The Voice - Consumer's Voice

Where’s my wedding dress?

I need your help. I paid P3,000 deposit for a wedding dress worth P5,000. Now I do not need the dress anymore. The owner refuse to refund me because I requested the dress to be altered.

I’m not getting married anymore so what shall I do?

I’m sorry to hear that your wedding has been cancelled but I’m not sure there is much you can do. My understanding is that you ordered a wedding dress from a dressmaker and requested that she make some alterations to it? The dressmaker accepted your order and proceeded to alter the dress. So far everything is normal.

But then, through no fault of the dressmaker, you changed your mind about wanting the dress. I don’t know why the wedding has been cancelled, that’s not my business but it’s also not the business of the dressmaker, is it? Ask yourself this. Has she done anything wrong? Was it her fault that the wedding was cancelled?

The circumstances in which I would expect the dressmaker to refund are only those when SHE had done something wrong. If she’d made the dress improperly or incorrectly then yes, you would deserve a refund. If she’d delivered it late then yes again, you’d deserve a refund. But she did everything correctly, didn’t she?

I’m sorry that your wedding has been cancelled and how upset you must be. I’m also sorry that you lost money on a wedding dress that you can’t use but I don’t think there’s much you can do about that.

Where’s my laptop?

I purchased a laptop about 4 months ago, with a year's warranty. On its second month it displayed a software problem, I took it back for repairs, they took it to another company on condition that their turn around time is 6 week. After 3 weeks they brought it back claiming they have replaced the screen but the problem still persisted. I left it there and they took it back again. After 4 weeks from then, they brought it back and this time it wasn't properly closed, I took it back to them myself to also get clarification as to why the laptop always has to be returned to them and fiddled with so many times when its fairly new and why they were not producing a report of service which I requested for. I also raised a concern of the machine having marks and scratches. They took it for 2 week from them claiming they are now going to replace the palm rest which was not closed properly and had marks. At this point I told them I can not accept the laptop after being opened and fiddled with that many times when its fairly new but they claim there is no way they can help me with that and are now trying to force me to take the laptop back. I told them and they are also not assisting in any way, they promised they will at least get me a report and we work on the matter form there.

At this point I believe the laptop has drastically lost value due to their failure to repair the laptop without creating more problems that led to the story as I have told it.

All I want is value for money and I am in desperate need of a laptop to do the things I purchased it for.

The good news is that the law recently changed and it now offers you much better protection. The 2018 Consumer Protection Act changes a lot of things and this situation is one of them. To begin with, it states that when an item is faulty within the warranty period, the consumer has a right to one of the three Rs, a repair, replacement or a refund but it allows the supplier to decide which of those they offer. That’s nothing new, we’ve had that protection for a long time. What’s new is what happens next. Section 16 of the Act says that when a repaired item is returned to the consumer and the same problem recurs, the supplier shall either replace the goods or offer a refund. Just two Rs, no longer three. No more repairs.

It also says that repairs themselves must be warrantied for three months. I think you should explain this to the store and let’s see if they want to face the penalties for breaking the new Act. A fine of up to P100,000 of prison for up to five years. Or both.