A house fire in Newcastle this week has thrown the spotlight on our weak Consumer Protection Laws. The massive South Korean Samsung conglomerate sold 144,000 washing machines in Australia and in 2013 it issued a recall because moisture was liable to penetrate the control mechanism, resulting in the machine bursting into flames.
Samsung's remedial action consists of placing a plastic bag taped over this control mechanism to prevent moisture entry and the network manual instructs service crews to dry these components with either a hair dryer or a paper towel to remove any moisture present. Clearly, this is far inferior to replacing the faulty part with a new and improved component.
Sadly, only 67,000 faulty washing machines have been repaired with this method and a vast number of owners are still using machines which are liable to burst into flame at any moment - and the plastic bag repair has failed in twenty-two instances, two of which ended in a destructive house fire.
Whatever happened to out famous " Three R " Comsumer protection policy ? The purchaser of faulty goods is entitled to return them to the point of sale and make a choice from one of the three R's. Repair - Replacement - or Refund. That choice is entirely at the discretion of the customer.
It seems that about 20,000 canny customers have availed themselves of that choice of options, but seeking redress for faulty goods remains reliant on the customer making a claim, and obviously many people are either unaware that they have a lethal washing machine in their home - or are too apathetic to take the trouble to respond to the recall. There have been hundreds of house fires caused by this fault and surely public safety requires Samsung being required to seek out and fix the problem ?
It seems strange that the Consumer Protection laws that cover all manner of electrical and electronic goods - do not apply to motor vehicles. We still lack " Lemon " laws, despite them now being in place in many other countries. A buyer of a new car which is constantly stuck in the dealer's workshop for warranty repairs is entitled to hand it back and demand either a refund - or a replacement. This has often been promised by our politicians, but the legislation has so far failed to make it onto the floor of parliament.
The Volkswagen saga is a case in point. The owners of Volkswagen, Audi and Skoda diesel powered vehicles were fitted with deceptive technology designed to give a false reading during emission tests. As a result, these engines are far more " dirty " during routine driving than their owners were led to believe and the scandal has decimated the trade-in value when replacement becomes due.
Volkswagen has agreed to repair this fault, but it comes at a cost to the car owners. Lowering emissions will come at a cost to vehicle performance, and they will use more fuel, and this is on top of a further scandal that fuel economy tests generally bear no relation to the actual fuel use in normal driving. All manufacturers dupe potential customers by specially preparing vehicles to return an economy level that it will be impossible to duplicate in actual traffic driving.
That produces a " Catch 22 " situation. Many owners will not present their vehicles for rectification because to do so will result in a performance drop and they will continue to harm the ecology by spitting out increased nitrates in our congested cities. It may take a refusal of registration to round up all these faulty vehicles - and those who bought for their performance value will be far from satisfied.
It is evident that we need to fine tune our Consumer Protection laws. It is simply unforgivable that thousands of Australians are living with a ticking time bomb in their laundry and that no redress is still available when the second most costly purchase most make in their lifetime - turns out to be a " Dud " !
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