Two Pennies Worth

Ex-News of the World writer Sam Dunn says it's time to take more pride in British journalism

Journalism has always had its knockers, says ex-News of the World writer Sam Dunn, but the blows have recently acquired a new force.

By Sam Dunn

My profession has always provoked plenty of jokes and joshing.

For nigh on 14 years, any social occasion that has prompted guests to talk about their jobs has regularly compelled me to defend newspaper journalism against the usual lazy brush-stroke perceptions: most frequently “grubby”, “sensationalist” and “fabulist”.

But the phone-hacking scandal has turned the softer side of criticism into something harder.

It isn’t just family and friends who have raised an eyebrow to the criminal extremes to which some journalists felt they had to go to get a story. 

Two very small incidents passed recently where a comment that once might have been brushed off with a smile felt distinctly chilly instead.

Career choice

The first was at an informal leaving drinks do where conversation swiftly turned to career choices.

Since it was just a matter of days since the News of the World had been shut down, journalism inevitably cropped up and my stint there - as a freelance financial “agony uncle” helping readers who had run into trouble with poor customer service – became of interest.

However, on top of the usual ribbing, a slightly hateful note crept into the conversation about illegal practices where hacks either had no qualms about being above the law or felt they didn’t have to be held to account.

This is the very sentiment – and a powerful one at that - that often inspires people to become journalists in the first place, so to hear it being thrown back in our faces was dismal.

The second affront came in a petrol station, of all places, as I paid for fuel.

Spotting my press card in my wallet, the member of staff joked about it being a tough time for journalists.

“It sure is,” I said, “and it makes our job a lot harder to –“. And at this point, he interrupted to add “You know, it really wasn’t very nice cracking into private phone calls, horrible really, a shame.”

While the phone-hacking scandal continues to play out, it’ll be difficult for many of us to talk with pride about what we do.

Pride in professionalism

Yet perhaps now is the perfect time to do so, and put a stop to the churning sentiment that journalists are all spiv-like, greasy, noxious operators regardless of where they work.

Amid all the shocking claims, there’s a danger that the public forget all the good we do (and let’s not forget that journalism itself, at the Guardian, doggedly uncovered the phone hacking).

First there are the obvious efforts to hold the government and its decisions to account, recently effective with the 2009 MPs’ expenses farrago and coalition government climbdowns on NHS and prisoner sentencing reform.  

Second, journalism tries to help readers to get a clearer sense of the world’s whys and wherefores – whether it’s understanding why war is still being waged in Afghanistan, why interest rates haven’t moved for well over two years, why it’s worth going to see the new Turner Contemporary gallery in Margate – the questions are limitless.

Third, the press has huge power to campaign for change for the better, especially at the regional or more local level where their clout can help introduce better political changes, prevent closure of vital public services or raise huge sums of money for charity.

My paean to the press should stop there – of course left/right political leanings, proprietor influence and commercial interests among other things colour the mix, and it would be remiss not to appreciate this in any choice of paper.

Reputation

Yet journalism’s reputation is in dire need of cheerleaders right now, especially from those who work within it.

Fifty years ago, American playwright Arthur Miller wrote that a good newspaper is a nation talking to itself; there are many such UK papers still doing so today, with the chatter increasingly online.

But the conversation is in the midst of a very embarrassing pause thanks to the phone hacking; unless more journalists bang the drum for their own trade, we run the risk of accelerating the day when it dries up altogether.

 

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. 

Consumers shouldn't be punished for trying to find cheap credit deals

We must reform the system that punishes consumers who seek the best card and loan deals, says Sam Dunn. 

A novel way to buy a car

Pick a dealership you like the look of – perhaps it’s one you’ve used before – and run an eye over the models.

When you’ve decided which one you like, ask the salesman if he thinks you should be allowed to drive it or not.

To your dismay he says: “Sorry sir, the answer’s no; but have you thought about this more expensive make instead?”

Twisted, eh? But there’s more.

