OFT DEGS Review

[VillageIdiot2]

Hi all…

As most will know, the WTA are assisting the OFT with a market review of issues within our trade.

The WTA have almost completed a very thorough report, that is to be submitted to the OFT by 12th January 2011.

This is your chance to get YOUR views in to the report as independent repairers. What we would like to ask, is that as many people as possible, find 5 minutes by close of play 10th January to answer the following questions and email me with your opinions. All opinions received, will be included in the WTA Report, and to be blunt, the more the better as finally, someone is looking at our trade and giving us Indies the time of day to look at issues affecting us… We should all jump on this wagon!

1. Does the restriction of Manufacturers Technical Information, prevent you from carrying out repairs for the consumer, if yes, why?

2. Does the high cost of spare parts, affect you from repairing appliances, that have basic faults, or could be repaired easily if it was not for the cost of the part/s?

3. Would you say, that the lack of Manufacturers Technical Information, is an influence on the consumer, by scrapping a repairable product?

4. Would you say, that because of the restriction of Manufacturers Technical Information, this restricts the growth of your business, due to not being able to repair certain brands, and in fact, in some instances, have no option but to point the consumer, in the direction of the Manufacturer?

5. Does the lack of Technical Information mean that on occasion, you order parts, that may not have been required if Technical Information was available?

Please email any replies to adrian.welke@whitegoodstradeassociation.org

Thanks, Ade 🙂

[ben–nevis]

Re: OFT DEGS Review

Hi Ade,
I would like to reply to a letter received from a member of the WTA board in his official capacity within the WTA (I have no idea what this “capacity” is as it is not stated!)dated 10/12/2010.
We have replied to the letter on the UKWG site not to cause any offence to the membership of the WTA far from it, we try wherever possible to help any member of the trade regardless of an affiliation to a trade body or not. The simple fact is (if you are a member of WTA) this was sent in your name.
This letter relates to the WEEE Directive and also the OFT “Investigation” into Domestic Electrical Goods. Which I presume is the; Market review of white and brown domestic electrical goods. This review is as I understand it two-fold:
Firstly looking at competition from a consumer’s prospective and the review of a monopoly Order which has been in place for some time.
Secondly a potential market study on aftermarkets for Domestic Electrical Goods including extended warrantees and Servicing and repair.
The first section of the letter states that “several of our members” have written to you in recent months concerning the release of tech info spare parts information. While I am aware of the issue within the trade and the distribution of the addresses of manufacturers on this site we have had no such request from anybody regardless of their capacity. Hopefully, because we have never refused any request for information. As with service agents, all manufacturers are not same.
The letter goes on to state that; as no response has been received to these requests by the WTA members, hence the need to contact us in an “Official Capacity”.
If we have had any request for technical information either from a WTA member a Connect Agent or an Independent repairer the information has been issued Free of Charge. In fact, I will go one step further and state that all of the latest training material and fault code information on our products was given to Ken from UKWG on our recent meeting with the only proviso given that nobody would profit from this freely given information.
The letter goes on to state that as “we must officially respond to the OFT inquiry prior to 12th Jan. I would “formally” request that you please respond with your company’s position so that we may report back to the OFT and DEFRA. While this is a nice offer, you are not in a position to formally request anything. I can assure you that if any official requests for information are made , we are more than capable of doing so for ourselves and this will be given as freely as we have the technical information mentioned previously.
The letter then goes on to say “we shall accept no response as a position of “no comment” on the matter and a refusal to make this information and equipment available to trade members in general and, specifically, to our members.”
If we had received such a letter, which we did not, no comment would be exactly that, NO COMMENT, while you can take this to be a refusal if you wish, I for one am glad you are not in any official capacity as at best this comment is amateur and at worst would make the entire argument put forward to the OFT by the WTA worthless upon investigation.
Firstly It would be wrong to report that any manufacturer has told you information is not available merely by not responding to a letter that has not in fact been received.
Secondly if the information were to be available to only WTA members surely this would merely be replacing one monopoly with another, forcing independent technicians to become members of your association in order to obtain information.
In response to the crux of the letter, specific information requests
1 Is information available
Yes it has been freely given to Ken of UKWG and any other agent regardless of affiliation to any trade association or service company and will continue to be so.
2 Where are spares available at a trade discount
Spares are available from spare parts distributors who open accounts with our European spares centre such as our service provider.
3 Are any specialist diagnostic equipment / tools required
No
4 Are there costs involved
We do not charge and have never charged for technical information other than a historic Premium rate number which was introduced at the time to ensure the service could continue this has long since been removed.

The letter finishes with “your comments would be appreciated in a timely manner to allow you to report back to the various government bodies that are interested in these matters”. the WTA is not as I am aware in a position to report anything other than its comments to anybody Government or not. And as mentioned earlier it should be careful not to taint the comments it does give with a biased opinion. It will be interesting to see if this letter will be given to the OFT together with the WTA findings.

Please take these comments in the spirit they were intended, I am not knocking the sentiment or ideals of the WTA, just the method. I work for a manufacturer that uses and supports independent agents for service and have done so for many years. We have and will continue to freely give any information we have to the trade as I am sure Ken will confirm.

[kwatt]

Re: OFT DEGS Review

Hi,

Yes the info for your products is pretty much fine and not a problem and yep, I do have a lot of it on a thumb drive.

