EU Consumer Goods Guarantee, who is responsible the Retailer or Manufacturer? The title of the question basically sums up my question but for completeness I will provide some more details. Roughly 15 months ago I entered into a contract with a large phone service provided who provided me as an accessory to the phone a fairly nice portable speaker. So far no complaints. Fast forward to a couple of days ago and the speaker has stopped working, won't charge, wont turn on, in its current form it is more or less a glorified paper weight. It might be worth adding despite it being a portable speaker it has never left the house or been dropped or sustained damage from its use and is always put back in its box for storage (which itself is pretty well padded). As far as I am aware (and I could be wrong) under EU law there is a minimum 2 year guarantee for faulty goods. At first I contacted the manufacturer to try and claim on the guarantee and was told that as they where not the retailer who sold/supplied the device it wasn't their responsibility to cover the guarantee and to contact the retailer who did. I then contacted the retailer who proceeded to tell me that as they did not make or manufacture the device they would not help me under the guarantee and I would need to get in contact with the manufacturer to resolve my issue. So the question is really, who is right and who should I be contacting?
It's the seller's responsibility. Note that in the UK you actually get much more than 2 years. The 2 year rule is the minimum required by the EU, but each country is free to implement that as they choose and the UK has much more. In the UK you are protected by the Consumer Rights Act. It states that products must last a "reasonable length of time". What counts as reasonable depends on the goods. For electronics 2 years is usually the absolute minimum, but for things like televisions the courts generally consider it to be 5 years even for cheap models. Under the Act the retailer is responsible. They can either replace the device or refund you, with the refund amount accounting for the 1.5 years use you had from it. As it was part of a phone contract it could be difficult to agree on a value for the speaker, but looking up the replacement cost for the same or a similar device is a good place to start. Which? has a lot more information and advice.
When Bob buys a thing, it becomes his, and it ceases to be the property of the seller. By &quot;buy&quot;, we understand that to mean &quot;pays for and receives physical control of&quot;. At that point, Bob is responsible to control of his new property. His ownership of the property is not contingent on him leaving the store. You might assign blame to the shop if they were negligent in some way, for example if they hire a thief to do the exit-check and the door guard takes Bob's property. Obviously, the thief is ultimately liable, but the store might under special circumstances be liable if they indirectly caused his loss. A store does not have an obligation to guarantee that a customer immediately and securely exits the store after making a purchase, so they are not liable for failing to immediately eject him from the store after buying the goods.
The fault lies with the people who vandalized your house. In general, whoever causes you damage is responsible (liable) for that damage. This is true whether or not you are selling your house, having guests over, letting a friend stay over for a night or a week, or whatever the circumstance is. Insurance is there to cover many such losses: if a friend trashes your house in a drunken rage, your insurance will cover the damage, but they will invoke the doctrine of subrogation whereby they get to go after the friend, and you have to cooperate. In a situation where nobody has a clue who did the damage, the only possible way that the agent has any responsibility is if they were negligent in their duty to take care of the house. For your specific case, you'd need to discuss the forensic facts with your attorney. But generally speaking, the issue would be whether the agent had breached his/her professional duty of care, which is best understood as comparing his actions (or lack) compares to actions of other professionals in the same circumstance. If a house has 3 or 4 sets of visitors simultaneously, it is really not possible for an agent to supervise all of them at once. So the question would be, was this the result of one concentrated vandalism attack, or serial vandalism. The former is more in the realm of "stuff happens", and the latter is indicative of an endemic lack of care. To repeat, the fault lies with the miscreants who vandalized your house. You, or your insurance company, may nevertheless have to bear the financial burden. Your insurance company will certainly have an interest in spreading responsibility to the realty firm, if warranted by the facts.
None You broke your contract with ParcelHero - they could take action against you. You say you sent a passport, which is clearly on the list of prohibited items and this makes it an Undeliverable Consignments. And “Customer shall be liable at all times for any and all Charges incurred by PH in returning, storing or disposing of an Undeliverable Consignment.”
According to this site in the UK apparently there are laws against calling something free if it was part of the entire package before or if was added later and the price went up Example of the latter: LG sold a TV. They then added a sound bar, increased the price and listed the TV as TV for $XXX + free sound bar. They ran afoul of the regulations Also adding something and calling the addition free is okay if the price didn't go up but you can only advertize it as free for 6 months. After 6 months the law considers it included by default and therefore no longer free.
