C E marking

[ericmark]

The Consumer Protection (Distance Selling) Regulations 2000 it different to regulations when buying from a high street shop. And they do not include anything sold at auction so many Ebay items are not covered.

The "concluded by means of an automated vending machine or automated commercial premises;" exception is to me an odd one as using some sites it is automated at least in the connection between Amazon and the actual provider of the goods.

Often one of the main reasons for reduced price is that UK taxes have not been paid, and any contract which is about an illegal act is not enforceable in law.

If your goods are faulty and don’t do what they're supposed to, or don’t match the description given, you have the same consumer rights under the Sale of Goods Act as you have when buying face to face.

But it has to be legal to start with i.e. taxes paid no "Gift" boxes ticked to get out of it.

One can't have it both ways. To buy from UK using phone or Internet OK but what's the point of asking for more control when the main thing you are after is to dodge boarder control and buy it cheap?

 

[ban-all-sheds]

All true, but the one thing they are not doing is importing, so I can't see how they can be described as "importers". Furthermore, virtually all of the services/activities to which you refer apply equally to most retailers, regardless of the source (or nationality) of what they are selling.

Kind Regards, John

Shall we describe them as retailers then, and hold them responsible that way?

If, as seems likely, we can't call them "importers", or "retailers" then we simply create a new class, and hold businesses which fall into that class responsible for the legitimacy of the goods which they allow people to sell through them.

They create and operate, as a service, the entire infrastructure needed for people to market the goods into this country and get paid for them.

But trying to get you to see that that does make them culpable is pointless. I want them to be stopped from doing it. I believe that there is a moral imperative to force them to stop, and I believe we should, and could have laws which would hold them responsible.

You, on the other hand, seem so determined to bend over backwards and allow them to profit from people no matter how reprehensible they are, and to allow them to thrive, and prosper, and reach new victims by wrapping themselves in a cloak of respectability, that I realise that you don't want the trade to be stopped. So unwilling are you to accept that the greater good would be served by saying to Amazon, eBay et al "well tough - we are going to hold you responsible if you facilitate the sale of illegal goods" that I think you'd take the same attitude if they were allowing sellers of illegal or fake drugs, child pornographers, sex slave traffickers and the like to ply their trade through their websites.

If we can force ISPs to deny access to websites which might have some pirated films on them, in order to protect the financial interests of multinational entertainment companies, then we can, and must, take action to protect peoples lives.

If we can hold lorry drivers responsible for smuggling in illegal immigrants even if they got on board without the drivers knowledge then we can, and must, take action to protect peoples lives.

If we can hold employers responsible for employing illegal immigrants if they didn't check the legitimacy of them first then we can, and must, take action to protect peoples lives.

But of course the first measure is designed to please big business, the other two are designed to pander to the baying racist elements in our society for political gain, whereas what I want would actually be unwelcome to big business, as they don't like laws which make them behave responsibly.

 

[ekmdgrf]

IANAL but I do suspect that we have all the law necessary to deal with the problem. What is not present is someone with the responsibility for enforcing it. Most of it would come under civil law and that is generally left to the agreed party to enforce. It is basically contract law after all. It might be possible in the case of really dangerous **** to find some case in criminal law but again it would fall to our overburdened police force to take action while dealing with all their other cases. Maybe one or two of the many quangos has, at least on paper, a role in overseeing thing but again, it's probably a couple of bods in a small office in Stoke-on-Trent who have 9,000,000 cases to look into.

That said BAS, as you point out, it's a moral imperative, so maybe you could spend some time bringing a couple of cases? Kind of like some kind of superhero, only you won't need to eat a banana. What do you say?

 

[ban-all-sheds]

I say that it's a proper criminal law we need.

And if the penalties were severe enough (fines equivalent to several year's profits, long terms in prison for the directors etc) the it would only need the first case to rip the heart out of one of these companies for the rest to fall over themselves to ensure that they did not provide a means for illegal goods to be sold over here.

We could do the same sort of thing with organisers of markets and car boot sales - make them responsible and they will police the vendors.

 

[ekmdgrf]

Sounds like you need to write to your MP.

 

[JohnW2]

<essentially a repeat of what he's written many times before>

Have you married BAS? As so often discussed (and not worth any significant 'repeat discussion' yet again!) ....

Our respective views on this issue are well documented in the forum's archives, and are unlikely to change.

Kind Regards, John

 

[bernardgreen]

Buyer Beware

There is a need to successfully educate the public that buying from some supplier carries a high risk of being given sub standard / dangerous equipment.

