Fridge failures: LG says angry owners can’t sue, company points to cardboard box::NBC Bay Area’s Consumer team filed a report focused on faulty fridges, and then, viewers responded resoundingly about their own refrigerator problems…

  • aelwero@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    LG effectively has said that their owners manual and a cardboard box have authority over the courts. Clearly, as the courts have nullified it, they fucking dont.

    All I see is a damned good reason to ban arbitration agreements outright. If you want to arbitrate a tort, you should be required to motion the court for it.

    • ArchAengelus@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      9 months ago

      I agree. I think arbitration should be limited to one-off cases, not class action lawsuits because you sell a faulty product.

      • punkideas@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        It shouldn’t be allowed for contracts of adhesion (take or leave it contracts for consumers). Mandatory binding arbitration should be limited to business to business negotiated contracts.

    • badbytes@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Yeah, by the time you even received the agreement, it’s already bought and usually delivered and or installed.

    • LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net
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      9 months ago

      Absolutely. Mandatory arbitration is a miscarriage of justice so obvious that it is truly shocking to me that both the courts and the legislature allow it to continue.

    • bobs_monkey@lemm.ee
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      9 months ago

      When you realize a significant number of our laws here are written by industry lawyers, it makes a lot more sense.

    • aramova@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Live here for a few months and you’ll see a whole lot of things that’ll boggle your mind.

  • XEAL@lemm.ee
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    9 months ago

    Reminds of that video of Louis Rossmann where he says something like: if a company writes something in small print and/or on places where people won’t look, it’s because the company knows they would lose customers and damage their PR if people knew about it.

    Aside of being legal or not, if LG really wanted their customers to be aware of their BS, maybe they should have put a big ass plastic warning sticker in the front of the fridge itself, preferably holding the door/s locked or on the inside, somewhere annoying where nobody would miss it.

  • BearOfaTime@lemm.ee
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    9 months ago

    Lol.

    Any judge worth his salt will ask LG for proof the consumer agreed to arbitration.

    • db2@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      LG will say that by opening the box they agreed to the terms, Microsoft started that one.

      • BearOfaTime@lemm.ee
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        9 months ago

        That’s not proof.

        What if the delivery company opened it? What if the consumer didn’t see it?

        Prove the consumer read it. LG has no signed document, nothing, proving the consumer read and agreed to this.

        A software license is different - when installing you click on a button saying “I agree”.

        • Shirasho@lemmings.world
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          9 months ago

          There has been legal precedent that terms of use are not legally binding since they don’t expect customers to read it before clicking the I Agree button. They have made the agreements so long and put them in everything that they concluded there is no possible way anybody would ever read all of it for everything.

          • bobs_monkey@lemm.ee
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            9 months ago

            Not only that, but your average consumer isn’t very well versed in legalese to actually understand everything in them.

        • NeoNachtwaechter@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          A software license is different - when installing you click on a button saying “I agree”.

          Not different, because nobody knows who has installed the software.

          Or even more: when I got my car, the kids were the first ones to play with the entertainment system, and they clicked many “I agree” buttons. But a kid’s agreement is legally void.

          • x4740N@lemmy.world
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            9 months ago

            Shitty life pro tips, get your kids to click I agree to licence terms so they’re legally void

          • BearOfaTime@lemm.ee
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            9 months ago

            Good point.

            As someone who’s deployed thousands of apps using MOM/SMS/SCOM, am I responsible for those agreements? Lol

        • grue@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          A software license is different - when installing you click on a button saying “I agree”.

          I did no such thing. Maybe my cat walked on the keyboard. Maybe I skipped over it with a debugger. Or maybe I did click on the button, but it did not constitute a legal meeting of the minds because I already owned the goddamn thing and it was nothing more than a mechanical step necessary to use my property!

          Clickwrap agreements for software are no different at all. They’re just as much bullshit as this nonsense LG is trying to pull, and always have been.

          • BearOfaTime@lemm.ee
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            9 months ago

            Hahahaha, I like your cat!

            Yea, I didn’t apply the same logic. Again, the complainant would have to prove you clicked agree.

