By DANNY O. SAGUN

CONSUMERS may be interested to know this: prescription period for any product that is a subject of complaint due to defects is three years. Yes, three long years.

Daria Mingaracal, who heads the DTI Pangasinan office, made this clear during our telephone interview with her over the Pantongtongan Tayo radio program of the Philippine Information Agency over Radyo ng Bayan-DZMQ in reply to a question by our co-anchor Helen Bernardo regarding the no-return-no-exchange policy of some business establishments. Daria says there is no such thing under the Consumer Act because consumers have the basic right to complain regarding defective products.

There may be three remedies in the settlement of complaints –replacement, repair or refund. The complaint may not necessarily reach the DTI office, she says.

The storeowner and the buyer may reach an agreement by themselves, either to repair the product, replace it with another, or if the former agrees, refund the money. If no settlement is reached, the consumer may approach the DTI for assistance thru its consumer arbitration officer.

Buyers must at all times be apprised of the documents they are asked to sign. Usually, they just sign such contracts without reading them or asking the store about the contents of the documents which later cause misunderstandings between the parties.

On the practice of some stores to have the buyer sign a paper which states “received in good condition” even if the buyer has yet to see or inspect the product like a home furniture or appliance, Daria advised consumers to first inspect the product.

Even if he happens to have signed such paper, she stressed, it does not prevent the buyer from complaining later if the product is found to be defective after initial use.

The prescription period for filing complaints may be that long enough in order to accommodate consumers who may come from far-flung areas or who because of unavoidable circumstances may not be able to immediately make known their complaints to the store or to the appropriate government agencies like the DTI.

Most complaints now received by Daria’s office center on the highly popular ubiquitous gear – cellphone. Apparently such complaints arise when a consumer opts to buy a second-hand unit or if it is a new one, he does not bother to clarify about the warranty of the product.

Warranted products usually cost more than those not covered by warranty. If one opts to buy a new phone without any warranty because the price may be lesser by a thousand pesos, he may feel sorry later if the product is found to be defective.

As experienced by many buyers however, sellers do not readily replace the defective product. They just have it repaired and repaired again until the buyer loses interest in it. DTI should really look into this practice.

Buying a new high end phone – equipped with megapixels camera, video, MP3, MP4, expandable memory, 3G etc? Clarify things first with the seller particularly about warranty or you may just be throwing money (up to P30K for the new models) down the drain.