American fridgefeezer / Fridgemaster MS91515DFF/ -compressor stopped working after 18 months AO.com

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

Alderbank said:

My opinion (others may will disagree) is that £421.75 is an opening gambit open to counter offers. If I were you I would push for at least £450, perhaps £500 but I would be willing to compromise. Perhaps see if they will offer a good deal on a different model? Fridgemaster are at the lower end of the quality and price scale.

I agree £450 for the fridge and £45 for the report is sensible to push for, somewhere around £450/£475 for an easy life would be acceptable to me personally  

Alderbank said:

 small claims court seems to accept that a straight-line depreciation of domestic white goods over 6 years is 'reasonable'. In other words that is likely to be what you would get if you went to court.

@Alderband what is this based on please?  

Alderbank

There's no time limit in the Consumer Rights Act, but this seems to be based on the Limitations Act 1980 in England & Wales which limits the time that breaches of a simple contract are actionable to six years after the breach occurs (the 'accrual of action') which for an inherent fault would be the date of purchase.

That's the way it seems to be applied in practice so I suspect there might be some precedent in case law.

PS I'm not Alderband 

taffer87

Alderbank said:

So they have agreed it is faulty and have offered you £529 x 4.5/6 = £396.75 + £25 towards report = £421.75?

The key word is 'offered'.

They are trying to play hardball. Average life expectancy might be 10 years (my Samsung American fridge/freezer is still going strong at 17 years) but small claims court seems to accept that a straight-line depreciation of domestic white goods over 6 years is 'reasonable'. In other words that is likely to be what you would get if you went to court.

If you went to court you would claim the full cost of the report as an allowable expense. However until and unless you actually go to court it is just a matter of negotiation.

Court is always an option for you although a fair bit of preparation is involved. Court would involve AO in a lot of management costs and expenses which they would like to avoid. 

My opinion (others may will disagree) is that £421.75 is an opening gambit open to counter offers. If I were you I would push for at least £450, perhaps £500 but I would be willing to compromise. Perhaps see if they will offer a good deal on a different model? Fridgemaster are at the lower end of the quality and price scale.

Thanks what about claiming from the credit card company - I have heard but have no idea whether true that they can be more amenable but could be wrong - appreciate this will take a lot longer (and will I actually be unable to dispose off the fridge in meantime)?

tightauldgit

tightauldgit said:

You'd probably be looking at something like a £400 refund then if they don't want to repair or replace so would certainly seem like worth pursuing - I imagine at that kind of money they may well look to do a repair for you but they may decide it's cheaper to just send you a replacement new fridge. 

Just going to give myself a little round of applause for eyeballing that within a £5 of what they offered haha. 

6 years is a bit low on a life estimate of a fridge but there's no real hard and fast rule on these things. If you google it you will get all kinds of numbers so if you can find a reputable source that says 10 years - a government department or industry association or something is always a good bet then you could go back to AO and say you think an 80 or 85% refund plus all of the cost of the inspection is fair. 

Do bear in mind that difference you are arguing over here is £50-75 quid so there comes a point where it's not worth going to court over. 

You could of course ask if they would be willing to give you a replacement fridge of the same model? Or a £500 ao.com voucher instead of the cash refund so you can replace the fridge. 

Do you still have your repair contract that cost you £140? If so you've made out like a bandit so just take the cash. You seemed initially as if you'd have been happy just to get the £140 back. 

taffer87

Yeah 140 back would have been fine but then the fridge would be repaired too (well when the part comes). Right now I am going to get £400 but need to replace the fridge which is fine as I need it urgently but £50 more and full cost would be nice. Will try and push more tomorrow 

interestingly on Ao.com’s own website for American fridge freezers they use a 17 year average life to calculate energy savings of this type of item (based on third party data)

will try for 10 years and settle at 8

will get the 140 refunded as don’t need the repair .. 

PS fair point on raising the thought though.. I hadn't really thought about getting the Zest plan guys to repair it and also getting the refund from AO.com - only issue with this is they have no idea when it will be in stock - they are using the manufacturing company though

tightauldgit said:

tightauldgit said:

You'd probably be looking at something like a £400 refund then if they don't want to repair or replace so would certainly seem like worth pursuing - I imagine at that kind of money they may well look to do a repair for you but they may decide it's cheaper to just send you a replacement new fridge. 

Just going to give myself a little round of applause for eyeballing that within a £5 of what they offered haha. 

6 years is a bit low on a life estimate of a fridge but there's no real hard and fast rule on these things. If you google it you will get all kinds of numbers so if you can find a reputable source that says 10 years - a government department or industry association or something is always a good bet then you could go back to AO and say you think an 80 or 85% refund plus all of the cost of the inspection is fair. 

Do bear in mind that difference you are arguing over here is £50-75 quid so there comes a point where it's not worth going to court over. 

You could of course ask if they would be willing to give you a replacement fridge of the same model? Or a £500 ao.com voucher instead of the cash refund so you can replace the fridge. 

Do you still have your repair contract that cost you £140? If so you've made out like a bandit so just take the cash. You seemed initially as if you'd have been happy just to get the £140 back. 

