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Warranties: Continued Readability Problems After the 1975 Magnuson‐Moss Warranty Act
Author(s) -
MOORE ELLEN M.,
SHUPTRINE F. KELLY
Publication year - 1993
Publication title -
journal of consumer affairs
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.582
H-Index - 62
eISSN - 1745-6606
pISSN - 0022-0078
DOI - 10.1111/j.1745-6606.1993.tb00735.x
Subject(s) - readability , warranty , commission , business , reading (process) , actuarial science , economics , computer science , political science , finance , law , programming language
A major thrust of the Magnuson‐Moss Warranty Federal Trade Commission Improvement Act (MMWA) passed by Congress in 1975 is to make warranties “easy to read and understand.” This study examines readability levels for 121 warranties in ten categories of consumer durables. The warranties analyzed are found to require readability levels beyond what most Americans have attained. Limited warranties require significantly higher readability levels than full warranties. Results suggest the MMWA, since passage in 1975, may have increased the number of limited warranties and the difficulty of reading level.