Why six is the magic number when it comes to refunds

When it comes to your consumer rights, it pays to play the numbers game. Sam Dunn explains all.

Three may well be the magic number for culture vultures, school kids learning to count and musicians alike.

But when it comes to your consumer rights, you’d do better to put your faith in the number six instead.

Vital rules on making a complaint and taking faulty goods back turn on two separate sixes – commit them to memory and, in turn, you’ll be able to knock stubborn retailers themselves for six.

Six months

First up is the six-month rule for faulty goods.

If you buy any goods that break or develop a fault within this period, you can take them back to the store where staff must immediately offer to repair, replace or refund them depending on how many days or weeks have passed.

It’s worth stressing the word “must” here.

Thanks to a key piece of European legislation called the Consumer Guarantee Directive, UK consumers have enjoyed extra protection from what’s known as the Sale and Supply of Goods to Consumers Regulations 2002.

In short, it means that if you return goods within six months, the retailer has to accept that they were faulty when you bought them (and so must make amends).

Critically, if the store refuses to accept that your goods were faulty, then it’s up to them to prove this.

In other words, if store staff believe that you’re chancing your arm and damaged your goods by accident yourself, it’s up to them to demonstrate this.

Understandably, few retailers want to spend cash going this extra mile - especially since it’s often cheaper to simply offer a replacement or repair – and so any such problems can usually be solved swiftly.

Swift solution

So buy a new washing machine only to discover five months later after normal use that the drum won’t revolve properly, and you can return it for repair or replacement.

You might find the shop manager huffs and puffs as he or she examines the machine but if there’s no explanation of the fault and no signs of damage, you must be compensated.

However, there’s an evident flipside to the six-month rule; what happens afterwards.

Say your washing machine stops working properly after seven months and you return to the store to complain (assuming there’s no one-year guarantee which, to be fair, most white goods do include).

This time, the manager is entitled to ask you to prove that the fault was there when you bought the goods – even though it has taken several months for the flaw to emerge.

This means you could need to show that neither ordinary wear and tear nor your own damage is to blame, or that a particular component – the drum motor, say, in our example – shouldn’t have broken down so quickly.

This might sound like a nightmare but it’s usually solved fairly simply; plenty of independent engineers or electronics repair specialists will examine white goods and prepare a report, often for as little as £40 to £50.

They can usually be found as members of their industry trade association. For your washing machine and many other household appliances, try the White Goods Trade Association.

In reality, most white goods today come with a guarantee lasting 12 months but once this expires, the onus is largely down to you.

Six years

And here is where the second “six” can help you out.

If your goods stop working or break at any time up to six years after you bought them (five years in Scotland), you can ask for a repair or part-refund, taking into account how much use you have already made of your goods.

However, there is a major caveat.

You can do this as long as it is reasonable for the goods to have lasted this long in the first place.

Unfortunately, there is no legal foundation as to what actually constitutes “reasonable”.

For example, while it’s clearly reasonable to return a mobile phone that barely picks up any incoming calls, is it unreasonable to take back a handset that can’t take calls in your own home (but is fine elsewhere) because of a poor local signal?

Life expectancy

It’s not made any easier by there being no set timelines for reasonable “life expectancy” of various appliances: much depends on use, condition, manufacturer and quality of parts.

Many believe a washing machine should last at least seven years, for instance, but a washer constantly on the go in a household with three children will likely break down long before one used much less regularly.

The added value in the six-year rule is that it allows you to buy goods and use them at much later date without losing rights: for example, if you give a pair of shoes as a gift that aren’t opened for a year only for the recipient to then discover the leather is ripped, the rule means they can take them back.

Remember, though, that not all companies will dig in their heels whenever parts fail, or rebuff you at every turn.

In many cases, quoting the Sale of Goods Act 1979 and explaining your rights should be enough to convince staff that your goods were shoddy and should be repaired or replaced at no charge to you. 

Comments

[David Ireland]

I have had to have a programmer for my gas heating replaced after about 6 years. I have asked BG to replace it under the Sale of Goods Act, but they refuse. Is there any way of finding out how long a domestic programmer should last? The previous one was still working after about 18 years.

[Tony]

Presumably you still have to provide proof of purchace whenseeking redress. That's not always going to be easy after six or seven years - or in the case of a gift unopened for a year.