Unwilling to pay more for a vehicle you really don’t want and can’t afford, you decide to visit rival dealerships.

The same process happens again but each time you visit a new forecourt, the staff are fully armed with the knowledge of where you’ve been before – and the decisions the other dealerships have made.

You’re caught in a trap, entirely at the whim of profit-hungry companies.

The credit trap

My car analogy sounds like a pretty bizarre way to make a major financial commitment but unfortunately it’s one already in practice – when we apply for credit cards and loans.

Frankly, it’s a ludicrous system that would be funny if the consequences weren’t so severe. When you apply for a particular loan or credit card, the very act prompts a “search” entry to pop up on your credit file.

This has an immediate effect on your credit score: positive if you’re successful, negative if you’re turned down.

If it’s the latter, now the nasty part starts. Say you apply for a 0 per cent balance transfer card but your bank tells you that actually a 14 per cent interest card is the best you can get – understandably, you decline.

Yet your ability to then shop around for a cheaper card deal from a rival lender is compromised because of the very act of your first application – regardless of what the offer was.

A vicious circle

Or say you want a credit card offering cashback but your lender can only manage to offer you one without and you refuse – again, the very application taints any future chance of success.

And there’s the rub: too many rejected credit search applications, particularly in a short space of time, can catapult you into a vicious circle.

This is because multiple searches leave imprints on your file and can ruin your credit score as lenders may consider your behaviour as desperate, a sign of over-commitment to debt, or even fraudulent, and rate you accordingly.

Worse, people are lured in by lax marketing laws made more lax by a recent EU ruling that lets card companies advertise headline-grabbing, dirt-cheap “typical rates” as long as 51 per cent of applicants get them - it used to be 66 per cent.

So say if 1,000 people apply for a cheap seven per cent loan, only 510 must qualify: this means 490 go away with a marked card to begin the process all over again.

Each application is essentially a gamble, leaving only the lenders as the real winners.

A better solution

In theory, there’s a way out of this: the “quotation search”.

Instead of an application search which marks your credit files, this type leaves no trace and lets you compare credit cards or loans without fear of further damage.

However, this option is still largely ignored by lenders because, as well as being expensive for them, there’s a much greater risk you’ll simply go elsewhere for a better deal.

The banks should be forced to allow quotation searches, but as yet they don’t have to.

The Treasury Select Committee examined this issue but decided it wasn’t grave enough to warrant any drastic change. That's a poor decision given how expensive credit is today, with many households struggling to find the best deal to help them manage their personal finances.

It’s left price comparison sites such as Confused.com to fill the gap with a service that can help you avoid constant rejection by giving you an indication of the type of card you can apply for and your likely success rate. Find out more about Card Matcher. 

But the fact that cosumers continue to be punished for trying to find the best deal is an utter nonsense Treasury Select Committee, and has no place in consumer-friendly Britain.

Is your PIN safe: Who's looking over your shoulder?

Sam Dunn says that taking security precautions with your financial details is nothing to be ashamed of.

“Her face reddened slowly as a flush grew on the back of her neck and a faintly audible stammered excuse tumbled forth from her lips.”

Sadly this isn’t the intro to a lascivious yet lucrative airport bonk-buster but a minor humiliation in a supermarket checkout queue last month. 

The catalyst was a youngish woman’s efforts to cover her personal identification number (PIN) pad as she tapped in her four-digit security code to pay for a few groceries.

Her awkward hunch over the counter had first sparked a loud titter or two from a fellow queuing shopper in front of me, especially when she appeared to forget the number and had to start again.

Yet it was only the booming boorish comment from a man behind her, a snidey “Don’t worry, my love, I’m not going to rob you!”, followed by the checkout assistant’s rolling eyes that made me realise how uncomfortable the woman was and how unwarranted – and unwelcome – this attention was.

Improved security

The chip and PIN system rolled out in 2005 is designed to reduce card fraud by doing away with easily-forged signatures. By issuing everyone with special plastic and PINs, it’s much harder for criminals to sneakily solicit your details for a spending splurge.

