The Ebay cooker hood

[Harry Bloomfield]

We bought a cooker hood via Ebay for £60 guaranteed 5 years parts,

2years labour. Yesterday it failed at a bit under 3 years, so this morning I tried to chase up the seller. The seller referred me to the company which carries out warranty repairs and on enquiring what the labour might be I was told £129, which included any parts, if it was repairable. It is not repairable, the motor has failed.

The 5 year guarantee is less than worthless, yet quite a few of the sellers indicate this 5 years in their blurb on Ebay.

Anyone have a link to who/how to complain to on Ebay please?

[whisky-dave]

Why is it worthless if you get a free part if it's repairable.

Of course there might be some T&C that you agreed to which says they have t o fit the spare part so they might charge a lot for labout perhaps £12

9 and a free part.You might be lucky if you can find the cost of the part a nd insist that is removed from the 'free' parts and labour but douby you'll get far. Is it really an ebay issue ot the seller you went with ?

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Why would Ebay be interested? Presumably you found out any conditions of a warranty before buying? You can't assume it is an unconditional warranty afterwards.

[Harry Bloomfield]

There were no T&C's to view. Who in their right mind would expect (or be expected) to have to pay £129 for the repair of something with a new cost of £60?

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Any so called warranty beyond the legal amount would need checking IMHO. Your one sounds like a good way of making money from any claims.

[Andy Burns]

Assuming it is from shipitappliances, they do say 5 year parts + 2 year labour, so there should at least be the expectation of being liable to pay something if it goes wrong in years 3 to 5.

[Harry Bloomfield]

Andy Burns explained on 09/01/2017 :

£129, more than twice what was originally paid, when the same item is still for sale at the original price of sub £60. Where is the logic in that for the customer?

[Andy Burns]

But selling something cheap in the first place doesn't make the labour cost of repairs any cheaper does it?

Of course it doesn't make sense to pay twice the purchase price to repair it, think if it as £60 repair cost, which includes 2 more years warranty :-)

[Harry Bloomfield]

on 09/01/2017, Andy Burns supposed :

The other side of the coin, why temp customers to part with their money based upon the offer of any useless 5 year guarantee?

[Andy Burns]

What would be a reasonable labour cost for the repair? I presume it's on-site rather than return to base?

[Clive George]

You know the answer to that one...

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Presumably this is a house call to fix it? Think about it. How much would you expect to pay a tradesman just to visit your house - let alone do anything?

[Nick]

It's a standard scam. Why are you pissed off with ebay as opposed to the seller, manufacturer or our government (which allows such scams)?

[RJH]

Did you read the 'blurb'?

I don't follow - where's the scam? The labour may be higher than you might expect - but not off the scale.

[Adrian Caspersz]

I contacted Cyrus for a replacement volume pot for my 8yr old crackly mission amplifier. Was told that they don't supply parts, but could service the whole amplifier for £130.

Wrote it off (and bought a Marantz), I couldn?t find equivalent pots with the same volume control taper law.

Bye Cyrus, your marketing has served you well. :(

[Harry Bloomfield]

Dave Plowman (News) presented the following explanation :

Either guarantee something where the guarantee has some value, or don't bother offering one at all. This guarantee is just deceptive.

[Nick]

What blurb?

The scam is to pretend to offer an opportunity that will never be economically obtainable.

It is the same as offering people £100 pound prize but in the small print charging them £110 pounds to collect it.

It is off the scale that makes obtaining the free replacement parts economic.

[Roger Hayter]

The surprise is that the original item is so cheap. The repair cost doesn't sound excessively expensive. You might try demanding they give you the "free" part so you can fit it yourself. They'll probably want to charge you 120GBP admin, though.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Suppose I'm just used to so called extended guarantees having a catch somewhere.

The first one I ever had was on a used car. In practice, it would have been cheaper to arrange and pay for the repair myself than have it done under warranty.

[Tim Streater]

The catch is that they are not value for money. Unlikely to be worth it.