Sounds obvious when you think about it, but I have not yet had a bad experience using any of the "official" businesses that trade on eBay when purchasing a range of small white goods, have never bought a fridge or anything but I am considering buying a three piece suite this way after xmas.



The reason is very simple - eBay traders value and jealously guard their feedback scores, if you have a problem and tell them first then they tend to do anything they can to stop you giving them bad feedback.



Choose your trader well, choose a UK one with plenty of feedback and an official eBay creditation and you won't go far wrong.

Every retailer has their horror stories.

I've returned lots of thing to Argos, Currys and Comet in the last few months and all have been fairly reasonable.



I get the feeling Dally puts peoples backs up, be nice to them and you get a lot further.

6 year rule.

no one needs extended warranty.

I deeply regretted letting my laptop disappear for over 2 weeks in the Knowhow set-up having been told in the store it would be 4 or 5 days maximum. I only got any 'status' information by regularly telephoning and in truth I got a different story each time.

I suggest you take a closer look at this "six year rule". It is not, never was and never will be the same as an extended warranty

Yep. There is no such thing as a 6 year rule.



As for Curry's. It's not a horror story, more an irritation. Went in with my mum & dad looking for a fridge-freezer for them, the guy who offers to help seems to know nothing about any of them and simply repeats what is written on the labels and is more bothered about talking about my iphone and how they're better than blackberry's, this despite its only 15 mins before the store closes. Needless to say my parents didn't buy from there, they bought from M&S online and received fantastic service.



Another irritation this time with Comet, a couple of years ago I bought a new TV, Home Cinema System and TV stand, totalling around £700. Maybe not the sale of the century but to me it's a lot of money. Again not long till closing, the assistant spends 15-20 mins attempting to sign me up for various extended warranties, then gets snotty when I ask him for advice on how I'd cable it all up along with a Sky+ box and DVD recorder at home, then is virtually shoving me out the door because it's 7:59pm and the store closes at 8pm. Needless to say I didn't go back to Comet.



Maybe not the worst stories ever but it's made me determined to shop elsewhere than Comet or Currys.

this is where someone directed me to the 6 year rule a few years a go.unless the law has changed in the last decade............... www.motorcaravanning.com/vehicle ... r_rule.htm

this is where someone directed me to the 6 year rule a few years a go.unless the law has changed in the last decade............... www.motorcaravanning.com/vehicle ... r_rule.htm

Motor Caravanning, the ultimate source for consumer law advice.

Yes there is.



I got compensation off Dixons after three years (well out of Guarantee and no extended warranty) when the power supply failed on a Panasonic TV because it fell into the category of not being of "satisfactory quality" in that it is entirely reasonable to expect a modern TV to last longer than three years without going bust.



You can claim this sort of thing for up to six years and its part of the Sales of Goods act legislation.



Interestingly Panasonic didn't want to know other than offering a small amount (£50 if I recall correctly) toward the cost of repair which they paid directly to the repair shop. The compensation off Dixon's was enough to buy a similar spec replacement TV. That is now in the lounge and the old one, repaired, is now on the wall in one of my son's bedrooms.

The regulation refers to what is "reasonable". There is no such thing as a "12 month warranty", "6 year rule" or "two year EU rule". What is reasonable is open to interpretation but SOGA suggests that the liability of a retailer / manufacturer could extend up to six years. You wouldn't expect a Fiat Panda to last as long as a Rolls Royce - and that is reflected in SOGA.

Yep. People think the 6 year thing is a hard and fast rule that applies to everything and it isn't, as you say it's what is reasonable. For instance you'd be unlikely to get a refund if you bought a cheap phone for 15 quid and it stopped working 5 years later.

I'm not surprised these places are going bust. So the TV was fixed and you received compensation enough to purchase a replacement?? What's wrong with apologising, fixing the thing and leaving it at that? Was your family's life devastated by the loss of your TV for a short time that it warranted presumably several hundred pounds in compensation? Complex electrical items will occasionally suffer faults, why is a repair not sufficient?



That's not a dig at you - of course you take what you can get, but it just seems insane.