardless if its inside your warranty or just out etc).
bullshit
HN staff run on 3rd party warranty commissions…
The ACCC do force retailers to display this information. In my local Harvey Norman it is on a sign on the counter in plain view. I work for a retailer and had to display this as well
Thanks for the responses, will definitely try, will let you all know. Thanks
You may find this helpful; http://www.accc.gov.au/content/index.phtml/tag/acl/
Reading their examples gives you hope that you actually have some rights as a consumer, unfortunately I've found that you usually don't in reality.
I ordered some of the brochures (for free) to take along and shove under the noses of anyone who wants to argue with me as to what the law is when I next try to return something.
As to Harvey Norman not selling extended warranties. What a load of bull. I was given such a hard sell recently that the guy just included it onto my sale without getting my confirmation that I wanted it. He also told me a load of crap about how it would cover my camera being completely waterproof for 3 years (I read the fine print, there were two exceptions that they would have used to get out of honouring it past the manufacturer's standard one year). Waited until I got to the front check-out (was sick of him) then got the woman there to take it off the sale before putting it through.
law should say 2years or 3year not just went you think some think should last. they gov suck for doing this.
The issue of reasonable lifespan was created out of specifying exact life expectancies irrespective of price. How on earth could it possibly be solved by forcing a slightly longer exact life expectancy, nevermind that setting a mandatory lifespan on each product sold would take decades due to the sheer volume and variety.
Mobile phones were extended to 24mths under instruction from the ACCC. Only Apple refused initially. Not sure where they're at now.
I'm not sure where this leaves motor vehicles though. If a $600 smartphone must be warrantied for 12 extra months doesn't it logically stand that a car worth $35,000 should be warrantied for at least 10yrs, if not 15?3yrs seems the industry norm
I believe this was based around phones bought on contract plans as a lot of them were over a period of 24 months, so it made sense the warranty should be at least as long as the contract.
doesn't it logically stand that a car worth $35,000 should be warrantied for at least 10yrs, if not 15?
Definitely no.
Cars have so many parts (moving) that can go wrong compared to a mobile phone (everything is stationary).
Every year new models come out, to keep just one model's parts in stock for more than 5years, you'd be taking up a LOT of space for newer model's parts (that would be more popular)
If a repair facility were to have even at least one of every part in stock for every car from one brand/manufacturer, the space required for such a facility would be = one car's worth of parts (so you can replace everything) x the amount of models (and variations) released on average per year (over 10 years) x 10 (so you can cater for the last 10 years worth of cars). This would not be feasible, especially at around a $35k price point, you'd be effectively paying $3500 per year for a decent car to be fixed for free over 10 years, no matter how crap you treat it and the manufacturer has to source old parts (uncommon parts are never cheap to source). Usually you'd get 3-5 years warranty on that car wouldn't you?If this was a Bugatti, or some $1M+ car, maybe you would get 10 years.. but if you were able to afford that tier of cars, I don't think you'd be worrying about years of warranty you get.
I believe this was based around phones bought on contract plans as a lot of them were over a period of 24 months, so it made sense the warranty should be at least as long as the contract.
See, using this logic, if you were on a fleetplan/company car type plan this would make sense, for the life of the renting plan, the company car would be covered under warranty, this would be more logical
Yeah, it was about the two year contract on mobiles but the example still applies.
My original comment regarding car warranties was intended to be tongue in cheek but that's cool because you raised the line of argument I thought of at the time. The point remains that if a $600 electronic device must be supported for up to two years, the car industry is getting a hell of a break :)Nevertheless, when an iPod breaks, or a TV, Blu-ray, whatever… the warranty is never rejected because a capacitor or switch mechanism broke - or the whipper part on a whipper snipper because a ball bearing failed - as it is when an engine mount cracks. Everything is made up of multiple parts and it's always one of those components that breaks. So the argument that because a car is made up of many more moving parts doesn't really work in that respect.
With regards to car repairs and the supply of spare parts, it's legislated that manufacturers must maintain a supply of parts for every vehicle sold in Australia for ten years. This doesn't mean they need to estimate at year one and warehouse parts for years 2-10 but the capacity needs to be there to supply any spare part as required for the full ten.
I was speaking with someone who used to be the national wholesale manager for one of the car brands 15 or so years ago. It cost the national wholesaler $9k to get the car to the docks. Roughly $15-20k of the rest went towards the overheads of getting that car to sale for $40k and keeping it on the road for the duration of its warranty period.
I just wanted to add that if you have a gold or platinum credit card, check to see whether that provides you with an automatic extended warranty as part of the "insurance" feature. These aren't usually heavily marketed but they do have them.
+1
free extended warranty with free bankwest zero mastercard gold/platinum
You do need extended warranty… Most products only come with 1year, therefore paying a little more adds an extra whooping 2years, that's 3 years, which a lot TVs audio etc breaks down, better paying that little amount than suffering the larger fees of repairs.
Did you even read the post? Most defects are covered under statutory warranties and consumer protection laws over and above the 1 year standard manufacturer warranty.
Case Study:
My friend bought a VIVID-brand TV from ALDI in September 2011. In February 2012 the TV screen started blinking on and off. It was taken in for repairs (under the declared "12 month warranty") and the powerboard was replaced.
In early February 2013 the same problem, a blinking screen, reoccurred. She rang the manufacturer once more and was told that it would cost money to repair since the TV was 6 months outside the declared warranty. Upon mentioning statutory warranty and that the expected minimal lifespan of a TV is widely regarded as 24 months, she was informed that this is only a suggested time-frame and not enforceable by law. Upon asking if the powerboard component serviced almost 12 months prior had any guarantee (which had seemed to be the problem based on previous issues), she was told that a repair only has a 10 day guarantee and a fault has to be reported within this window.
The consumer continued to insist that the replaced powerboard itself should have its own warranty and she was reassured it is only covered within the length of warranty of the parent product.
Unhappy with this outcome, she asked to speak to someone with greater authority regarding the matter. After consulting with a supervisor, the service rep informed her that the warranty for the powerboard is in fact 3 months, but they will replace the part free of charge this last time but without any guarantee or warranty extension.
In this case, "escalation" of the matter worked over the phone (as it usually does). However, does anyone have their own experience in dealing with repaired parts failing outside of warranty but within a short-time frame before or after the new laws came into effect (although in this case the part lived longer the second time round). In addition, bringing up statutory warranty didn't seem to intimidate the manufacturer in this case.
As others have said, although you have a legal right to a replacement within the statutory warranty period (as opposed to stated warranty period) and this is widely known, good luck trying to enforce it.
In my experience it has taken so much time and annoyance it's not worth it, which is what retailers and manufacturers are hoping consumers will conclude.
Having said this, we need people who will fight for the cause and have more energy and time than me to do so…. so good on you if you do :)
Just wanted to say that I bought an extended warranty with my tv almost 6 years ago. The factory warranty has well and truly run out, and its the second time the tv has been in for repair under the extended warranty. This time they gave us a brand new tv, better than our original…. at absolutely no cost to me. Worth every cent I say.
lol. did it take this reporter (David Nankervis) two years to write this article? he must have typed it with one finger.
a google search gave me a few articles from some faster typing reporters/people.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-06-07/broken-but-out-of-warr…
http://www.lifehacker.com.au/2011/01/a-guide-to-the-new-aust…
http://blog.niggleit.com/is-statutory-warranty-the-new-exten…
http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2011/05/ask-lh-do-warranty-laws-me…
http://www.lifehacker.com.au/2011/12/ask-lh-are-extended-war…
http://aca.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=8270363