However, while banks and retailers have done their bit to upgrade technology, we also have to play our part to make it work – and too many card users remain churlishly ignorant, impassive or simply don’t give a fig for the risks.

Last year, some £47.6m was withdrawn from ATMs by fraudsters using cloned or skimmed credit and debit cards and, on top, £44.4m spent on stolen or lost and mislaid cards.

This is no chicken feed, but the toe-curling supermarket scene – an embarrassed shopper unjustly ridiculed for being alert to the security risks from simple “shoulder-surfers” (fraudsters who note an uncovered PIN and later steal or copy the card), as well as the possibility of more elaborate scams involving gangs and tampered handsets, staff or CCTV – suggests many have an attitude that believes otherwise.

Safety first

Falling victim to card fraud isn’t just a major inconvenience, with cancelled plastic and a frustrating need to rely on cash for everything.

It also usually requires you to prove your innocence and although consumer law states very clearly that banks must refund fraudulent chip and PIN transactions, banks have become particularly adept at rebutting such claims.

Increasingly, they argue that the customer must have been “grossly negligent” to have let it happen, and refuse to pay out. (If this does ever happen, complain vehemently to the Financial Ombudsman Service which can demand evidence to the contrary.)

Avoiding such a hassle at all cost should be a key priority for any bank customer – yet plenty of shoppers steamroller on with a blithe disregard for PIN security.

A quick check

Last week, for research purposes of course, I determined to see how many PINs I could pick up simply by shoulder-surfing in cash point queues and at store tills.

During 30 minutes inside a busy shopping centre, I made out the four-digit code in eight out of 10 such situations without any special effort; in most cases, absolutely no attempt was made to cover the key pad when punching in their PIN.

Personal security lapses aren't confined to just chip and PIN; on two separate occasions recently, I listened without much difficulty to a stranger's mobile phone conversation.

In each case, I was able to pick up the key details needed to commit fraud: his name, address, card number, expiry date AND the three-digit security number on the reverse.

Of course, the probability of a fraudster eavesdropping at exactly the moment he openly gave away the keys to his credit card account was pretty low, but such indifference can sadly only boost the odds of falling victim to crime.

This kind of recklessness remains the exception rather than the rule, but it's an unhappy state of affairs that so many are so slapdash with their personal financial data.

How to get a refund, repair or replacement for faulty goods

Consumer champion Sam Dunn explains your rights when it comes to getting a refund, repair or replacement for faulty goods.

By Sam Dunn

To get on in school, it paid to master the key three Rs: reading, writing and arithmetic.

As a consumer pitched against canny companies, you’ll need to concentrate on a rather different trio instead: refund, repair or replacement.

When you buy faulty items you’ll often run up against corporate flimflam, a fog of confusion or – worse – downright ignorance from customer service staff desperate to avoid paying out. So it pays to know what you’re entitled to.

Your right to refund

First, and most clearly, you’re entitled to a refund if you immediately discover your goods are faulty without even using them. For example, you get home and then spot a missing or cracked part, say, or can see damaged casing.

As long as you can show proof of purchase - the original receipt is easiest but a print-out of a credit card or bank statement will pass muster – then this is usually a watertight case for a refund.

In many cases, you’re also eligible for a refund if you only use the goods a couple of times before realising they’re damaged or faulty – for example you realise after a day or two that your new fridge doesn’t keep your food cool or your DVD player won’t play discs without randomly ejecting them.

Don’t leave it too late

The key emphasis here is on time – and making sure you don’t take too long to decide whether to “reject” (as it’s known in the trade jargon) your faulty goods.

Unfortunately, there is no legal definition of just how much time you can take to complain and reject faulty goods.

It’s something that companies sneakily use to wriggle out of paying up - and whether or not you can get a refund can depend hugely on the type of goods and circumstances surrounding a delay in your complaint.

