Miele trying to make me pay £69 for fuse change

happysaver

I'll try to be concise. Miele customer service is the worst ever.

My Miele hoover overheated. I thought it was the fuse so went through all my appliances to find one that matched. I wrongly put in a 3 amp fuse from my Wii, when should have been a 13 amp one. DUMB. The old one worked in Wii so thought fuse was not the issue. Turned on hoover after changing fuse and it still did not start up - still overheated. Tried it a bit later and it started but then concked out due to the underrated fuse.

The Hoover was under warranty, so I asked for a repair. Obviously the fuse was the problem and now Miele are sending the baliffs round unless I pay £69 - saying the charge is common to all maintenance issues. True enough the email they sent before taking the hoover said £69 would be payable if fault was maintenance issue - though did no mention fuses in particular.

Does anyone have an opinion on this? Would this come under Unfair Contract Terms Act?

To me it seems mad that the issue has got this far - and I'm ready to go to court over it, but would I win?

G42

happysaver wrote: »

I'll try to be concise. Miele customer service is the worst ever.

My Miele hoover overheated. I thought it was the fuse so went through all my appliances to find one that matched. I wrongly put in a 3 amp fuse from my Wii, when should have been a 13 amp one. DUMB. The old one worked in Wii so thought fuse was not the issue. Turned on hoover after changing fuse and it still did not start up - still overheated. Tried it a bit later and it started but then concked out due to the underrated fuse.

The Hoover was under warranty, so I asked for a repair. Obviously the fuse was the problem and now Miele are sending the baliffs round unless I pay £69 - saying the charge is common to all maintenance issues. True enough the email they sent before taking the hoover said £69 would be payable if fault was maintenance issue - though did no mention fuses in particular.

Does anyone have an opinion on this? Would this come under Unfair Contract Terms Act?

To me it seems mad that the issue has got this far - and I'm ready to go to court over it, but would I win?

In a word - No

dmg24

This is quite fair, and certainly not something where you could quote UCTA. The fault was caused by customer error (Miele are very polite in calling it 'maintenance issues') and therefore it is quite reasonable to charge a call out fee.

Miele are very good at maintaining their products, as long as they are used correctly.

smcaul

I would be be more worried about the overheating issues!!! Did they sort that problem out after changing the fuse? I would say the fuse was incidental really as they would still have had to come out for the overheating issue.

Alfrescodave

The Hoover was under warranty, -so why did you fiddle with it? You had the perfect opportunity to get it fixed or replaced for nothing!

And yes do listen to other people (especially dmg24) as they do have a clue

mute_posting

Have you read your manual OP?

Warning: If vacuuming for longer
than 30 minutes, the mains cable
must be pulled out to its fullest
extent. Otherwise there is a danger

of overheating and damage.

AND

A temperature limiter switches the
vacuum cleaner off automatically if it
gets too hot. Some models also have a
warning light,which comes on to
indicate that it has overheated.
This can occur if, for instance, large
articles block the suction tube or when
the filter bag is full or contains particles
of fine dust. A heavily soiled exhaust or
dust compartment filter can also be the
cause of overheating. Switch the
vacuum cleaner off immediately using
the On/Off foot control s. Disconnect
from the electricity supply. Switch off at
the wall socket and remove the plug.
After removing the cause, wait for
approx. 20 - 30 minutes to allow the
vacuum cleaner to cool down. It can

then be switched on again.

Also you put the wrong fuse in so I'd say Miele are well within their rights to enforce the £69 fee that they had warned you about.

Fuses in standard 3-pin plugs are almost always classed as "consumable" items - in fact I can't think of a case where they wouldn't be off hand.

Your only recourse (IMHO) is if the vacuum is overheating due to a fault, but Miele are pretty on the ball and will probably have come to the conclusion that there is no fault, just missuse.

MP

mute_posting

Alfrescodave wrote: »

The Hoover was under warranty, -so why did you fiddle with it? You had the perfect opportunity to get it fixed or replaced for nothing!

And yes do listen to other people (especially dmg24) as they do have a clue

That's perhaps true - but if no fault was found (it seems in this case that the vacuum was functioning as described in the manual) OP would probably have incured a fee even if they hadn't changed the fuse for the wrong size.

