[AusNOG] Vendors back charging on support and maintenance.

[Peter Tiggerdine]

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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