For example, one national high-street retailer recently refused to refund a brand new kitchen appliance that had only been used once because the buyer hadn’t installed it for six weeks. The reason? He was busily looking after his unwell daughter instead.

To preserve your right to a refund, install, test or check anything you buy ASAP.

The minute you think they’re faulty, stop using the goods immediately and contact the seller as soon as possible by phone (and put it in writing to boot as a sign of your intent).

Repairs and replacements

Once you’ve run out of time for a refund, you’re left with a repair or replacement option – but when are you entitled to which and why?

First, let’s dip briefly back into the legalese.

If you’ve bought and used goods for a considerable time – say you’ve had a new lawnmower for a couple of months but its recently sputtering engine suggests a developing fault – by law you have now “accepted” the goods.

This means you’re no longer entitled to a refund but the store or garden centre you bought it from should offer to repair or replace it.

Your choice of a repair or replacement isn’t clear cut and you probably won’t be able to make an outright preference because the law goes someway towards keeping costs down for all parties.

So if a lawnmower repair is likely to be significantly cheaper than a replacement for you, then the store can first offer this. However, it should carry out your repair within a reasonable time and without causing you any significant inconvenience (and if it does, you can ask for a partial refund).

Dealing with further problems

If the repair’s unsuccessful, you can ask for a replacement but if even this doesn’t stop the problem – and the motor still starts to conk out with your second new mower - what next?

At this point, you should then be able to claim a part-refund.

The store will be entitled to knock off a fair bit from the original price you paid to take into account the “successful usage” you managed to get from it.

It’s also worth stressing that some stores won’t even get as far as suggesting a repair or replacement and will simply offer you a partial refund immediately (or allow you to keep the goods but give you some money back for the fault).

However, it can only do this if the cost of repair is more than the value of your goods or could take months to sort out.

How much do you love your partner?

Confused.com columnist Sam Dunn says couples should tread carefully when considering a financial union.

I don’t pry out of excessive prurience, of course, rather from genuine concern for your cash.

When any couple make a commitment to each other, it’s not too long before their finances draw closer together too – a joint credit card often pops up first, followed by savings, then a current account and mortgage.

Naturally, two wallets are better than one: a step-up in spending firepower; more generous savings for a smarter car; a bigger mortgage for a larger property.   

Yet your heavenly match could also leave your money in hell if it all turns sour.

For starters, your credit rating could collapse.

Or you could end up forking out for your partner’s profligacy and bad card debts.

And how about paying every penny of a joint home loan because your ex-partner is either bad-tempered enough to refuse to pay or has fallen on hard times and can no longer keep up?

Double trouble

The problems are twofold. First, very few of the lovestruck bother to stop and carefully question the risks of hitching their personal finances to those of another.

Second, and rather more delicately, even fewer would ever dare suggest a solution to the risks of bigger joint financial decisions such as a mortgage or pension: a neat legal document detailing what would ever happen in the event of a split.

Unfortunately, passion killers don’t get any bigger than two sets of lawyers’ bills so to spare you such humiliation, here are crucial pointers about knowing when to best pool your finances - and when you’re better off pulling apart.

Home is where the heart is

Doubling up has its greatest impact with a mortgage as you can usually borrow a larger sum than when going alone by adding your salaries together; an income multiple of three or four times a combined £60,000 tends to buy you a swankier pad than one with a solo £30,000.

Yet make no mistake, when you sign the mortgage forms, you become jointly and severally liable for that monthly sum; if the relationship heads south and either you or your ex can’t – or won’t – pay, the bank or building society can legitimately hound either or both of you for the money.

This same principle can sour joint credit cards or loans (and even utility bills) too: if your personal circumstances deteriorate, the debts must be settled. And if one party defaults or is unable to pay, the other half remains liable.

Banking issues

What about a joint current account? While it at least relieves a couple’s administrative burden by corralling payments for all bills, it also poses a credit rating risk by creating a financial “link” between the two of you noted by credit reference agencies (a joint mortgage will alert them too).

