[AusNOG] Vendors back charging on support and maintenance.

Paul Wilkins paulwilkins369 at gmail.com
Sat Apr 28 10:26:12 EST 2018


The original statutory guarantees apply, per ACL, however this has no
bearing on whether a vendor can be compelled to issue a support contract.

Yes you're entitled to make the same warranty claims as the original
purchaser, though I suspect the equipment is out of warranty anyway.

I am not a lawyer. This is not expert opinion.

Kind regards

Paul Wilkins

On 28 April 2018 at 09:18, Peter Tiggerdine <ptiggerdine at gmail.com> wrote:

> Paul,
>
> I never said the vendor has no preexisting relationship and the thread has
> proven that consumer law applies.
>
> Regards,
>
> Peter Tiggerdine
>
>
>
>
> On Sat, Apr 28, 2018, 08:43 Paul Wilkins <paulwilkins369 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> The vendor has no preexisting relationship with the purchaser, so the
>> vendor can dictate such terms as suit to bring the device under support.
>> The purchaser can take it or leave it - unless the vendor's actions are,
>> beyond dispute, in breach of the law.
>>
>> There's no consumer protection rights. The original purchase doesn't
>> apply.
>>
>> You could argue the 18 months support in arrears for no benefit, amounts
>> to restrictive practice. It arguably restricts resale of the vendors goods.
>> It also arguably exploits a monopoly the vendor has in support of their
>> product.
>>
>> The vendors have a good argument that it's necessary to backdate support
>> to avoid support being paid only on RMA. There's a better argument that it
>> prevents the unscrupulous buying failed equipment to bring back into
>> service cheaply.
>>
>> So it's moot. There's arguments both sides, and the law will not lightly
>> restrict people's rights to draft contracts as they choose without a clear
>> case of illegality.
>>
>> But what if you got the ACCC interested enough to challenge? Even if you
>> won, the consequence would be the vendors, rather than backdating support
>> 18 months, would institute a programme for testing hardware being brought
>> in from non preexisting support arrangements, and charge the equivalent of
>> 18 months support for doing it.
>>
>> I am not a lawyer. This is not expert opinion.
>>
>> Kind regards
>>
>> Paul Wilkins
>>
>>
>>
>> On 27 April 2018 at 22:43, Karen Hargreave <karen at iamunique.net.au>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Devils advocate here, but could it be argued that the products lifetime
>>> ended in some aspects once the original purchaser decided to sell it? Of
>>> course that may depend on its age, but I would think that it could be
>>> reasonable to say that if the original purchaser had had the item for a
>>> number of years, then sold it, it was possibly because a newer and bette
>>> model had come along and thus the original products useful life had ended.
>>> So could a vendor not then assume that this is a fair way to judge a
>>> products life? Like I said, playing devils advocate.
>>>
>>> As for the original issue, then I don't see why some sort of
>>> recertification of the item couldn't take place. Is this sort of thing the
>>> vendors normal practice? If so, then perhaps it was something that might
>>> have needed to be thought about when purchasing the item.
>>>
>>> Sent from my iPad
>>>
>>> On 27 Apr 2018, at 5:07 pm, Nick Gale <nickgale at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> Lifetime warranties usually only apply to the original purchaser though.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On 27 April 2018 at 16:00, <trs80 at ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au> wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Fri, 27 Apr 2018, Richard Bayliss wrote:
>>>>
>>>> > The ACCC consumer guarantee states it doesn’t apply to second hand
>>>> (private sales) goods, which is the scenario the OP stated.
>>>>
>>>> Private (personal) sales, but businesses are still covered:
>>>> https://legalvision.com.au/i-sell-second-hand-goods-do-the-
>>>> consumer-guarantees-apply/
>>>>
>>>> Again, none of this helps the customer deal with the original vendor
>>>> asking for 18mo support in arrears. It might if the hardware died
>>>> without
>>>> support, since many vendors provide a lifetime hardware warranty and as
>>>> such it would be reasonable to expect that under the ACL.
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> # TRS-80              trs80(a)ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au #/ "Otherwise Bub here
>>>> will do \
>>>> # UCC Wheel Member     http://trs80.ucc.asn.au/ #|  what squirrels do
>>>> best     |
>>>> [ "There's nobody getting rich writing          ]|  -- Collect and hide
>>>> your   |
>>>> [  software that I know of" -- Bill Gates, 1980 ]\  nuts." -- Acid
>>>> Reflux #231 /
>>>>
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