So, isn't it about time the rights of a consumer were upgraded in law?

[toolsntat]

The shameful practice in today's market place of supplying anything unfit for purpose could quite easily be reversed if the supplier was made to offer compensation and refund all the costs involved.
The ripple effect in the supply chain would be astounding....
All too often we hear of the great after sales support companies provide in sorting out items that are unfit for purpose, when they should not be supplying anything unchecked in the first place.
In short I'm becoming sick to death of being an UNPAID end user quality control inspector.
Cheers, Andy

 

[Blackswanwood]

I suspect it’s more a case of consumers not realising that this is already enshrined in law …

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/reclaim/consumer-rights-refunds-exchange/

 

[Jameshow]

The shameful practice in today's market place of supplying anything unfit for purpose could quite easily be reversed if the supplier was made to offer compensation and refund all the costs involved.
The ripple effect in the supply chain would be astounding....
All too often we hear of the great after sales support companies provide in sorting out items that are unfit for purpose, when they should not be supplying anything unchecked in the first place.
In short I'm becoming sick to death of being an UNPAID end user quality control inspector.
Cheers, Andy

I expect we want the cheapest possible price which negates sufficient QC in the factory and in the distribution warehouse.

Would we pay an extra 25% to pay for rejected casting QC and customer care services??

 

[Lorenzl]

Would we pay an extra 25% to pay for rejected casting QC and customer care services??

But would the extra 25% go for that or be used as more profit?

 

[Geoff_S]

I’m not sure this is a modern day problem.

British Leyland?

 

[Kayen]

I don't remember the last time I was unhappy with what I bought - perhaps people should choose more carefully - if people didn't buy crap, then crap wouldn't be sold!

 

[Spectric]

It takes two to tango, are the suppliers not just giving what customers want because otherwise it would not be selling. Today people are willing to sacrifice quality for cost and accept a throwaway society so to get quality we would have to accept paying more and keeping the item longer which for some people would impact their pastime of shopping.

Nothings imposible providing you are willing to pay for it, we could have washing machines that last far longer and machinery that works out of the box. Look at how marketing now works because by making something like a phone fashionable rather than just a tool it not only raises the sales price but allows the manufacturer to sell far more by just constantly releasing newer versions that the customer see's as "must have" and because it now has a shorter product life cycle it can be made cheaper, it is just win win for the OEM.

 

[johna.clements]

To compare prices of products like washing machines I look up how often they break on websites such as Which.
Then for an item that will break down 20% in five years I add 20% to the cost.
I also add 20% of a days "pay" to pay for looking for a replacement, waiting around for repairs to be done etc.

£500 washing machine that breaks down 10% of the time within 5 years. £500 plus £50 plus £10 (assume £100 per day "pay") gives £560 "cost".
£300 washing machine that breaks down 20% of the time within 5 years. £300 pus £60 plus £20 gives £380 "cost".

Then you can compare the features and energy efficiency using the actual cost to you.

 

[Lorenzl]

To compare prices of products like washing machines I look up how often they break on websites such as Which.
Then for an item that will break down 20% in five years I add 20% to the cost.
I also add 20% of a days "pay" to pay for looking for a replacement, waiting around for repairs to be done etc.

Interesting way of looking at it @johna.clements

 

[clogs]

we have a holiday rental and machines get broken/trashed all the time....
we always have a spare new or repaired /as new clothes washing machine.....
here a call out is around €80 euro's now so I work on if it;s a simple fix I'll do it....
parts are not cheap anymore, if u can get em....
anything bi repair wise gets binned after I have robbed it of screws n metal....
WE used to buy Bosch etc but they are overpriced carp like the rest....
Here the main stuff that is reasonable priced is Chinese or Turkish made....
all come with a 2 year warrenty.....if we get 3 years outta one/anything we call it quits.....
the days of 40 year old AEG are gone....
beside's can't have an old knacker in a new kitchen....
we buy the most efficient ones we can with limited programmes )less to go wrong)
I have given up stressing about white goods now.....
just spend the moneuy and get on with life....

 

[johna.clements]

Interesting way of looking at it @johna.clements

I am an engineer not an accountant who would come up with some formula taking account of inflation etc but it is what I used when I last bought a washing machine and TV.
You can alter the "pay" to how much of a pain to you it would be if it broke down.

 

[Terry - Somerset]

Reliability, longevity, or all embracing warranties cost money. Expensive often means that the marketing budget is high, not that the product is better than the rest.

Consumers select products mainly on a few attributes - brand image, objective performance criteria (Which reviews etc) and price. The last, I suspect, is the main driver for many.

Personally I tend to buy the cheapest that will do the intended task to an adequate standard.

I never buy extended warranties - statistically they are expensive commission earners for the stores.

If white goods fail it is likely within the warranty period, or after many years use. If over ~3 years old I generally replace rather than repair unless it is obvious I can easily and cheaply fix the fault.

We have an American style fridge freezer (14 years old), Sony flatscreen TV (12 yo), just replaced oven and hob (both 12 yo), dishwasher, washing machine, tumble drier all more than 5 yeo.

It seems most appliances are fit for purpose and the odd early failure just something to manage. Would I pay extra 25% or more for better quality or warranty - probably not.

