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…
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.
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.
Yeah, by the time you even received the agreement, it’s already bought and usually delivered and or installed.
I agree. I think arbitration should be limited to one-off cases, not class action lawsuits because you sell a faulty product.
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.
Arbitration clauses need to be banned, at least for regular consumer purchases.
But thanks to lobbying, that will never happen.
But at least I know never to ever buy anything from LG and Kenmore.
I’m starting to run out of mid-range appliance brands. Had problems with Bosch and Samsung. Now take off LG and Kenmore. There’s a few others, but for the most part, it’s either cheap appliances left or the higher end stuff like Sub-Zero/Wolf.
It boggles my mind that consumer protections in the US are so weak.
Live here for a few months and you’ll see a whole lot of things that’ll boggle your mind.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Lol.
Any judge worth his salt will ask LG for proof the consumer agreed to arbitration.
LG will say that by opening the box they agreed to the terms, Microsoft started that one.
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”.
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.
Good point.
As someone who’s deployed thousands of apps using MOM/SMS/SCOM, am I responsible for those agreements? Lol
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.
Hahahaha, I like your cat!
Yea, I didn’t apply the same logic. Again, the complainant would have to prove you clicked agree.
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
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??)
