alt Hacker NewsHere's a (flawed) thought experiment: imagine that 100% of customers' RAM suddenly goes faulty at the same time, and RAM prices have suddenly skyrocketed to infinity at the same time.
Which outcome is ideal? Which one is morally correct?
(A) the retailer refunds every customer, loses all of their profits and probably goes bankrupt
(B) the retailer is forced to go into massive debt in order to replace everyone's RAM, and may not recover from the debt, and may face legal consequences if they can't replace the RAM
(C) in the first place, the retailer should have been required to have a backup RAM stick for everyone that purchases the RAM, so that they are able to issue replacements if necessary, plus extra in case the replacements themselves are faulty. As a result, RAM prices before this incident were well over 2X the real manufacturing cost, in order to cover this "backup" cost (manufacturing, storage, etc.)
(D) something else?
(This is a much more extreme version of what actually happened, but maybe instructive to think about)
Replies
> (D) something else?
In Norway, the seller could legally claim the repair would be unreasonably expensive[1], comparing the price of the thing when sold to the price of the repair or a new equivalent item. They would then only have to refund the price of the product as sold minus a reasonable amount for the time you had it while it worked.
According to the article, the law says B. If that makes for bad law, it's up to the legislature to change it, not up to the retailer to unilaterally decide to stop following the law.
In this case it would have been best to allow customer to get his product back not-replaced/not-repaired so he could seek other options, like repair. It is likely that only one of the sticks was bad, and a single good stick is worth 2x refund price. Buying a single not matching stick would have been better than this.
The law is, and should be, B. Retailers that wish to avoid future hardship can prepare by pre-stocking some replacement parts like in C, but I don’t think laws should protect retailers from their poor financial choices. The law should strictly, and extremely, protect the consumer.
I don't see anywhere where the manufacturer or retailer/distributor is required to perform one of the actions based on what the customer wishes of returning or replacing the item.
I also fail to see where anyone would expect the current purchase price to be refunded to them instead of the original paid purchase price.
If the regulations require making the customer whole, then I could see an argument for current fair market value, or even just giving nominal interest on the purchase price.
If in your thought experiment, the retailers had a potential risk (requiring fair market value returns/replacement), and they failed to insure themselves from that risk, then they indeed deserve to be forced out of business.
In this specific situation I would say that if the part is under manufacturer warranty, then the retailer should either offer a refund at the price paid or assistance for the customer in getting the manufacturer warranty replacement. Expecting the retailer to replace the faulty unit when the *wholesale* price has changed dramatically is.. unfair. I'm sure many people would scream "cost of business" and perhaps they are right. But, if the retailer is making a good faith effort to resolve the issue in a manner that keeps the customer "whole", that should be the metric for both "legal" and "moral".
As discussed elsewhere, the law says (a) or (b). Both of which lead to a bankrupt company, and maximum possible recovery for customers. Which seems like the best possible outcome for dealing with a company that sells 100% faulty product, no?