Hotpoint fridge

Pegasus99

Hi, fridge (4 years old) stopped working, supposed electrical fault after engineer visit. Hotpoint simply saying not covered and not prepared to help. £500 fridge lasts 4 years! Anyone experienced same thing any suggestions?

PHK

Your consumer rights are against the retailer. As it's more than six months since purchase you'll need to prove that the fridge is inherently faulty or is not of sufficient quality. 

The usual way to do this is to obtain an independent report from a suitable qualified person. If the retailer accepts the report then they should either arrange a repair or give you a partial refund accounting for the use you'd have. In this case probably between a third and a sixth depending on exactly how old the fridge is. 

If they don't accept the report and your satisfied the report shows the fridge is inherently faulty or of insufficient quality then you'd need to take them to court. 

Vitor

If you paid with a credit card, you might be covered under Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act, which holds the credit card company jointly liable.

DullGreyGuy

Vitor said:

If you paid with a credit card, you might be covered under Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act, which holds the credit card company jointly liable.

As you say, it just mirrors your rights to the card issuer rather than giving you any additional rights. Assuming the retailer is about, ie hasn't gone bankrupt etc, then often they are in a better position to assist than a bank is as appliance shops have networks of appliance engineers, furniture shops have networks of furniture repairer, car dealers have car repairers etc... banks dont have networks of repairers and engineers that can deal with every single type of product a consumer can buy. As a consequence you are much more likely to need to payout for an engineers report if via a bank than the retailer. 

Obviously some retailers dont do the right thing and then having the second option of a bank rather than having to go to court can be helpful, though in my case with JL I decided to issue against them rather than go down the S75 route and their appointed lawyers almost immediately said they'd settle in full

Eyeful

1. Did you:
(a) Check the fridge plug13A fuse is ok & not blown?
(b) Plug the fridge into a different socket, to check the wall socket is ok?
or
(c) plug a lamp into the wall socket used by the fridge to check the wall socket is ok?

2. Where did you get the engineer from?
    Was this engineer an electrical engineer or a fridge service engineer?

3. What exactly did this engineer say the fridge fault was or did they just say it was an "electrical fault"?
     Did they check the compressor at the back of the fridge to see if it was OK? 
     You can hear the compressor click in and out when the fridge is working normally. 

My fridge/freezer worked for about 8 years before the compressor packed up.

Pegasus99

Hi
Thank you, we called out a Hotpoint engineer, I recall that he said it was a part that was within the fridge that wasn't accessable.  It may well have been the compressor, he did replace temperature gauge, but it didn't do anything.
Think I'm going to go down the section 75 route as Hotpoint have been very unhelpful

PHK

Pegasus99 said:

Hi
Thank you, we called out a Hotpoint engineer, I recall that he said it was a part that was within the fridge that wasn't accessable.  It may well have been the compressor, he did replace temperature gauge, but it didn't do anything.
Think I'm going to go down the section 75 route as Hotpoint have been very unhelpful

Unless you bought it from Hotpoint, you should be contacting the retailer as advised above.