A long and rambling tale, so sit ye down by the fireside and pour yourself a cup of cocoa. :-)
It were back in '05...or was it '06? Don't rightly remember but in them days there was 12 months in a year and the weather was unreliable. Men were men and smelt like it. That should help pin it down....
I was living on my own at the time - new job in another part of the country - so I bought a washing machine and a tumble drier. Worked well for me - come home after work, put on a load of washing and then dry it, sorted for next day.
As time passed full domestic harmony was resumed and time was found to hang the washing out and so the tumble drier was placed on "standby".
The tumble drier remained on "standby", more recently stored in the Mother of All Sheds, and was finally scheduled to be sold.
To try and place a value on it I used Google.
This led me to .
Also much indignation in the press, for instance:
Other newspapers are (thankfully) available.
On reading, you see the words "customers are being charged up to £99" which didn't make me keen to pay for a replacement as it was being lined up to be sold anyway.
I went through the process and registered for a repair. Got an email today telling me the repair was scheduled for May 2017, or I could opt for a new machine. Hmmm....new machine? As in brand spanking new?
The email does say "A brand new tumble dryer
You can opt for a brand new tumble dryer for a contribution to the total cost."
Pah! I thought, you don't catch me like that! Why would I pay....hang on...how much????
The offer was for a TVFM70BGP 7kg vented drier. As in
Other retailers charge more.
So (subject to it really being a new machine and not a refurbished machine) I seem to be getting a brand new tumble drier worth at least £190 for £19 plus my old one.
I could have just decided to scrap it because it was old, or sell it on Gumtree (for example) for a notional sum.
However, Google started me on a trail which looks remarkably like the Good Fairy waving her wand in unexpected directions.
Footnotes
(1) on thinking about it, an individual visit by an engineer to fix the fault is likely to cost a fair bit, especially as this is no doubt sub- contracted because of the sheer volume of the recall.
(2) The long delay is not good publicity (see press comments above) if you are relying on your tumble dryer every day.
(3) The cost to Whirlpool of the replacement is nowhere near the retail value.
Therefore supplying new lamps for old may well be inspired marketing coupled with realistic cost control. At least you are preventing a sale to a competitor.
(4) On the selling front: I am having a major clear out of years worth of accumulated "stuff" and donating the proceeds to my chosen charity Diabetes UK. Looks like a nice windfall for them.
However I am finding it difficult to provide a single source of a list of all the small items I want to sell along with details of why I am selling and a running total of money collected. Apart from an eBay store (with the
10% levy on all sales AIUI) is there any other way to list what is effectively an on line garage sale in a vendor and purchaser friendly manner?Cheers
Dave R