EU Consumer Law - excludes products bought by a business?

[Durzel]

Hi

The company I work for has a 27" Apple iMac purchased in January 2013. The AppleCare warranty ran out in January of this year.

It has recently developed a fault ("Macs just work", right?) where it will randomly power down as if it's been switched off at the mains, and won't switch on again unless you remove the power cord for 30 seconds or so. Every obvious avenue of diagnostics has been tried - SMC, PRAM reset, Apple Diagnostics Tests, Memtest, Disk Utility, etc. with no errors reported. A phone call with an Apple tech led to reinstalling OSX, and it switched off towards the end of the install too leaving it in a fairly flakey state.

The guy stated that he was a senior AppleCare tech and that I should explicitly ask to make an EU Consumer Law claim when I took it to the Apple Store for further analysis. When I did this however the guy in the store said that EU Consumer Law does not apply to products bought for or used in a business environment. Since it passed the instore tests I ended up signing to agree to them to perform further diagnostics/stress tests to try and reproduce the problem.

Can anyone confirm if that is indeed the case? I can't see any specific mention of this on Apple's website, but I haven't looked too hard.

Given that the repair is likely to involve either a new logic board or power supply at a bare minimum I'm obviously keen to pursue the whole "pre-existing hardware fault/not fit for purpose" angle (not egregiously, surely it should last longer than 3.5 years?)

Thoughts?

Edited by Durzel on Sunday 3rd July 19:51

[marshalla]

Assuming it was bought in the UK, then surely SoGA would be the relevant legislation as this enacts the relevant EU law?

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1979/54/conten...

[Sheepshanks]

Consumer related stuff generally doesn't apply to business's because business's are supposed to know what they're doing. I think there are some fairly recent changes for very small business's but don't know where we are with that.

However, as above, EU Law has to be enacted locally. We did our version, hence we don't get the automatic 2yr guarantee that other countries do, but we theoretically have other rights which run for 5yrs.

Good luck though - Apple is my only total failure with SoGA type stuff. They just completely stone-walled me on two iPhones that both developed known faults (one rendering it unusable as a phone) at just over 12 months old.

[Durzel]

Thanks. It's not my money so I can't say I'm highly motivated for a fight over it, but I was a bit surprised.

[ging84]

The whole point of consumer law is it for consumers, not businesses.
If it applied to everyone, then it would just be law.

[bladebloke]

As above, laws aimed at consumers wouldn't normally apply to business to business contracts.

The Sale of Goods Act will, but the situation does change slightly because it is possible for the seller to exclude the terms it implies regarding quality etc (if reasonable). You'll need to check the seller's T&C's if you're wanting to know your legal position.

At over three years old though, I'd recommend appealing to the seller's better nature (or Apple's, if that's not the same person) before you do anything else - to successfully bring any claim you would need to be able to prove that the fault that caused the problem now was present when you bought it, and this gets hard when a lot of time has passed like here.

[teabelly]

Is it on a UPS? If it is try it without and if it isn't try it with one.

Find a local apple repairer and talk to them as they may have seen this issue before.

[98elise]

Sheepshanks said:

Consumer related stuff generally doesn't apply to business's because business's are supposed to know what they're doing.

Also business stuff is normally used all day every working day, and generally gets a harder life. People also care less about work kit.

[Sheepshanks]

98elise said:

Also business stuff is normally used all day every working day, and generally gets a harder life. People also care less about work kit.

It's a contract issue more than anything else. Firms would be expected to agree their own T's & C's.

Of course a small business is in no better position that a consumer to get the likes of Apple to agree unique T's & C's which is why the Government is/was looking at extending SoGA type stuff to cover small businesses.

[bladebloke]

Sheepshanks said:

It's a contract issue more than anything else. Firms would be expected to agree their own T's & C's.

Of course a small business is in no better position that a consumer to get the likes of Apple to agree unique T's & C's which is why the Government is/was looking at extending SoGA type stuff to cover small businesses.

SoGA does cover small businesses, and large. The question is whether any terms it implies have been excluded/modified by the contract..

[hedgefinder]

I too was very surprised a couple of years ago.
After looking for a new printer I was talked into opening a Business account with "PC world" and ended up spending £700 on a pretty high spec model, 16 months later it failed completely. I took it to Pc world and the guy on the "repairs" desk just looked at me and said its over 12 months old - nothing to do with us - take it away. I kid you not, they wouldnt even look at it. Because I had opened a business account (which didnt actually get me the item any cheaper I hasten to add!)... it was classed as a business to business sale and as such is NOT covered by the majority of consumer law under SOGA ..... I think the benefits the business account had been sold it on were interest free credit if I wished - which I never ever used!
So if I had just bought it without using my business name I would have been able to claim for a new machine, but because I was talked into opening a business account and bought it using my business name I was told to FO....a rather expensive lesson learned.

[Sheepshanks]

bladebloke said:

SoGA does cover small businesses, and large. The question is whether any terms it implies have been excluded/modified by the contract..

Yes it does. However enforcing it is a different issue. Normally, as a consumer, you can jump up and down a bit and the supplier will back down.