Misrepresentation Act 1967

RobGuggle

I bought a product about 22 months ago from an online retailer. The product came with a 5 year warranty. The product has developed a serious fault and i contacted the company to make a complaint. They told me under the Sale of Goods Act that if a product is more than 6 months old, it is down to me to prove the fault with the product. Now i have no documented evidence of usage of this product over the last 22 months, but what i apparently have to do now is get the product independently inspected, at my cost, and should that independent inspection rule the product faulty, the 5 year warranty is then valid.

Anyway, i went on to the companies website and left a detailed review of my experience with the product. Nothing embellished, just a very honest appraisal of the product while i had been using it. It never got published, so thinking i had done something wrong, i tried two more times, nothing.

During my correspondence with the company i mentioned this and they told me, and i quote;

"In regards to leaving a review on our website. If you are to log into your account on-line, follow through to page 3, you then have an opportunity to review a product. As this review is being left on our own website we do have the right to choose what is displayed. We will allow honest reviews which contain information that is correct and helpful for other customers. If your reviews have not been submitted then unfortunately we did not find it true or beneficial to other customers"

Now the reason i bought this product from this company was because it came with a 5 year warranty and the reviews were 5 out of 5.
It now seems to me that they only publish good reviews of the product which is surely misleading customers. The reviews that are given a star rating out of 5 followed by a comment give the impression that anyone who buys this product from the company can leave a review, but is not the case,

So my question is, do i have case under the Misrepresentation Act 1967, as i wouldn't have bought the product had it not had such rave reviews and i have it in writing from the company that they refused to publish my review and choose what they publish and don't?

Misrepresentations are pre contractual false statements of existing facts which is one of the factors that have induced the other party to enter into the contract.

I'd appreciate any help before i contact a solicitor and incur costs.

Rob

hollydays

Have you spoken to the manufacturer about the 5 year warranty?
Can not believe anyone would buy something because of the sellers own recommendations , forget that angle..
If you've posted the act you surely have figured out a personal review is not fact but an opinion.if there's only good reviews there that's representing the opinions of those who say the item was good, not misrepresenting anything...

vaio

hollydays wrote: »

....... a personal review is not fact but an opinion.if there's only good reviews there that's representing the opinions of those who say the item was good, not misrepresenting anything...

Nah, if the web site owners are failing to publish critical reviews whilst giving the impression that all customers can post reviews then I'd say it is misrepresentation.

OP....whether it is worth pursuing is another matter, your best be is to have a think and see if it qualifies under the Sale of Goods rules.

What is the item and what is the fault?

hollydays

"Nah, " is that a technical term.......;)

The company said they would not post reviews they believed weren't true, they never said they wouldn't post critical ones.not that this is relevant anyway

RobGuggle

vaio wrote: »

Nah, if the web site owners are failing to publish critical reviews whilst giving the impression that all customers can post reviews then I'd say it is misrepresentation.

OP....whether it is worth pursuing is another matter, your best be is to have a think and see if it qualifies under the Sale of Goods rules.

What is the item and what is the fault?

It's a memory foam mattress that has dipped so badly in four areas that it has resulted in my wife and i having to see an Osteopath at our own considerable expense. The company is blaming the set up of the bed.

I will be getting a furniture ombudsman to investigate the product for me, but it's slightly gualling that i have to pay to have a faulty product with more than 3 years left of it's warranty investigated.

jacques_chirac

Are the reviews for the product or the company? If the former, it would be fair for them to remove/ not publish a review about the company. If the latter then they would appear to be misleading their potential customers.

This kind of thing is common. I was looking at reviews of a mobile recycler on an 'independent' site, and noticed that every negative one had been reported for breaching guidelines and removed pending review. Difficult to believe that every one of the reviews was in the wrong!

RobGuggle

jacques_chirac wrote: »

Are the reviews for the product or the company? If the former, it would be fair for them to remove/ not publish a review about the company. If the latter then they would appear to be misleading their potential customers.

This kind of thing is common. I was looking at reviews of a mobile recycler on an 'independent' site, and noticed that every negative one had been reported for breaching guidelines and removed pending review. Difficult to believe that every one of the reviews was in the wrong!

Reviews were for the product.

OlliesDad

I would disagree that this is misrepresentation. As long as the reviews that they do publish are accurate (i.e. they aren't creating their own ones or altering the ones provided) then they are doing nothing wrong. Many companies will only publish good reviews, this is why it makes sense to ignore the companies own site and look at independent sites instead.

Which company was it?

ILW

The furniture ombudsman???

jacques_chirac

RobGuggle wrote: »

Reviews were for the product.

In that case was your review specific to the product (became faulty after 22 months) or about your attempt to get a repair/ replacement and how the company handled it?

RobGuggle

jacques_chirac wrote: »

In that case was your review specific to the product (became faulty after 22 months) or about your attempt to get a repair/ replacement and how the company handled it?

This is the review.

I bought this product on 17/1/2012 - I had never used a memory foam type mattress before so i had no idea what to expect. Initially is seemed very comfortable. After a few months, my wife and i both noticed slight dips appearing in the areas where we slept. Thinking this was just how a memory foam mattress behaved we thought nothing of it. Every so slightly over the next year the dips got worse and worse - eventually my wife and i ended up being treated by an Osteopath for severely sore backs. When i mentioned to the Osteopath we had dips in our bed he immediately told me that no mattress should dip at all and if it did dip it meant something was wrong and i should contact the company i bought the bed from immediately to have it returned. We rotated the bed as per instructions, the actual bed frame we had was also brand new and expertly set up by the company we bought the frame from. The dips in the mattress are now horrendous, to the point where my wife and i no longer sleep in it due to the damage it has and is causing to our backs. The product comes with a 5 year warranty and mattressman has made it clear that i must pay out of my own pocket for a furniture ombudsman to examine the mattress in accordance with the Sale of Goods Act before they will do anything to help me. They are blaming the set up of the bed for the problem. Correspondence is on going.