How many people will throw a burnt out item into the bin and buy another one from the same low cost supplier without making any complaint.

It beggars belief that cheap and poisonous fake vodka with debris visible in the bottle is sold by shops. The debris makes it obvious the stuff is fake yet the shop keeper sells it.

The same applies to most fake electronic equipment. The sellers are knowingly selling fakes and they use the excuse " the public want them so are supplying what the customers are asking for "

 

[ericmark]

Where I see a real problem is when one goes to a web site with a UK address and orders goods. But in fact these goods are sent direct from manufacturer outside the EU.

There is simply no quality control. Yes you can get your money back but that does not stop the supply of dangerous goods which since ordered from UK supplier you think you are protected from getting.

However until we stop retail outlets in UK from selling dangerous goods direct our authorities are hardly going to put much effort into this sub-contract trade and again until the sub-contract trade is cleaned up hardly going to put much effort into direct buying from China.

As already said first we need to clean up the direct sale in high street shops of dangerous goods. Like the sale of plastic plugs with damage our sockets and serve no use full purpose.

The problem is of course in this country BS7671:2008 is just a recommendation as are most of the British Standards and unless a supplier stamps BS1363 on the white plastic lump he is not breaking any law.

I blame our educational system. School children should be taught to look for the British Standard and told what the results of using other stuff is. To put a mark on a product like

Isolation sign

• ericmark
• 12 Mar 2009
• 10

is really hard for anyone to claim it means anything other than an isolating transformer with overload protection but printing something like CE can have so many meanings it is useless. The simple

again can't be claimed stands for anything else. But look up a pair of letters like CE it has so many meanings Common Era, Constructing Excellence, Church of England and the list goes on. It's not a proper logo it's just two letters Conformité Européene is not even English how are non EU members going to understand Latin a dead language? May as well write it in Cornish Gallic.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

It's French, actually....

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Our respective views on this issue are well documented in the forum's archives, and are unlikely to change.

Indeed - you are going to continue to be happier to see people die than see Amazon or eBay have their ability to make money by facilitating their deaths curtailed.

 

[ekmdgrf]

Our respective views on this issue are well documented in the forum's archives, and are unlikely to change.

Indeed - you are going to continue to be happier to see people die than see Amazon or eBay have their ability to make money by facilitating their deaths curtailed.

Do we have any figures on how many people are killed by this kit?

 

[JohnW2]

Do we have any figures on how many people are killed by this kit?

Obviously not. In terms of electrocution, we know that the total of all UK deaths due to domestic electrocution runs at about 20/year. The total of all deaths due to electrically-started fires is much more difficult ('electrical' seems to be a scapegoat when no other cause of a fire is discovered, and includes many due to 'items being placed too close to electric heat source' etc.) but is again pretty low. The number 'killed by this kit' therefore must be extremely small. In any event, deaths are not the only issue, and useful statistics on serious injuries due to electricity (or electrical fires) are all but non-existent,

However, my expressed views are nothing to do with the risks (of death or serious injury) being very low. Since it's an 'unnecessary' risk, any level above zero is not really acceptable. IMO, existing laws need to be enforced at the level of manufacturers or importers, to prevent unsafe goods getting into the UK supply chain.

Kind Regards, John

 

[stillp]

IMO, existing laws need to be enforced at the level of manufacturers or importers, to prevent unsafe goods getting into the UK supply chain.

Quite. I used to have to deal with illicit copies of my company's products, and legal advice was that the breach of intellectual property rights is performed by the importer, and going after the retailer would be seen as unlawful under the Competition Act.
Safety is another can of legal worms; it is an offence to place an unsafe product on the market, but proving that a product is actually unsafe(rather than failing to comply with a standard) can be difficult and expensive.

 

[NewOrder]

When you have had a customer complaining about a cable that has melted on a legitimately supplied product you won't see the funny side. It has an external hard drive caddy, the mains power cable melted.

When I inspected it although the cable looked fine, the plug looked legal, had and had all the correct markings the cores inside the cable had less copper than speaker cable in them .

 

[ban-all-sheds]

IMO, existing laws need to be enforced at the level of manufacturers

They are outside our jurisdiction.

or importers

And if the "importer" is UPS, or the Chinese postal service?

to prevent unsafe goods getting into the UK supply chain.

Amazon and eBay etc play a very significant role in these unsafe goods getting into the UK supply chain, they should be held accountable.