Does (Customer) have any claim or recourse against (Store)? No. The store's conduct altogether preempts a finding of unconscionable tactics. The store's conduct would not be found in violation of Oregon's Unfair Trade Practices Act (UTPA). See ORS 646.605(9) et seq. (I am not verifying the multitude of cross-references in the UTPA, but the language of explicit items gives a general idea of what types of conduct the statute sanctions) The store's decision to decline orders, preorders or money for the product impliedly alerts customers not to grow premature expectations on acquiring the product. Also the store's disclaimer of out of stock weakens a customer's possible allegation that customer relied on a promise of availability of the product. Accordingly, the store prevents a customer from credibly arguing that he incurred losses as a result of the store's conduct. Does it matter if (Product) was available in other stores or just never produced at all? Does it matter if other stores have (Product) but charge more than $N? No. The fact that the store [unsuccessfully] attempted to get stock indicates that the shortage --and hence the failure to supply the product-- is not willful. This implies that the matter is not actionable even if the customer &quot;suffered an ascertainable loss of money or property&quot;. See ORS 646.605(10) and .638. That being said, it is noteworthy 646.683(8)(a) lowers the requirement of willfulness [of violation] to one of recklessness in the context of class actions.
A simple EULA does not absolve you from legal responsibility. The law that you need to be acquainted with, if you are dealing with the US (i.e. might be sued in the US), is the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, in particular Title II, the Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act which states the "safe harbor" provisions. Aspects of DMCA safe harbor are covered in many Law SE questions. In essence, you have to provide a way for rights holders to complain that someone has infringed their copyright on there site, and you have to take down allegedly infringing material: and there are a number of legal formalities to attend to in doing this. The main point is that you can't just ignore the problem and hope it goes away, and you can't just say it is not your responsibility, which is what a simple EULA does. To be protected, you need a "designated agent" where complainers can contact you. You provide the information online (as well as stating the DMCA policy, which can be in the EULA), and also register that information with the Copyright office (online). The complaint has to be in writing, and most of the burden is on the author of the complaint, but you still have to be sure that the complaint is legally conforming. The complaint has to say what was infringed (e.g. the URL), the identity of the protected content (title of the book, for instance), and provide the complainer's signature and contact information. It also requires the complainer to say that they have a good faith belief that the material is illegally copied (no permission, and not otherwise allowed by law), and a perjury statement that the foregoing is accurate and authorized by the copyright holder. When you have a conforming notice, you must "expeditiously" remove / disable the infringing material (there is no definition of "expeditious"), notify the user, then wait for a proper counter-claim (same general form as the take-down claim but where the user denies the posting the material was illegal. If you get a counter-claim, you notify the alleged copyright owner and wait for them to file suit in 10 days. If they don't do that, you restore the material. Here is a sample complaint, and a sample counter notice. Also, this document (look for the download tab) reorganizes the legal language so that requirements are put in logical order and not randomly scattered throughout the US Code.
The primary source to answer your question is the Stromio contract itself. If it does not contain any provisions pertinent to such a situation: It is correct that you are automatically switched to the local Essential Service Provider (Grundversorger, § 36 Ⅱ 1 EnWG). In default of delivery by Stromio, the ESP is in charge of supplying electricity in lieu of Stromio, § 38 Ⅰ 1 EnWG. This is an example of a contract by law. Because the laws govern so, there is now a contract between you and the ESP. You can terminate this contract within two weeks notice, § 20 Ⅰ 1 StromGVV, but you (and only you) still have to meet all your obligations. Recovery against Stromio? §§ 280 Ⅰ, Ⅲ, 283 BGB Obligation, § 280 Ⅰ 1 BGB? → Effective cancellation of contract by Stromio? Provisions in contract granting the right to terminate contract without notice due to economic hardship? ✘ Force majeure, § 314 Ⅰ BGB, ✘ b/c commercial risk burden of any entrepreneur ⇒ Contract between you and Stromio continues to exist, even though Stromio will never again meet its obligations. Breach of duty? § 283 BGB → § 275 Ⅰ BGB: it is impossible to deliver electricity in the past and it does not make sense to deliver electricity today when it was actually needed on December 22, 2021. ✔ No defense? ✔ § 275 Ⅱ BGB ✘ cf. above, § 320 BGB ✘ ⇒ Breach of duty ✔ Responsibility, § 276 Ⅰ 1 BGB? ✔ According to the email, Stromio deliberately stopped delivery. Causal damage? ✔ You would’ve (presumably) paid less if Stromio continued delivery. ⇒ You can charge Stromio the difference you had to pay more. Write them a (registered) letter, enclose the ESP’s bill, refer to your quote you had with Stromio, highlight the difference (“€12.34 due”), indicate your banking account, and set a reasonable deadline. It is unlikely they will fulfill your demands, but still. The ESP is unaware of all of these troubles. They do not have a contract with Stromio. They will not sue them.