It is extraordinary how things happen in this small but lovely country of ours. A fridge I had just bought broke down whilst still under guarantee. First the door just broke off by itself. Then the motor broke down again and again... and instead of being given a more serviceable fridge I ended up spending money, throwing away food again and again and appearing in front of the Consumer Claims Tribunal with a judgement being passed against me.

When I first reported the broken door I was asked to pay about e80 to have it repaired and this while under guarantee. I refused to pay because of the guarantee and a friend repaired the door. Then when the motor broke down, I reported the case to the shopkeeper who later took the fridge and ‘repaired’ it until it broke down again. He repaired it again, and again it broke down. I then asked the shop owner to change this fridge because obviously it was defective. When he refused I took the case to the Consumer and Competition Division who said that they were to contact the shop owner.

Later I received a note from this Division stating that the shopkeeper had refused to change the fridge and they gave me the option of lodging my case with the Consumer Claims Tribunal against a payment of e9.20. I took their advice and lodged my complaint with the Tribunal. In the meantime I wrote also to the Consumer Affairs column of a local newspaper but my complaint never appeared.

After some time I received a note for the Tribunal sitting. During the meeting with the arbitrator, I was called to appear alone along with the shop owner. I had brought my wife and my daughter as I was advised by the Arbitrary Office that I could bring witnesses. Both had to take leave from work, but the secretary said, ‘we will call them later’ but of course, they didn’t do so. The shopkeeper then came up with the theory that the fridge began to break down because we had arranged the door of the fridge ourselves and not bought a new one for around e85. On his part, instead of asking the shopkeeper why he hadn’t brought up this reason when the fridge broke down again and again and that he had accepted to take it over to his shop and have it repaired again and again, the Arbitrator suddenly decided that the shopkeeper was to send the broken down fridge to my home.

This was so the Arbitrator would come to see the damaged door (I presumed with an expert technician) in a couple of days for himself. The sitting ended there without the witnesses being called up.

When more than four days elapsed, I called the Tribunal and the brusque voice of the secretary told me that I had to wait my turn and hung up the phone. I tried again after two weeks but received the same answer and with the same attitude. When I last called the Office of the Tribunal, the same rough and shoddy voice of the secretary informed me that the Arbitrator was to resume work again in September and I was to await my turn and would duly be informed.

Days passed by and one fine day in October I received a note under the signature of the Arbitrator that he had decided that the shopkeeper had no obligation to repair or change the fridge after ‘seeing’ that the damage was related to wrong use of the fridge by the complainant.

This I feel is a breach of justice because the Arbitrator took notice of only one party and based his judgment on this assertion. He did not come to check the fridge as agreed and didn’t take the opinion of the witnesses. What faith can one have in such a Tribunal, in the Consumer Associations and the letters in consumer columns of newspapers.

Joe C. Cordina

Hamrun