No nonsense commercial guarantees

I am still being approached by consumers who tell me that they were given a six-month guarantee and not one for two years. Therefore I have to stress yet again that there are two types of guarantees, namely:

1) the legal guarantee, which is ours by right and is valid for two years; and

2) the commercial guarantee, which is not ours by right.

Traders are legally obliged to offer a legal guarantee for two years covering the consumer against a hidden defect and lack of conformity. On the other hand, traders are not legally obliged to offer commercial guarantees.

However, if they want to offer consumers a better service, traders can offer commercial guarantees over and above the legal guarantee. It is also worth pointing out that, although traders are not obliged to offer Commercial guarantees, we still have laws on them. In this column, as regular readers know, we have a list of six suppliers who offer 'no nonsense' commercial guarantees. In 2003 I discussed the matter with the company directors involved and we agreed to set up meetings with a view to verifying that their commercial guarantees conformed to the following eight conditions, in accordance with the laws on commercial guarantees, which must:

1) be formulated in at least one of the official languages of Malta;

2) set out the name and address of the guarantor, and clearly state the permanent address of the place of trade or business;

3) clearly state the contents of the guarantee and the duration of the guarantee from the date of purchase;

4) clearly specify the manner how a consumer is to proceed to make a claim and to obtain execution of the commercial guarantee;

5) clearly state whether the commercial guarantee may be transferred to others. Unless stated that it may not, this guarantee may be transferred;

6) provide a clear description of the goods or services covered by the commercial guarantee;

7) clearly stipulate what the guarantor undertakes to do if there is a defect in the goods or if the services are not properly carried out; and

8) state that the consumer enjoys rights at law, which are not adversely affected by the guarantee.

Apart from the referred to amendments, I added some extra conditions, which suppliers had to adhere to if they wanted to retain their inclusion in the list. It proved to be a laborious task but well worth the effort, even though we lost some companies in the process.