Review by Office of Fair Trading

Hi,

We have been asking for this for a long time as we in the trade feel ripped off on spares pricing and lack of technical information for many brands. This has the effect of restricting who you, the public not in the trade, can choose to repair your appliances and when you do get a repair the price you have to pay for it. So the public get ripped off as well and you do not have fair competition in the after sales market.

I suspect though that Ken had more to do with making this happen than publishing an article as he is very pro consumer but fair with it.

Re: Review by Office of Fair Trading

quickwash wrote:Yes, but that honestly wasnt a dig at you Oliver, quite 😯 that you thought so

What this post was about is that i was recently informed by’ someone in the know’ that a miele part which can be bought for 48euro trade is sold for over £220 retail :shake:

No excuses for that, just totally wrong IMO

regards

quickwash :plug:

Didn’t for a minute think it was a dig at me, just couldn’t resist! 😆

O.

Re: Review by Office of Fair Trading

Just wait till we publish some of the responses from manufacturers and retailers that own their own brands for information that they are obliged to supply to trade by law if we can.

Basically, some are telling us to “go away”.

Others are seemingly just ignoring the requests in the hope we go away.

Only a few (like three of four) so far has actually responded with anything close to meaningful. And, in some cases, you can just tell it’s being given through gritted teeth.

I think we should publish these responses, lack of responses and let people make a more informed choice when buying but I don’t know if we’ll be allowed to do it.

What has been interesting though is that some of the cheap appliances we’ve looked at have got absolutely no repair, technical or spares backup at all. It’s a case of, if they go wrong, you throw it away and buy another one whether you like it or not.

K.