MP

happysaver

Glad to hear feedback, I'm clearly biased so it's great to hear other opinions.

I can see mis-reading the number on the fuse was a foolish error, and overheating is a bit of a safety feature (wire would have been fully extended for the record, as this is my habit).

Saying that the cost does still seem totally disproportionate to me. It would have taken no more than ten minutes to sort at their end and I certainly feel this is an example of a big company trying to profiteer at my expense, but I suppose making profit is what good companies do.

What I would be interested to learn is why the situation of Miele charging me £69 to change a fuse is different to unfair bank charges? Certainly the bank charge issue is by no means settled yet, but many seem to feel the consumer could win as the charges banks levy have little to do with the costs they incur.

Could someone explain to me why Miele charging £69 to change a fuse is different?

Rex_Mundi

happysaver wrote: »

Saying that the cost does still seem totally disproportionate to me. It would have taken no more than ten minutes to sort at their end and I certainly feel this is an example of a big company trying to profiteer at my expense, but I suppose making profit is what good companies do.

It would have taken them a lot longer than this. They had to receive delivery, arrange a technician to work on it, and even if he found your very basic mistake after a few minutes. He would still have had to test the hoover to make sure this was the problem (it would have been no good them sending it back, and you still finding the same problem). Then they would have had to dispatch it to you again (another worker/cost with more time involved).

On the other hand.............

If you had looked at what you were doing, you could have realised your own mistake in less than a couple of minutes (allowing for the time to take the plugs apart and pull the fuses out).

happysaver wrote: »

What I would be interested to learn is why the situation of Miele charging me £69 to change a fuse is different to unfair bank charges? Certainly the bank charge issue is by no means settled yet, but many seem to feel the consumer could win as the charges banks levy have little to do with the costs they incur.

Could someone explain to me why Miele charging £69 to change a fuse is different?

You are trying to invoke the Unfair Terms Consumer Contract Regulations (UTCCR) and trying to compare your situation to bank charges. There is no comparison. The banks have levied charges as part of an ongoing contract between them and their customers (it's only the amount of the charges that are being contested, the banks are allowed to cover their actual costs by law even under this law). The company charged you a fee because you invalidated your warranty when you yourself changed the specifications of the hoover by your own mistake. If anything, you invalidated any contract the warranty would have offered by your own hands.

The bold words above may seem a small difference, but they make a big difference in law.

If I bought a new hoover and it stopped working for a while, then I stuck a screwdriver down into the motor (thinking it would fix the problem), and it blew up. Would you expect me to get a free repair/motor/hoover? I think you got off lightly with this charge.

mute_posting

happysaver wrote: »

Glad to hear feedback, I'm clearly biased so it's great to hear other opinions.

I can see mis-reading the number on the fuse was a foolish error, and overheating is a bit of a safety feature (wire would have been fully extended for the record, as this is my habit).

Saying that the cost does still seem totally disproportionate to me. It would have taken no more than ten minutes to sort at their end and I certainly feel this is an example of a big company trying to profiteer at my expense, but I suppose making profit is what good companies do.

What I would be interested to learn is why the situation of Miele charging me £69 to change a fuse is different to unfair bank charges? Certainly the bank charge issue is by no means settled yet, but many seem to feel the consumer could win as the charges banks levy have little to do with the costs they incur.

Could someone explain to me why Miele charging £69 to change a fuse is different?

Did it cover the collection and delivery or did you pay that seperately?

At the end of the day they did warn in the email that there would be a £69 fee.

Is quite different from bank charges - most of those are generated by computers / automatically.

In the case of your vacuum, it has been picked up taken to a service centre, and then a technician has probably done a number if tests and inspections.

i.e. I would assume it is standard practice to electrically test item before working on it, they would also probably carry out some function tests to confirm the unit operates correctly.

My point is they won't have just looked at the plug, seen it had the wrong fuse, changed it and sent it back.


Then it has been shipped back to you.

MP

Creosote

Putting a 3 A fuse in where a 13 A is required would normally just cause the fuse to pop, as the fuses function is to protect the appliance from drawing more current than needbe and therefore normally no damage to the appliance. If it was the otherway round (i.e putting a 13 A in a 3 A appliance) then it could cause damage to the appliance.