Alex Heney S.O.G.A. 'acceptance' theory anyone????

As there is no entity "Trade Description" they can hardly give anyone a refund. Contract law is also indifferent about whether misrepresentation is accidental or deliberate. It is about goods meeting the contract requirements not attributing guilt or punishing wrongdoers (other bits of law do that).

You are not unequivocally entitled to a full refund of your purchase price if you find a product has been misrepresented. How much you will get depends upon the gap between your contractual expectation and what you received. It also depends upon when you spot the problem and what was in the contract.

Let's say you go to buy a new car. You order one with a rear cigarette lighter socket. When you go to collect it you find there is no socket fitted. You can reject the car and get all your money back. (In reality the dealer will object furiously and you would need to go to court but thanks to Clegg and another v Olle Andersson (trading as Nordic Marine) [2003] you will win, rejection does not have to be reasonable).

If you don't notice it is missing when you collect the car but discover its absence a few weeks later you can't reject the car, you have lost that right, but you can require the dealer to fit a socket or reduce the purchase price to compensate you for its absence.

If you had put in the contract "A rear lighter socket is essential as I need it for keeping my frogs warm when they are in the car" the item becomes contractually more important. If you find the socket missing some months after purchase you still can't reject the car but you can demand the dealer fits one and if this isn't possible provides you with a replacement car of the correct specification and of similar age and mileage - he doesn't have to supply you with a new replacement. You get compensated for the discrepancy - not rewarded.

Rejection doesn't have to be reasonable, all other remedies afterwards do have to be. This is not common sense but an anomaly caused by trying to keep a law written in 1893 valid in 2007.

Not true.

A criminal record is a significantly worse outcome than a full refund on a single item - and will happen *in addition* to any remedies the customer is entitled to where the retailer can be proved to have deliberately mislead.

Indeed.

I would expect most consumers to demand replacement when they can. They won't be entitled to do that if that would be "disproportionate", but otherwise they have that entitlement (assuming the goods to be faulty of course).

Not quite, but more or less, yes.

In case B, the deduction is not technically for "fair wear and tear", but rather for the fact that yo have had some use from the item.

That is your opinion, and you are entitled to it. I suspect quite a few people would share your opinion of the law here. (I'm assuming your "s**te" refers to the law as described, rather than being a refutation of what I say).

Yes. No argument there.

You might think that should be the case.

It isn't.

It is showing that you *really* don't have a clue about consumer law.

It is nothing to do with "thick" people - I don't actually think that is likely to have very much effect on how likely you are to notice faults immediately, but if it does, then yes, that is just their hard luck I'm afraid - so far as the *law* is concerned. this may be unfair, but the law has never been fair.

I ask you again - if you believe that a consumer is always entitled to a full refund if goods turn out to be fault, then what is the point of sections 48A to 48F of SOGA?

Instead the manufacturer is rewarded?

You suggest that manufacters need not 'bother' adhering to contract unless you 'happen' to notice - which is not how it works

If it were true i would start manufacturing tomorrow - I would 'not bother' installing 'Dolby 5.1' decoders in their 'Dolby 5.1' TV's - and instead coin in extra £200 per set in profit - wait for less than 0.001% to notice (which is about the correct proportions) - and would just install it for them

Aint gonna happen - which is why your wrong

In reality - I would be refunding the lot - which would make all the punters 'whole again' so they can buy from someone more reputable than me

NO NO NO NO NO.

how many times do you need telling this?

NOBODY has suggested that the manufacturer (who is irrelevant anyhow) or the retailer (who is the relevant entity) would be "rewarded".

Assuming their deception was discovered, and could be proved, then they would be subject to criminal prosecution.

Actually, it is *exactly* how it works.

You might be "refunding the lot", from whatever pitiful sums you had left after paying the fines from your *criminal* conviction.

The seller has to pay to put you back in the position the contract should have left you in or has to compensate you for the shortfall. However, whether the shortfall is caused by deliberate deceit or honest error is, as far as contract law is concerned, almost irrelevant. This works very much in the favour of the buyer. In order to get a remedy they simple have to show the item did not meet the contract, not prove additionally that the seller was negligent, dishonest or anything else. The seller is not rewarded, but neither are they punished.

Sellers adhere to the contract because if they don't they get lots of customers asking for recompense and people stop buying things from them. If they deliberately misrepresent products they also get a starring role in the local criminal court. Manufacturers do likewise otherwise traders would not buy from them. As for nothing happening until someone notices - quite often that is exactly how it happens. The first anyone knows of a non-compliance is often when customers start complaining. There is no organisation doing any significant amount of pre-emptive comparison of products against their specification.

You don't have much experience of the real world do you? You are mixing up two different branches of law. What we are talking about here is mainly contract law, civil law. In contract law manufacturers, as far as customers are concerned, don't exist. The customers contract is with the person who sold them the goods not the manufacturer (unless the manufacturer sells directly to the end user). All civil law is concerned about is conformity with the contract.

If the seller deliberately misrepresents a product they are breaching criminal law. In your example above the Trade Description Act. This act

states :- "Prohibition of false trade descriptions. ? (1) Any person who, in the course of a trade or business,? (a) applies a false trade description to any goods; or (b) supplies or offers to supply any goods to which a false trade description is applied; shall, subject to the provisions of this Act, be guilty of an offence..."

Criminal law works to different standards of proof than civil law but it is criminal law, and only criminal law, which punishes. Criminal law is also not concerned with customers contracts, that is for civil law. Contract law simply puts people where the contract said they should be.

In reality you might simply be told to fit the appropriate device in each TV of those who ask for it or provide a partial refund to make up for the shortfall. A civil court is not really interested in whether you omitted the units deliberately or accidentally. You might also find yourself in a criminal court and it is there, not in the civil court, that you would be punished if the offence was proven.

For a criminal case to be brought the deviation must be fairly significant "A false trade description is a trade description which is false to a material degree.". In the example I used before of the car delivered without its rear lighter socket the seller can reject the goods, there is no test of reasonableness or degree of deviation during the inspection period and any deviation is sufficient grounds for rejection. If the buyer then went to the local Trading Standards and tried to press for a criminal charge under the Trade Description Act they would fail - the description was not false to a material degree but a trivial one.