        • AA5B@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          Last night the TV I’ve had for three years stopped working until I agreed to their terms of service, including their personal data sales. There was no opportunity to disagree, nor anything I could do with the TV until I did. You could prove I read it, but it’s ridiculous to claim I agreed to it before buying it or that I had any leverage for fair treatment.

          I suppose I shouldn’t have had my TV on the network but it has an Apple TV app and my Firestick doesn’t

          • BearOfaTime@lemm.ee
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            9 months ago

            Uggh, I hate that crap on my TV.

            I reset my TV recently… Except apparently I didn’t because it came right back with all my settings. Dammit, I said RESET. wtf.

            (Yea, apparently Samsung and others use a feature that once it gets network, it connects to Samsung servers and pulls the config back down if it’s on the same net. Wtf??)

  • GlitterInfection@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    I hate LG more than any other company after dealing with their worst in class customer service when I bought a defective TV a couple years back.

    It took 6 months of actively calling them and then creating a Twitter account and tweeting at their PR team and emailing the CEO to get my money back on the piece of junk.

    Multiple hour+ long calls. Each time where I had to tell them everything from the previous calls that was supposed to be entered in their system, and was, but the call person literally didn’t look at the screen in front of them. An hour long wait on hold to the claims department where someone picked up and then audibly hung up.

    It was infuriating. But I had a $2,000 piece of junk in my house so I wasn’t going to let it drop.

    • Passerby6497@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Shit like this is why I use my credit card for big purchases like that. Your shit doesn’t work and you fuck around making it right? I’ll get a charge back and you can deal with the credit card company because I ain’t got time for that shit.

      Haven’t had to pull that card very many times, but its very nice when the business fucking me around suddenly really wants to make it right so they don’t have to deal with the impacts of a charge back.

      • bobs_monkey@lemm.ee
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        9 months ago

        It’s amazing what happens when you mention chargeback to all these shitty companies and how quickly they change their tune.

  • books@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    Had an lg fridge shit the bed after a year or so.

    Samsung did the same after a year.

    Fuck them both.

  • x4740N@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    My parents have a LG fridge and so far it’s still running strong

    Is it the newer recent fridges with defects or models from a specific country ?

    • Landless2029@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Mine is about 7 years old. 2 years ago the compressor died on it. It was a new custom LG design. The part normally lasts 10 years.

      I was out of warranty but LG still fixed it apparently due to a class action lawsuit forcing them to cover the compressor specifically due to all the failures.

      Take what you will from that.

  • ThiccSemperTyrannis@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    Had one of their fridges a while back with their proprietary compressor design. It kicked the bucket at about 2-3 years old. All appliance repair shops that I contacted in my area, including an LG-certified one, declined repairs. Most of them even immediately asked if it was an LG when I asked if they did compressor replacements to head me off at the pass. It was a good product while it worked, but that’s only half the equation.

  • yesman@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    Everyone thinks the US is a litigious society, but it’s the consequence of our political order. The lack of regulations are “compensated” by the right to tort. In many instances, there is no authority to enforce rights, only the ability to sue. The Americans with Disabilities Act works this way. (and there are many calling to remove that option, making the entire law theoretical)

    Of course, the idea is that lawsuits will discourage people from getting redress because of the high-bar to enter a case into the legal system. But that wasn’t enough, so the capitalists are trying to take that away too.

    There are few things more obscene under capitalism than a privatized court system.

  • Zozano@lemy.lol
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    9 months ago

    In 2023, my new LG dryer shit the bed after three months.

    They sent a technician twice to replace the lint filter, and sent a third lint filter via mail when the error started again.

    Apparently the lint filter sensor is dependant on a tiny magnet which can come loose if the plastic housing is so much as tapped wrong.

    How many people do you think open up their lint filters over a bin and tap the lint out?

    Fucking moronic design.

    We never found out if it was a sensor fault, we were lucky enough to get a store credit and traded that fucker in. LG never again.

  • CptOblivius@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    I have one of these fridges that failed. It was delivered and installed initially…I never saw the box. How does that factor in? Plus don’t buy LG, it’s a shit company.

    • ____@infosec.pub
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      9 months ago

      A million years ago I worked for ATT wireless, and had to shill their (circa 2006) crap phones.

      Not a brand I’m a fan of even all these years later.