So if you or your other half hit the skids financially, the poor money management can be contagious if it damages your joint account and make it harder to obtain fresh credit.

A joint life insurance policy might sound like a simple money saver – a £500,000 payout for less than the price of two separate £250,000 policies – but carries particular risks all on its own.

If you were to split years down the line, that joint cover would need an instant junking in favour of a likely very expensive replacement (to pay for dependent kids, say) since you’ll be older with less robust health.

Similarly, even if still together and one half sadly dies, the survivor will benefit from the larger payout but any new subsequent life cover would likely cost more if many years have passed.

Get saving and avoid tax

At least joint savings offer a brighter vision of financial unity: two incomes channelling spare cash into an emergency fund will generate a bigger savings pot much more swiftly than one.

You’ll also qualify for double the usual £85,000 guaranteed protection in the event of a bank crash – cash in joint accounts counts as a half each, so together you can save £170,000 without fear of loss.

And if one partner earns significantly less than the other – or nothing at all – they can cannily avoid higher tax bills.

By parking as much in the way of joint savings in the name of the lower-earning partner, they can make use of the £7,475 tax-free personal income allowance (if under 65) and lower savings tax rates to legitimately keep as much interest as possible. 

Rip-off Britain is here to stay

Consumer champion, Sam Dunn tells Confused.com warns us that the most common day to day rip-offs are here to stay.

If you took the reins of a major UK company, would you instinctively hustle your customers?

I only wonder because every month or so, another swathe of the British public falls victim to hucksterish rip-offs.

Last week, Consumer organisation Which? filed a so-called “super complaint” with the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) in a bid to kibosh "rip off" surcharges levied by companies on debit and credit card transactions.

Teams of Which? researchers discovered that, while the cost to companies for processing a payment by debit card hovers around 20p and is no more than 2 per cent of the transaction value for a credit card,  companies regularly charge far higher fees.

Egregious examples included train-ticket booking site the Trainline slapping on a £3.50 charge for credit card payments while Eurostar laid it on extra thick at £4.

Naturally, the retailers themselves contend that they’re trying to recoup the cost of charges levied to them by banks and card issuers.

The Which? salvo is just the latest in a frankly ludicrous litany of criminal charges and rapacious rip-offs that continue to leave the average UK punter blinking in a state of incomprehension.

What could go wrong with council tax band valuations? Easy: estate agents drove down streets in second gear and wrongly valued some 400,000+ homes leaving many overpaying thousands since the early 1990s.

Or how about the sale of over-priced payment protection insurance on credit cards and personal loans?

And don’t forget monstrous personal pension mis-selling in the late 1980s where providers creamed the fattest of commissions for their own pay packets while convincing retirement savers to swap a secure final salary scheme for the vagaries of the stock markets.

Then there’s endowment mortgages (cheap interest-only home loans were an easier selling point than complex stock market-related endowments), high-risk precipice bonds for elderly savers, door-step selling, split cap investment trusts….

It would all seem to suggest that being a modern-day mountebank is either too lucrative to ignore – hang the inevitable penalty fines that ultimately come with it! - or that it doesn’t take much to swindle the ordinary British customer.

But I wonder how much of it is vanquished victims and the rest middling mugs?

Part of the problem is that enough of us, when faced with outrageous card charge hikes or preposterous sales pitches, still plough ahead and buy anyway.

In worst-case scenarios, many won’t have a choice because of lack of income or poor knowledge – especially among the vulnerable and elderly – and that’s a nasty exploitative situation we can all do without.

However, it’s also the case that many more who do have a choice will be complacent and won’t think to cast even a fleeting glance at small print; won’t blink at a spiralling credit card charge because they can afford it; or are simply too trusting to ever balk at a particular charge and say ‘Excuse me, did you just say that would cost me X? I’ll have to think again.’

