Crazy Consumer warnings.. (was "Jail for seller of illegal Xbox chips")

["Ian Lowe" <ian@xxxxxxx>]

From: "Paul Gordon" <paul_gordon@xxxxxxx>
> I'm reminded of the scene from the Young Ones:
>
> Mike: "It doesn't say 'Do not chop up your video with an axe, put
all the
> bits in a plastic bag, and bung em down the lavatory'..."
>
> Vyvien: "Doesn't it? - maybe *that's* what we're doing
wrong..."
>
> Oh if only they'd known!......

...and reminds me of one of my darkest days back in Maplins (when they
still
sold a decent range of components!!)

The customer had bought one of the PIR activated security lamps that were
busily flying out of the door for £20 a pop, mounted it, and it died after
a
few days. Not a major problem, a lot of them failed, and we simply swapped
them out, and bombed the faulty ones back to Wombwell, to be repaired, and
shipped back at a reduced price.

*except* this genius had spotted that the PIR was full of water, and
proceeded to drill half a dozen or so 10mm holes into the casing (and
through the PCB) to "let the water out". Evidently, the problem
was that the
water couldn't get out, rather than the fact that it could get in the first
place!!! As it happens, he had fitted it to the wall directly underneath a
bit of broken gutter, "but that shouldn't matter, it says
weatherproof". The
PIR was missing a weather seal, another quite common fault, and one that
would have gotten him a full refund or replacement if he hadn't gone
barbarian on the device...

He was incredulous about not getting a refund. I can't help but think that
in the current climate, he would have been down the road to Blame Direct
faster than you can blink....

but what can you do? what sort of engineer would sit at a product design
meeting and say 'hang on guys, you better add a warning to that..'

"WARNING! Do not drill big bloody holes in this appliance whilst it's
switched on, outside, in the rain, at the top of a ten foot ladder, with a
mains powered drill"

/me shudders...