Home treadmill for condos has warranty voided
We are a condo association and in September 2015, we purchased a ProForm 2000 treadmill from Sears. The machine has never functioned properly and we had service techs out numerous times with no success. Sears tells us that it's not their responsibility and ProForm is now claiming the same. While Sears advertised the treadmill as commercial grade, ProForm claims it is no such thing. Frankly, after the fourth repair attempt, we gave up and purchased a new machine. We are wondering if there is anything you might be able to do to help us get a return and refund accomplished.
Thank you for your consideration,
The first thing I did was check to see if a lemon law exists for anything other than automobiles, and it turns out it does. It is the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act. According to Warrenville attorney Harry C. Bradley of H. C. Bradley LLC, this federal law is the equivalent of a lemon law for every consumer product covered by a warranty that costs $10 or more. He cautioned, however, that even with the protection provided by this law, it is very difficult to get a refund or a replacement.
“Ninety-nine percent of the time you're looking at (reimbursement for) repair costs from an outside facility,” he said. “(If you file suit under Magnuson-Moss), you can get the cost of the repair plus the attorney fees and your court filing costs covered. The only time you're looking at a refund or replacement product is when the repair cost exceeds the purchase price.”
My next step was to determine how the ProForm 2000 treadmill was marketed. Was it advertised as a commercial-grade treadmill? Per my research, it was not; it is a home treadmill. Though the product description included “commercial pro motor” and “commercial tread belt,” this, unfortunately, did not make it a commercial-grade machine. John explained that when he entered “commercial treadmill” on the Sears website, The ProForm 2000 was one of the machines that came up.
“I assumed Sears was sending me to an appropriate model,” he said. “Unfortunately, I did not confirm this with a visit to the ProForm site at that time.”
At this point, I reached out to Sears to see if there was anything they might do to assist John. Dana Shoulders in Sears' regulatory complaints department determined that ICON, manufacturer of the ProForm treadmill, was the owner of the treadmill's warranty and referred me to Nova Hanke, ICON's Sears retail support manager. Though Hanke was the final decision maker regarding a refund, repair or replacement, Shoulders and Hanke worked together to address all my questions.
Unfortunately for John, despite his contention that the treadmill never functioned properly, the ProForm owner's manual contained the following disqualifying clause: “This treadmill is intended for in-home use only. Do not use this treadmill in a commercial, rental, or institutional setting. This warranty will automatically be voided if … the product is used for commercial or rental purposes.”
John was understandably disappointed to learn this. However, Shoulders realized John had incorrectly paid Sears for one of the treadmill's service visits; he should have contacted ICON directly for warranty work. For this, she issued him a $192 refund. Hanke then said, “As a courtesy, I will offer (John) a one-time service visit by an authorized ProForm technician.”
John responded, “(W)e are going to take ProForm up on their offer to have a tech come out and get the machine serviced and then try to sell it. Thank you very much for your help in getting ProForm and Sears to at least come to the table to try to resolve the problem … I feel that ProForm has at least made an effort to help us.”
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