“Your call is very important to us… but not so important that we would actually do anything about it like hiring more representatives. This message will repeat every 5 minutes until you get frustrated and hang up.”
Ugh I still have an air conditioner that was dead out of the box (bought it off season so didn’t use it till summer…summer 2020)
Tried a bunch of times to call in but “due to the pandemic” (what a fucking catchall for anti-consumer behavior…if a huge company hadn’t figured out how to keep their call center staffed 5 months into it, then it’s clearly intentional), nobody ever answered the call in the hour or so I’d wait on hold, several times.
yeah, but they would be better able to put an rma through for you. it is kind of on them to guarantee a working product actually. if the manufacturer gave them a faulty product it’s up to them to get the manufacturer to fix it. most retailers have an entire system and process for this kind of stuff. things show up to retailers broken all the time. part of their job is to guarantee against that and deal with it if they fail to before you buy it. if you asked them to replace it with a like model that worked or for them to initiate an rma and they refused then you’d be in the right to issue a chargesback.
I know we all had to be way more patient and lenient during the pandemic, but I would say that it’s way more the store’s responsibility than yours for a defective product, and they should take responsibility for the consequences of doing business with manufacturers who have no customer support.
Retailers are allowed to disclaim the merchantability and fitness for any particular purpose of the items they sell and most do. The customer is free to refuse, of course, via the simple expedient of going away and buying it somewhere else.
This is partially a blame-shifting exercise to reduce costs, yes, but it’s also a shield against the ceaseless horde of dipshits we have in this country who will willfully misuse a product and then immediately try to sue the retailer they bought it from when it doesn’t work or they hurt themselves with it via their own stupidity. It is much easier from a legal perspective to make a blanket “we don’t imply this product is applicable for any purpose” statement vs. having to explicitly predict whatever cockamamie thing someone might try it on and have to say “no, moron, that chainsaw is not suitable for cutting bricks,” etc.
Read all that fine print on the back of your receipt some day. You will be enlightened and, most likely, also infuriated.
Huh I didn’t realise that. I’m Australian but have been living in the USA for around 11 years.
Australia’s consumer laws are far stricter than the USA. In Australia, the store is responsible for fitness and quality of a product, based not just on its advertising but also what sales reps in the store say to you.
Obviously you can’t return something nor ask for a repair/replacement if you’re using it for something other than its intended purpose (like using a chainsaw on bricks or whatever), but otherwise, the law is in your favour as a consumer.
Stores must also accept warranty returns and not say that you need to go to the manufacturer. It’s not legal to say “no refunds”.
Products must last at least as long as a reasonable consumer thinks they should last. For example, a fridge would have to be repaired or replaced under warranty if it stops working after 4 years, even if the warranty is only 1 year, as most people would reasonably expect a fridge to last more than 4 years.
It means some stuff costs more, but it’s absolutely worth it for the protection you get.
It doesn’t help that a lot of companies outsource their call centers to third party vendors who only care about keeping the contract and not about the main company’s customers.
That’s what it’s all about, saving on overhead and the percentage of people who give up. Its not just corporations to, ever sign up for any public assistance? You WILL be denied to see if you will give up.
Maybe I will give up when the draft happens. The 1% can defend its own country, it’s clearly not ours.
This should be better with /e/OS or lineageOS, but you have to jump through several hoops (and often lose your warranty) when you install them instead of your default Android OS.
Unfortunately most devices block them completely, but the Pixel phones are supported (as far as I know).
i run rooted LinageOS 21 with the Zygisk Assistant and Play Integrity Fix modules. No app can detect i use a custom rooted rom. Google wallet and my banking apps work just fine. And i can do whatever the fuck I want with my phone since it’s rooted. For example with AdAway all ads are gone. I love it.
Not necessarily. They could be constantly ever so lightly above the average value, but then once in a while, a really low value comes along and drags the average down. What you’re thinking of is the median.
I always got receipts and cancellation infos via the mail connected to the Google account. One time there was no balance and I had no payment methods set up and I got “Your Google Play balance is too low to pay for your {app name} subscription. To keep your subscription active, please add credit or a new payment method.”
So, if you get email notifications you probably don’t need that.
Interestingly, British consumer rights guru Martin Lewis is currently running a crowdsourced data gathering exercise on this in the UK.
The purpose being to identify if companies are purposefully playing these sorts of message no matter their actual call volume. (Which we all know they are, but this will help prove it)
I completely disabled all notifications from Google play. There isn’t a single one worth of it.
That said, when I open it (like once every 2 months) I have a permanent dot on the notification area, with a notification that goes about ‘plz enable notifications so we can spam you’
because I call the customer service line of any one company so much, that I have memorized their touch tone menu
9 months into my daily call to Maytag: Excuse me, babe. I have to walk into the other room so I can listen. Apparently, they’ve changed their phone menu.
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