A popular Canadian appliance store has been implicated in a B.C. warranty case.
In a decision made public by the BC Civil Resolution Tribunal, The Brick was involved in a case after a customer found an issue with a stove it purchased from the appliance outlet.
The applicants told the tribunal that they purchased a stove from The Brick with the extended warranty. They claimed that the stove’s main burner stopped working just 11 months after purchase.
According to the applicants, The Brick didn’t want to honour the warranty because the stove didn’t have the original serial number. While the applicants claimed that they were sold a stove without a serial number, an employee representing The Brick said the applicants damaged or removed the serial number while cleaning it. The Brick also said it refunded the applicants for the extended warranty.
For damages, the applicants claimed $1,856.05.
The stove was delivered to the applicants on Dec. 2, 2023, and it stopped working in November 2024.
The Brick deployed a technician to check it out, but due to the lack of a serial number, neither Whirlpool nor the extended warranty provider would repair it. The applicants asked for a refund of the stove, which The Brick denied, but it did refund $314.94 for the warranty.
Based on information in the tribunal’s decision, there was no proof that the applicants removed the serial number. It did, however, suggest that the stove wasn’t durable.
“Given the stove was covered by a manufacturer’s warranty for the first year, I find one year is a reasonable period of durability. The stove was brand new when the Duprats purchased it, and the main burner stopped working less than one year after delivery. Based on this, I find the stove was not durable for a reasonable period,” the tribunal said.
For an appropriate remedy, the tribunal denied a full refund, but referred to another case involving a faulty stove.
“In Afhami v. Liu, 2022 BCCRT 479, a tribunal member found that $240 to repair 2 gas stove burners was a reasonable amount. In Huang v. Dumonceaux, 2022 BCCRT 105, the same tribunal member awarded $150 to repair one gas stove burner,” the tribunal notes.
Despite the applicants claiming they couldn’t find anyone who’d be willing to repair the stove, the tribunal suggested a repair for the kind of issue the applicants were having would cost around $200.
Ultimately, the Canadiana appliance chain was ordered to pay the B.C. applicants $272, which included tribunal fees.