Your Rights: Retailer vs Manufacturer

TheMonster

Noticed a lot lately that shops are more and more refusing to deals with problems and telling you to deal with the manufacturer.

What are your rights here? I stood my ground yesterday and forced a major store to deal with the manufacturer for me. They wanted me to deal directly with the manufacturer(this would have entailed taking time off work to arrange collection of the item as well as numerous phone calls, on hold etc)

I bought the product from them so think its fair enough they deasl with any issues.

Ruu_Old

Many products these days have written on them that tech support or any issues are to be dealt with the manufacturer.

TheMonster

Ruu wrote:

Many products these days have written on them that tech support or any issues are to be dealt with the manufacturer.

Isn't your contract with the shop that you buy it from?

Kimbot

If you purcahse it from a shop and its not in Fully working order then its the shop that has to deal with it!! You bought from them and not the manfuacturer (IF you did it would be cheaper ) So get the shop to deal with it!!

Ruu_Old

It is the retailers responsibility for a certain number of days I believe most of the time a month or around that.

oneweb

If it's within warranty and you fail to get a satisfactory resolution from the manufacturer's support, the retailer is LEGALLY OBLIGED to deal with the situation vis-a-vis arranging a repair/replacement and (goodwill prevailing) a refund.

Nightwish

Where I work we offer a guarantee on all products for a year, and after 12 months, its to the manufacturer. The consumers contract is with the retailer therefore it is up to the retailer to fulfil its obligations under consumer law. The only way we would send people to the manufacturer directly is if the 1 year shop guarantee has expired, or where they have no proof of purchase.

whippet

A lot of the time it gets resolved quicker direcly with the manufacturer as the retailer will just be going through the same process with the manufacturer.

If it is awkard to deal with the manufacturer direct you have the right (under warranty) to insist that the retailer deal on your behalf.

rondjon

Your contract is with the retailer, so any post-sale issues need to be directed through them.

The manufacturer will never have any legal responsibility to you unless it's specifically stated within any warranty that you may have.

The timeframe mentioned above (circa 1 month) where your dealings will go from the retailer to the manufacturer is not specified anywhere in law.

As per above, unless stated anywhere in a warranty, you are always to go back to the retailer with whom you have the contract rather than the manufacturer, and there is no timelimit on when you can go back - it's left to common sense to determine how long is a suitable timeframe - based on time since purchase, product purchased, use of product, and expected lifetime of product.

Buceph

The contract is with the retailer, no matter what. Under consumer law they can not insist that you deal with the manufacturer. You have no contract with them. On top of that they can not limit your rights in any way. Even if it says on the box that they exclude it, it means nothing.

As for what it says in the warranty, it means nothing. The contract was entered into before you had an oppurtunity to see the warranty, anything it says in it has no legal binding. You can activate the warranty by registering it with the manufacturer, but that's on top of your contract with the retailer.