Consumer electronics item broken in 2.5 years - retailer refusing repair

AJXX

teabelly wrote: »

I'd have a look on avforums and search your model number. If several other people have had the same failure then you have a much stronger case for inherently faulty. Whether you'd get anywhere at all and recover your repair cost is another matter.

I'm a bit dubious that this would have any real legal 'weight', a few people moaning about the same issue on a forum isn't really going to strengthen or prove a case for "inherently faulty" - only an independent report is going to do that.

InquisitiveMind

Let's face it. There's no _realistic_ case here as neither party would be able to disprove the other's claim.

The buyer comes along and says "this is crap because 2 other people on this forum had the same problem", and it packed up after 2.5 years of 10hours a day viewing - the sellers asks - did you post these forum posts yourself because I've sold 20 of these, and not one buyer has had a problem with it (buyer pulls out proof of sales of 20 said items).

Who is the objective mind going to believe?

If this did go to court or arbitration then I don't think it would not be a strong argument. Especially if the seller found this thread and read the reasons why you wanted to return it was "for a writeup for your blog", rather than a genuine want, it would be over before you knew it.

Buy cheap, buy twice.

unholyangel

Thats the beauty of small claims though. You don't need definitive proof or to prove that something is true/false "beyond all reasonable doubt". Its the balance of probabilities.

And (for arguments sake alone) if there were reviews from years ago saying the same thing.....whats the chances (of balance of probability) that OP foresaw this, wrote the reviews/complaints and then waited several years before acting on them?

Recent comments online will likely be looked at with higher scrutiny. But they (online forums/comments/threads) can be (and have been) used as evidence.

InquisitiveMind

I think most are very familiar with the difference between the standard of evidence in a criminal case and for a civil case. There's nothing 'beautiful' about going to court.

Reviews from years ago mean absolutely nothing. Production methods change, components change etm and would most likely be discarded. I know I certainly would dump them. The obvious question to the buyer would be - so... why did you buy the item then?

Anything can be used as evidence, it doesn't mean it's actually useful, and who knows what the judge will decide is useful and what isn't. Anyone can write reviews on forums - a disgruntled ex-employee, a person about to sue regarding the product, or even the manufacturers themselves.

The point in hand (rather than the most tiniest nit-picking irrelevant points) are, the very best of luck if the OP uses arbitration / court because I get the feeling that if the seller can prove s/he's sold more than one without any problems, as has been said before, on the balance of probabilities it will appear unlikely that the product just died due to a common trait of being unfit-for-purpose, and so it's over to the buyer to challenge that and prove it was actually unfit... Any evidence the buyer presents can be challenged with basic questions of usage - heavy usage, dusty environment, a fall / drop, etc which over 2.5 years every single day cannot be accounted for which will leave a lot of doubt.

unholyangel

InquisitiveMind wrote: »

I think most are very familiar with the difference between the standard of evidence in a criminal case and for a civil case. There's nothing 'beautiful' about going to court.

Reviews from years ago mean absolutely nothing. Production methods change, components change etm and would most likely be discarded. I know I certainly would dump them. The obvious question to the buyer would be - so... why did you buy the item then?

Anything can be used as evidence, it doesn't mean it's actually useful, and who knows what the judge will decide is useful and what isn't. Anyone can write reviews on forums - a disgruntled ex-employee, a person about to sue regarding the product, or even the manufacturers themselves.

The point in hand (rather than the most tiniest nit-picking irrelevant points) are, the very best of luck if the OP uses arbitration / court because I get the feeling that if the seller can prove s/he's sold more than one without any problems, as has been said before, on the balance of probabilities it will appear unlikely that the product just died due to a common trait of being unfit-for-purpose, and so it's over to the buyer to challenge that and prove it was actually unfit... Any evidence the buyer presents can be challenged with basic questions of usage - heavy usage, dusty environment, a fall / drop, etc which over 2.5 years every single day cannot be accounted for which will leave a lot of doubt.

Then why state theres no realistic case as neither party would be able to disprove the others claim if you know that the burden of proof for small claims is different from criminal cases?

For one thing, in the example you used, the suppliers "case" (of having sold 20 and them not being faulty yet) solely revolves around absence of evidence. By that logic no claim against a retailer would ever succeed given even in the worst products, the failure rate is nominal compared to quantity sold.

One could argue that - since everything has a failure rate - the probability of OP's being the failed unit is increased by the fact the retailer hasn't had any other sold units returned as faulty.

In fact, using your logic.....even if OP got an independent report, the supplier could say "but i've sold 120 units and none of those have been reported as faulty" and that would put them at loggerheads. In reality as above, the latter relies on absence of evidence in other sales equalling evidence of absence for this sale.

InquisitiveMind

unholyangel wrote: »

...NO! I WANT THE LAST WORD...

Unholy Angel, re-read what you wrote. It makes no sense to me. :T

I believe OP's question was answered, and this is getting silly now!

unholyangel

InquisitiveMind wrote: »

Unholy Angel, re-read what you wrote. It makes no sense to me. :T

I believe OP's question was answered, and this is getting silly now!

Ah okay I get it. I disagreed with you so automatically that means its case closed, you were right and anything said after you is irrelevant

BTW, threads tend to go on long after the OP disappears (sometimes for more than a few pages!). Sometimes in case the OP comes back, sometimes for other people who might happen to read it in the future and sometimes just to debate a point amongst ourselves.

If you're going to be a regular here, I'd advise you get used to tangents. If you're looking for people who will say nothing if they disagree with you then I strongly advise you stay off the internet.

LABMAN

InquisitiveMind wrote: »

Unholy Angel, re-read what you wrote. It makes no sense to me. :T

I believe OP's question was answered, and this is getting silly now!

If your going to argue a point do have the courtesy to get the person's user name correct please.

InquisitiveMind

LABMAN wrote: »

If your going to argue a point do have the courtesy to get the person's user name correct please.

There was no point made labboy

InquisitiveMind

unholyangel wrote: »

Ah okay I get it. I disagreed with you so automatically that means its case closed, you were right and anything said after you is irrelevant

BTW, threads tend to go on long after the OP disappears (sometimes for more than a few pages!). Sometimes in case the OP comes back, sometimes for other people who might happen to read it in the future and sometimes just to debate a point amongst ourselves.

If you're going to be a regular here, I'd advise you get used to tangents. If you're looking for people who will say nothing if they disagree with you then I strongly advise you stay off the internet.

Thank you for the introduction to the internet, I learned a lot.

There are points worth making which are reasonable and there are points that make little (or, in this case, no) sense. "Foolish advice" still has the word 'advice' in it I guess.

Oh look, a butterfly...