Customers enter into contracts with businesses for various reasons. They may do so in hopes of purchasing a product from them. Consumers may also enter into an agreement with a company in hopes of getting them to perform some type of service that they need. Either way, it can cause a lot of problems when a business breaches their contract that they’ve entered into or warranty that they’ve extended to a customer.
Many of the products that consumers buy are covered by a manufacturer’s warranty. It’s common for customers to buy point of purchase or extended warranties though. Each one of these is a type of contract that a seller makes with a buyer.
There are two primary types of warranty contracts. There’s an explicit and an implicit one. An example of the former is if a product that you purchase is accompanied by a warranty from the manufacturer that says it should last for a specified amount of time. The latter is more of an assurance that the product that you purchase will continue to function as long as it’s covered by an explicit warranty.
Many consumers take out warranties on the products that they buy to afford them added protections so that they don’t suffer additional financial harm if things go sideways.
There are many different legal remedies contained in the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) that consumers can pursue if a company breaches its warranty. Customers most commonly take the value of the item that they received and subtract that from how much the product that they were supposed to be getting was worth. A consumer can generally pocket the difference.
Documenting that a product is still covered by a warranty, that the concern with it is a coverable malfunction and then proving such a case in court here in Charleston isn’t easy. An attorney who’s familiar with litigating these types of legal matters in a West Virginia courtroom can review any details that you’ve amassed and let you know what your prospects of winning your case are if you go to court.