Of course, there’s greed too: barrelling headlong into a financial arrangement – take your pick from store finance to hire purchase or credit card promotion – simply to get your hands on favoured goods is nobody’s fault but our own.

Unfortunately, all these flaws favour those with money over those without: and if enough of the former carry on with their daily financial routines like this, it’ll simply get worse for the latter.

Rip-offs thrive in such adverse conditions as, when consumers don’t all pull in the same direction, their overall protection remains stunted.

Until this changes, all manner of snake oil salesmen, profiteers and traders seeking to make a fast buck – whether dressed up in corporate suits or flogging fakes in back streets - will continue to creep into our lives.

So look lively: the rip-off is here to stay for a long while yet.

Don't give in to gormless and poorly-trained staff

Consumer champion, Sam Dunn tells Confused.com how to take a stand against shop staff who refuse you a refund.

It’s a stomach-churning moment: you traipse back to a store to show your malfunctioning – or simply plain bust – goods to a member of staff whose blank face gawps back with a hopeless: “It’s not our problem”.

Gormless, unhelpful and poorly-trained shop staff create merry hell for customers who are simply exercising their legal rights to a repair, refund or replacement.

“If it’s passed its one-year guarantee, there’s nothing we can do”; You could try the manufacturer”; and “If you don’t have a receipt, there’s really nothing we can do” are three of the most galling – and ridiculously wrong – excuses.

You don’t need a receipt

Customers’ howls of anguish echo everywhere, from major music stores to high-street electronics shops and furniture warehouses to big-name retailers.

In a capacity as a consumer champion for other publications, I’ve read hundreds of emails from readers who have run into either a wall of ignorance or woeful ineptitude from sales staff who know literally nothing about customers’ rights.

If wilful, it’s a scandal but I suspect it’s more a case that – despite the negative impression it leaves – stores have little incentive to teach staff the ins and outs of the key Sale of Goods Act 1979 consumer protection law.

After all, for every bolshy customer who takes it all the way to head office, there will be a dozen who don’t. So don’t be fazed by know-nothing shop staff: here’s the protocol to put them back in their box.

Know your consumer rights

When a staff member claims that since a typical one-year guarantee has run out “There’s nothing more we can do”, first point out that your consumer rights don’t run out at the same time as the manufacturer’s guarantee.

Explain that for any number of goods – whether a microwave or washing machine, DVD or CD, lawn mower or laptop – they will be expected to last for a reasonable amount of time, usually a few years.

When he or she raises an eyebrow, stress that the Sale of Goods Act 1979 demands that what you bought should be of satisfactory quality, be fit for purpose and as described, and last for a reasonable amount of time – and that your goods clearly fall flat on whichever count applies.

Or, in the sadly all-too-common incidence of staff telling you to take it to the manufacturer, remind them that their store has a legal duty to sort it out for you; similarly, as long as the goods are faulty, you don’t need a receipt as a credit card or bank statement will suffice.

With a dash of luck, you might strike gold with a savvy employee quick to see the error of their ways.
Sadly, you’re more likely to draw a blank, so ask to speak to a senior manager and detail exactly what’s wrong – in many cases, you may get a refund or replacement on the spot.

But expect the worst: a refusal and suggestion to take it up with head office.

Don’t give up when the shop refuses your refund

This is no setback: you’ve now to simply put your complaint in writing to customer complaints and make sure you also send a copy to the chief executive’s office. Starting with your official letter of complaint, your arsenal of weapons is considerable - Trading Standards and, ultimately, the small claims court (for goods up to £5,000), so don’t lose any heart.

Most companies will swiftly buckle once they realise they’re in legal hot water but some will hold on for a spell to test your resolve. 

A quick final rule: never lose your rag with staff

Although you might think that blowing your top could help resolve a dispute in your favour, managers will usually fully back staff without knowing the ins and outs of any given situation. It’ll also weaken your status in any final resolution as an aggressive or intimidating approach to staff will give companies leeway to complain about your behaviour in any protracted dispute.