The letter that was sent was fairly generic as it would be too time consuming to produce specific letters for everyone and I’m sure no offence was intended. But, you also have to understand that a recurring theme in the responses has been, we’ve never been asked but… we’re not giving you it anyway, don’t much care about what the legislation is, tough.

Or sentiments along those lines.

There’s also multiple instances where members have sent request, see the Manufacturer’s Technical Info thread for more details, and there has been no response to those requests. Yet we have been informed that no-one ever asked. But how long do you take a refusal to answer as anything other than a “no”?

The short of it is, it’s a thorny issue and one that is quite emotive on a number of fronts.

Some manufacturer’s are absolutely brilliant and help virtually any trade member, others… well, not so much.

Trouble is that to get a fair sample you can’t just pick on the bad ones.

As to only accessible to WTA members, not at all. The point is to get a free market, not a closed or restrictive one in any way. The point being that by restriction of technical information or diagnostics software/equipment could be construed as being restrictive.

Just my tuppence though.

K.

[ben–nevis]

Re: OFT DEGS Review

Hi Ken,

I agree that you could well be right in the case of some respondees that no response could be taken as a “no”.

If you were asked to confirm the questions answered as a result of this letter and how your data shows that there is a resounding “no” from manufacturers if in fact is nothing more than a count of no replies, you will find this case hard to proove and difficult to be taken seriously.

I agree that all manufacturers should be contacted but there could be a number of reasons for no reply. Not leased that all manufacturers have been contacted for comment by the OFT directly making reply to the WTA pointless other than not being used incorrectly in WTA data as a NO.

[kwatt]

Re: OFT DEGS Review

I can see the point you’re making and it’s a fair one but, what the WTA was after was, how would the brand owner, retailer or manufacturer react to requests from normal traders and then from a trade association.

Not how they would necessarily answer the OFT.

Plus, it depends on what questions are asked as to what answer your get.

The OFT painted with a broad brush whereas the questions the TA asked were specific looking for specific answers that were pertinent to independent appliance repairers.

K.

[Lawrence]

Re: OFT DEGS Review

As the person whose name is on the bottom of the letter I feel the need to reply ,As I quite rightly don’t have the benefit of knowing who you work for I will need to respond in broad terms .
The WTA was approached by the OFT with regard to the DEGS review as a party involved in the appliance sector to enable them to have as many routes of input as possible .
The letter that was sent out was of a standard nature for a reason that being we would then have a benchmark with which to fairly represent the responses ,Some responses were as simple as we are replying to the OFT ourselves so we will not provide any info ,others disagreed with the scope of the regulation and yet others were extremely genorous with their responses.
If we were to select how we wrote to the individual manufacturer depending on our experience then we would open ourselves to accusations of favouritism .
To be frank In a way we were damned if we did and damned if we
didnt ,but Apologies to you for any offence caused but not all manufacturers are as forthcoming as yourselves (whoever you may be )

I have to agree with Ken ,if you look at the forums there is a constant req for tech info from Manufacturers yet there are only a few that I can think of that will in my experience freely give info if you are not an agent for them Brandt,Rangemaster,Beko,Crosslee.

The WTA has had members asking for tech info from manufacturers and have fed back the negative reponse that they have recieved ,Therefore the WTA does have a right to ask the pertinent question on behalf of those members ,we are not seeking to be pedantic or confrontational but apoligies if that is how it has come across.

regards
Lawrence Carey
WTA Chairman

[ben–nevis]

Re: OFT DEGS Review

Hi Lawrence,

Many thanks for your post.

If I may, I would like to clarify my point of view. As we already give the information freely I have no real opinion on the OFT review, other than it will help the trade in general and may make it easier to get an independent technician to take on more advanced / less common brands.

As Far as the WTA is concerned I beleive that it is only right that the OFT has included the WTA and DASA in their review. Where my issues arose were in the context of the letter not the questions asked.

I understand the need to send a generic letter and the need for a consistent approach to correspondents. But please do not confuse, no reply, with a “no”, no matter how frustraiting it may be . The only loser in this would be the WTA as this would look foolish under any scruitany from the OFT if this letter was produced by other manufacturers to argue their case.

Hope this clears up the issue and thank you again for your response.

Regards

[Lawrence]

Re: OFT DEGS Review

ben–nevis wrote:Hope this clears up the issue and thank you again for your response.
Regards

It does and Thank you
Regards
Lawrence

[DrDill]

Re: OFT DEGS Review

Just wondering if there is any members or non WTA members who have read the report got any thoughts about it and its thorough contents.

[kwatt]

Re: OFT DEGS Review

Latest news from the OFT this afternoon, now I can publish it as the embargo is lifted.

K.

[kwatt]

Re: OFT DEGS Review

It would appear that this is drawing to a close with retailers getting knuckles wrapped…

http://ukwhitegoods.co.uk/appliance-ind … down-.html

If they are forced to offer competition etc. it could seriously impact on their bottom line so, not good news for them.

So far there’s been no mention (to me or that I can find) on the whole manufacturer warranty thing. But, I would assume, that the same rules would apply and that manufacturers offering a warranty when a breakdown is reported will be asked to provide alternatives to the customer.

K.

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