[Elecraft] [OT] Hilberling PT-8000 cancelled.

[Ian White GM3SEK]

Stewart Baker wrote:
>All fine in principle, but here in the UK, nobody is enforcing the EMC 
>legislation.

It's true that nobody is enforcing it effectively against grey imports. 
On the other hand, those are only a small minority of sales. The vast 
majority of sales come from responsible manufacturers, through 
responsible  distributors.

In Europe, the distributors provide the most effective enforcement of 
manufacturing standards for consumer goods. This is because consumers in 
Europe have strong legal rights which are directly against the 
distributor. If there is a manufacturing defect, then in most cases the 
consumer has a legal right to reject the goods and demand a refund from 
the distributor. (Some distributors still try to fool customers into 
going back to the manufacturer, but most consumers are becoming much 
more savvy about the law. Refusal to give a refund *will* bring down 
heavy enforcement from the consumer protection agencies.)

The faulty goods then become the distributor's liability. Even if the 
issue is eventually resolved with the manufacturer, the time and trouble 
eats up everybody's profit margin. To avoid such situations as far as 
possible, distributors routinely demand formal declarations of quality, 
including compliance with all applicable standards.

That still isn't to say that every declaration of compliance is 
truthful, or that the technical standards themselves are totally 
effective - far from it! - but even the present situation is a whole lot 
better than nothing.


-- 

73 from Ian GM3SEK
http://www.ifwtech.co.uk/g3sek