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

Alderbank said:

PS I'm not Alderband 

Whoops, my apologies  

Alderbank said:

There's no time limit in the Consumer Rights Act, but this seems to be based on the Limitations Act 1980 in England & Wales which limits the time that breaches of a simple contract are actionable to six years after the breach occurs (the 'accrual of action') which for an inherent fault would be the date of purchase.

That's the way it seems to be applied in practice so I suspect there might be some precedent in case law.

The forum is the only place I've seen this mentioned, the guidance from Business Companion makes it clear the deduction should be specifically for use, it's clear a fridge is something that is going to be used all the time (although with other appliances that companies like AO or JL sell that wouldn't be the case) so we are really talking lifespan in this particular instance. 

I can certainly see that using the limitations timeframe is beneficial to the likes of AO to both reduce their liability and their workload in actually determining how much use a product has had but don't see any connection whatsoever to the limitations timeframe, especially given that timeframe varies in Scotland.

Without spending too much time looking I found one case regarding the Final Right to Reject where a deduction of £5000 was imposed after approx. 15 months for a car which cost £122,000, which is about 4% of the purchase of price.

https://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/format.cgi?doc=/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2022/1339.html&query=("final+right+to+reject")

I don't think it's possible to see small claims cases online, which is unfortunate as that would be very interesting indeed. 

I think the idea of linking the deduction to use (or lifespan of a product) to the limitations timeframe is nothing more than a myth that companies are happy to embrace because it reduces their liability and most people accept what they are told so it's unlikely to be challenged on most occasions.  

tightauldgit

taffer87 said:

Yeah 140 back would have been fine but then the fridge would be repaired too (well when the part comes). Right now I am going to get £400 but need to replace the fridge which is fine as I need it urgently but £50 more and full cost would be nice. Will try and push more tomorrow 

interestingly on Ao.com’s own website for American fridge freezers they use a 17 year average life to calculate energy savings of this type of item (based on third party data)

will try for 10 years and settle at 8

will get the 140 refunded as don’t need the repair .. 

PS fair point on raising the thought though.. I hadn't really thought about getting the Zest plan guys to repair it and also getting the refund from AO.com - only issue with this is they have no idea when it will be in stock - they are using the manufacturing company though

tightauldgit said:

tightauldgit said:

You'd probably be looking at something like a £400 refund then if they don't want to repair or replace so would certainly seem like worth pursuing - I imagine at that kind of money they may well look to do a repair for you but they may decide it's cheaper to just send you a replacement new fridge. 

Just going to give myself a little round of applause for eyeballing that within a £5 of what they offered haha. 

6 years is a bit low on a life estimate of a fridge but there's no real hard and fast rule on these things. If you google it you will get all kinds of numbers so if you can find a reputable source that says 10 years - a government department or industry association or something is always a good bet then you could go back to AO and say you think an 80 or 85% refund plus all of the cost of the inspection is fair. 

Do bear in mind that difference you are arguing over here is £50-75 quid so there comes a point where it's not worth going to court over. 

You could of course ask if they would be willing to give you a replacement fridge of the same model? Or a £500 ao.com voucher instead of the cash refund so you can replace the fridge. 

Do you still have your repair contract that cost you £140? If so you've made out like a bandit so just take the cash. You seemed initially as if you'd have been happy just to get the £140 back. 

If I'm in your shoes I:

1. Let Zest do the repair
2. Buy a cheapo fridge off Facebook or Gumtree to tide me over for a month then sell it on or give it away
3. Haggle a bit with AO and then take what they offer me. 

Then you get a working fridge plus £400 in your pocket. 

screech_78

After 18 months, we’d offer around £404 as a partial refund. However, you’re also entitled to the full cost of the report back.

We’ve had a couple of customers go down the small claims route in the last year challenging the partial refund amount offered and we’ve won both times, so fairly confident in the figures. 

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

screech_78 said:

After 18 months, we’d offer around £404 as a partial refund. However, you’re also entitled to the full cost of the report back.

We’ve had a couple of customers go down the small claims route in the last year challenging the partial refund amount offered and we’ve won both times, so fairly confident in the figures. 

Out of interest do you have the specifics or a copy of the judgements?

screech_78

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

screech_78 said:

After 18 months, we’d offer around £404 as a partial refund. However, you’re also entitled to the full cost of the report back.

We’ve had a couple of customers go down the small claims route in the last year challenging the partial refund amount offered and we’ve won both times, so fairly confident in the figures. 

Out of interest do you have the specifics or a copy of the judgements?

I don’t, sorry. 

I’ve been spending a lot of time with our legal department in the last 3 weeks and have been going through the outcome of some cases that my team has dealt with over the last year or so. It’s been really interesting. 

EDIT: apologies, I mis-read. I don’t have a copy of the judgements and I couldn’t share on a public forum if I did. However, both cases were TV’s. One was 4 years old, the other just under 5. I’d have to go back into everything to get the exact amounts offered. However, both customers rejected the partial refund (repair costs were too expensive in comparison). 

On one, our solicitors had advised they thought we had a 50/50 chance of winning. Once we submitted our evidence to them from all of the notes they thought we had a 75% chance. 

I must admit, I’m quite surprised by the amount of claims we defend. 

There was also an expired gift card case, around £500 worth that we didn’t replace. We defended that and won too. That one surprised me the most as I thought we were possibly on shaky ground with saying no. 

Anyway, I digress and it’s not worth my job to share anymore 😬