Massachusetts home baker says her 2-year-old, $3,000 oven never worked properly, but GE won’t replace it. Here are your options if this happens to you

But when she got it home, she found it took far longer than expected to heat up, and it cooked food unevenly, making baking impossible.

Barry complained both to her retailer and GE’s Appliance division. She claims GE technicians came to her home twice, and that the second time, the technician actually told her the oven was defective and not repairable.

Company refuses to replace appliance

A GE representative told WBZ-TV that the oven, purchased two years ago, was no longer covered by the manufacturer’s warranty.

According to WBZ-TV, the company offered Barry a 30% discount on a new range, but not a replacement for the defective one.

The report also notes that GE appliances have been the topic of more than 3,000 complaints to the Better Business Bureau in the last three years (1).

The laws that protect consumers

If you find yourself in a situation like Susan Barry’s, there are consumer protection laws that may be able to help you.

Consumers are protected by “implied warranties” when they purchase products, which the FTC says are “unspoken, unwritten promises, created by state law.”

The implied warranty of merchantability, according to the FTC, is the seller’s basic promise that goods function as they are supposed to and that there is nothing significantly wrong with them. The implied warranty of merchantability is covered by Section 2-314 of the Uniform Commercial Code, which is law in every state but Louisiana.

The implied warranty doesn’t cover things such as ordinary wear and tear, misuse, or failure to follow directions or perform maintenance. Although the warranty doesn’t specify an exact amount of time a product should be good for, states generally allow you to make an implied warranty claim up to four years from the date of purchase.

Implied warranties differ from the more familiar “express warranties,” or guarantees of durability that businesses make about their products. Importantly, the express warranty doesn’t override the protections of the implied warranty of merchantability (2).

Consumer lawyer Edgar Dworsky told WBZ-TV that in Massachusetts, the implied warranty means, “Everything you buy has to function properly for a reasonable period of time, and if it doesn’t, you’re entitled to a remedy, and the choice of remedy is the consumer’s. It’s one of the three Rs: repair, replacement or refund” (1).

What to do if this happens to you

If you find yourself in a situation like this, you can reach out to your state consumer protection office (3). Common advice includes first contacting the seller to resolve the issue as well as keeping a record of your discussions with them, and any promises they make.

If these attempts aren’t successful, the next step is to write a demand letter that details the issues and contains copies of receipts and other documents. In Massachusetts, you are required to send this type of letter 30 days before initiating a lawsuit related to consumer protection (4).