Harvey Norman faces second class action over ‘useless’ warranties

A second law firm has launched a competing class action against Harvey Norman for selling allegedly useless warranties to ­customers.

Harvey Norman denies any wrongdoing. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Dean Martin

A second law firm has launched a competing class action against Harvey Norman for selling allegedly useless warranties to ­customers.

The action by Maurice Blackburn comes one day after the furniture and electrical retailer learned of a similar set of proceedings being brought against it by Echo Law. The two sets of lawyers will compete for the right to bring their cases before court.

Maurice Blackburn on Thursday announced that the firm had lodged filings with the Supreme Court of Victoria against Harvey Norman for the sale of warranties which provided no extra protections than those already provided under Australian consumer law.

“Under the Australian consumer law, customers automatically have the right to a replacement or refund for faulty goods if the goods stop working within a reasonable timeframe after purchase,” Maurice Blackburn principal Jarrah Ekstein said.

“Harvey Norman’s Product Care extended warranties added nothing substantial to those ­protections.”

Lead plaintiff Peter Singh said he was “duped” into buying Product Care to cover a smart phone and some security cameras he purchased from the retailer.

“Product Care was sold to me as adding extra protections.

“But it was just a waste of money,” Mr Singh said.

Mr Ekstein said the class action will allege that if Harvey Norman’s customers knew that Product Care was offering remedies that they already had for free under the Australian Consumer Law, they would not have bought it. “Those customers should be compensated for being misled into buying a warranty which had no real value to them,” he said.

Both class actions are open to customers of Harvey Norman, Domayne and Joyce Mayne who were sold extended warranties from September 2018 to the present day.

Customers are estimated to have paid hundreds of millions of dollars for the allegedly worthless warranties.

Echo Law senior associate Lauren Meath said the firm had heard from hundreds of Harvey Norman customers who believed they had been tricked.

Harvey Norman said in a statement to the ASX on Wednesday that its stores had complied with all relevant laws at all times and intended to “defend the proceedings vigorously”.

Originally published as Harvey Norman faces second class action over ‘useless’ warranties