A frugal life is an easy life!

How did your "World consumer rights day" go?

Mine was right up there with the failings of business to grasp any sense of the law or honesty and even more distant from those organisations that are supposed to be "protecting" people!

First up, Box clever, from which we get our TV equipment:
The better half occasionally forgets to record things on her Humax freeview recorder box.
My aim was simple, find a box or TV that we could connect to the internet via our modem, so that she could, at the push of a button, switch the TV over to BBC iplayer, ITV catch up, 4oD, channel 5 catch up, etc.

Sales advisor one informed me of two options.
I could either go for a smart TV - costing £20 a month more than we pay now, or get an upgraded recorder box from Humax, that enables all these services and more to be accessed, downloaded, saved, etc.
I opted for the Humax HD-FOX T2 Freeview HD Set Top Box or the "fox box" as it's called.
Appointment was booked for today.

I came home to have the box sat there all ready to go.
Unfortunately, the picture on all channels breaks up, so is unwatchable, let alone good enough to record.
I rang Box clever, a lady didn't even bother to listen and said a technician would phone back sometime in the next 3 hours.
A call came two hours later, asking about my repair booking that I had made on Monday.
Not made one, but the "advisor" had kindly gone ahead and booked one, without mentioning it, ringing me back or even bothering to ask if it would ok.
I was told I may get a call from a technician, I may not.
The appointment was rebooked for tomorrow instead.
That was ok I thought, I'll set up the internet connection so that the wide variety of online TV channel catch up websites can be watched. Sadly, this too, turned out to be nothing more than made up business marketing spin to attract a sale/upgrade.
Only BBC iplayer is available on the Humax HD-FOX T2 Freeview HD Set Top Box.
No ITV, channel 4 or channel 5 player is available, unless you download and install some firmware, which invalidates the warranty.

So when the sales staff on the phone were saying it has these and more, they were misrepresenting at the point of sale.
When the two installation staff came to fit the box today, they were also misrepresenting as the box does not do anything like this.
Even on the youtube screen, only certain songs would play due to a conflict of file type, yet another failure.

Humax, that make the boxes openly stated on their own facebook page back in 2011, that they have no plans to include ITV, channel 4, channel 5 or sky player catch up services on their machines, so where exactly have box clever staff got their claims from?

Next up, we have the wonderful world of Indesit, or more accurately, the world that they own, Hotpoint:
Hotpoint washing machine bought in September 2012.
Faulty power switch, draining conditioner off before start of a cycle, power knocking off by itself.
Four visits by engineers, two of which informed us that the Hotpoint washing machine we bought only months earlier, was in fact a recently new model, "It's only been on the market about 8 months!"

So after four visits, waiting in most of the day each time and various parts fitted that did not solve the problem, I contacted them to demand a new machine as is my right.
"You have waited over 28 days since our last repair, so we have the right to send out another engineer to try and fix the machine!"
No, I think you'll find that regardless of Hotpoint's policies, I have given you a fair time to fix the machine and you have failed to do so. Under trading standards law, I am now within my rights to demand a replacement machine or a full refund.
"No you are not!"
Well it's this way or the a small claims court, you decide!
"Either myself, the engineer, or his department will call you back within the next 48 hours"

A couple of days later, a call came, from none of them. The replacement department left me a message to say that they didn't have any of this machine in stock at the moment and they were waiting it coming in.
Three days went by and today another call.
Our machine is obsolete (only months since it came out they said earlier?) but instead we would like to replace it with the more up to date model.
I was given the model number so that I could have a look at it before confirming that we wanted one sending out. The new machine they proposed, was nothing short of an insult.

1kg smaller wash load
250rpm slower spin
No hand wash
No silk wash
No digital display
No half load wash

I stopped looking after this and rang them back. Their offer was a complete joke.

"How is it different from your machine now?"
I was stopped from reeling off more reasons not to accept it.
"It's obviously nothing like the standard of machine you have, I shall email them and get them to ring you back as soon as possible!"
That was hours ago, still I've heard nothing from Hotpoint.

So it's world consumer rights day is it?

When we, the public get some, then perhaps I will take any notice of it.
As it stands, we pay more than we ever to have a voice, yet never has it been so ignored. It is a complete joke!