 

[morqthana]

To compare prices of products like washing machines I look up how often they break on websites such as Which.
Then for an item that will break down 20% in five years I add 20% to the cost.
I also add 20% of a days "pay" to pay for looking for a replacement, waiting around for repairs to be done etc.

£500 washing machine that breaks down 10% of the time within 5 years. £500 plus £50 plus £10 (assume £100 per day "pay") gives £560 "cost".
£300 washing machine that breaks down 20% of the time within 5 years. £300 pus £60 plus £20 gives £380 "cost".

A calculation which does not include the environmental costs of more frequent replacements.

Cheap but short-lived machines may cost you less in the long run, but what about the rest of us?

 

[RobinBHM]

I’m not sure this is a modern day problem.

British Leyland?

world beating cars

 

[Scruples]

In manufacture there is a design/engineering term - bathtub curve. It relates to the failure rate of everything that is made. The shape of the curve resembles a bath, steep at start indicating that a lot of failures occur in the items' early period. Then follows a period of relatively few failures for the main part of its designed life and then, as the item's reach their end, the failure rates increase. The use the acronym MTBF meaning Mean Time Between Failures to show the reliability of the items.
So, early failures are inenvitable and most manufacturers do sample checks on every production run. Checking every product would be prohibitively expensive and would increas the cost per item to the consumer.
We have sufficient rights under the current law and we have manufacturers guarantees to use if we'er not happy. Although, it's disappointing to get a faulty product, it just shows that nothing is perfect.

 

[GuitardoctorW7]

There's a little known caveat of UK consumer law that states goods sold "must be deemed to have a reasonable merchantable life". If you look at the small print on the Apple web site they acknowledge that as part of UK Trading Standards, and will repair/replace hardware faults up to 6 years, I had a laptop screen replaced FOC after 4 years

 

[Auldfart2010]

I was a Materials Controller for Zeal Electronics in Chesterfield. Their idea of QC was ship it and see if it's sent back. The attitude from management sent me up the wall, goal posts moved on a whim.

 

[plum60]

The shameful practice in today's market place of supplying anything unfit for purpose could quite easily be reversed if the supplier was made to offer compensation and refund all the costs involved.
The ripple effect in the supply chain would be astounding....
All too often we hear of the great after sales support companies provide in sorting out items that are unfit for purpose, when they should not be supplying anything unchecked in the first place.
In short I'm becoming sick to death of being an UNPAID end user quality control inspector.
Cheers, Andy

To me the practice of selling substandard items is largely created by the consumer who always wants a cheaper item. Uk makers were put on a back foot with cheap Chinese imports years ago so they began making it thinner, shorter or anything that made it cheaper to make and sell at the same price to make enough profit to survive. But when the largest cost is the wages bill and you are competing with makers in Hungary, Mexico, India, China, the writing was on the wall so manufacturing basically slowed and stopped here. Now we see platforms like Ebay that have democratised selling where people pretend they are a pro when they are not so lots of dangerous stuff is selling but no one ever uses the consumer law as a redress because their lives are totally busy and all the extra stress puts them off. I also know that many buyers sold dud items almost always never give accurate feedback, I know because I get them come to me to fix the stuff and I ask them.. so laws are toothless in practice and essentially the consumer is behind this race to the bottom when it comes to nasty dangerous faulty rubbish on sale. They want it cheap so in the end you get burgers filled with horse meat etc.. consumer led everything now even politics.

 

[Stevekane]

A friend of ours had a very small assembly business and they were doing an order for extension leads, the lead came with one of those 4 port multi sockets pre wired, anyway our chums being conscientious types checked each one as they fitted plugs and started to discover ones where wires in the socket were not fitted, but they still had the little “Tested” sticker on them, so they contacted the company who litterally laughed and said “oh we don't test any of them, we just stick the sticker on, the customer tests them for us, and if they tell us one is faulty we apologise and without question send out another, the customer being treated so well with great customer service is always extremely happy” Our chum, and ex RAF pilot, was astounded by this attitude,,I wonder how common this type of thing is?
Steve.

 

[Daniel2]

To me the practice of selling substandard items is largely created by the consumer who always wants a cheaper item. Uk makers were put on a back foot with cheap Chinese imports years ago so they began making it thinner, shorter or anything that made it cheaper to make and sell at the same price to make enough profit to survive. But when the largest cost is the wages bill and you are competing with makers in Hungary, Mexico, India, China, the writing was on the wall so manufacturing basically slowed and stopped here. Now we see platforms like Ebay that have democratised selling where people pretend they are a pro when they are not so lots of dangerous stuff is selling but no one ever uses the consumer law as a redress because their lives are totally busy and all the extra stress puts them off. I also know that many buyers sold dud items almost always never give accurate feedback, I know because I get them come to me to fix the stuff and I ask them.. so laws are toothless in practice and essentially the consumer is behind this race to the bottom when it comes to nasty dangerous faulty rubbish on sale. They want it cheap so in the end you get burgers filled with horse meat etc.. consumer led everything now even politics.

Absolutely nothing wrong with horse meat. I like it.
That is a cultural variation.