Apple to small claims

rock22

@Firblog "The trader remains liable for any faults that appear with a product up to two years after purchase. However, if the fault develops after the initial six-month period (now 12 months), the consumer may have to prove that the fault was not caused by their own misuse or mistreatment of the product."

Even though I showed the Judge that the Ipad was in absolutely pristine condition, I couldn't prove that it hadn't been misused - so case dismissed."

I think that was a rather harsh judgement to be honest. And in fact renders consumer law almost worthless if the consumer, with no access to testing facilities etc. is asked for this prove. How could you prove it hadn't been mis-used? It would be relatively simple for a trader to prove an item had been mis-used by showing other damage.

Unfortunately, if Apple, and presumably others, adopt this strategy then the consumer has only six months(or 12 months now) protection even on very expensive , supposedly high end, goods.

You are probably sick of it at this stage, but it would be worthwhile to summarise your experience and send it to the COnsumer protection commission but also to all the political parties showing that law in this area works against the consumer.

guil

I think in the UK you need to get an engineers report after 6 months. Are they going down the same road here?

Firblog

It's 12 months here now, and I'm fairly sure they would've wanted to question the engineer if I'd produced a report.