17. The rights of a customer and the responsibilities of a supplier

When you buy something, your purchase must satisfy your wants and needs.

First of all, the goods must not be broken or damaged and must work properly. This is known as “merchandise quality”.

The goods must be as described.

The goods should be fit for their purpose.

When you are shopping, it is important to know your rights.

When you buy something from a shop, your are making a contract. This contract means that it’s up to the shop to deal with your complaints if the goods are not satisfactory.

If the shop sells a customer faulty goods, it has broken its side of the bargain.

If goods are faulty when a customer first inspects or uses them, he should go back to the shop, say that he cancels the purchase and should ask for complete refund. If he prefers, he can accept a repair or a replacement.

If goods break down through no fault of a consumer, after he has used them for a time, he may still be entitled to some compensation. In some cases it would be reasonable to expect a complete refund. The customer and the supplier must negotiate a reasonable settlement.

18. An annual report of a company

The annual report is a message to the stockholders of a corporation from the corporate management. The report tells the stockholders the company's financial status at the end of the fiscal year

Annual reports generally are divided into two sections. The first section contains a letter to the stockholders from the chief executive officer of the corporation. The second section includes statistics on the company's perfor­mance.

The balance sheet is a chart that includes the assets (items of value the company owns) and its liabilities (debts or claims against the assets of the company). The income statement shows the profit or loss of the company for the year. The statement of stockholders' investment, or equity, includes informa­tion on the company's stock, such as number of shares outstanding and issued. Various parts of the annual report can be used to determine whether a corporation is profitable.

19. Financing a loan

If you want to buy expensive thing you can use a loan of bank. 3 basic steps to negotiate a loan. Firstly, you should compare loan sources. Secondly, it is necessary to compute interest. Thirdly, you should determine repayment time. The borrower must give the reason for waiting money. Usually 6,12,18,24 up to 60 months are provided to pay the money back. Normally 24 for car and 36 for other things. It is usual practice that repayment are made monthly from a current account. As to interest, using the simple interest method, the borrower repays the principal – the amount borrowed – and interest in one single payment to the lender. Using the add-on method, the borrower must know the annual percentage rate or total finance charge on the loan rather than just the loan interest as in simple interest. And borrowers must decide which loan is best suited to their purposes.

20. «Harper&Grant Ltd.». The history of the company. The company’s structure and development.

The company of Harper & Grant Ltd. was started forty-two years ago by two men: Ambrose Harper and Wingate Grant. Wingate Grant died many years ago, and his son Hector, who is in his fifties (aged between fifty and sixty) is the present Managing Director, Ambrose Harper is the Chairman. He is now an old man, semi-retired, but he still comes in to the office regularly to attend the board meetings and keep an eye on the business.

The company started by making steel wastepaper bins for offices.

From wastepaper bins, Harper & Grant began to manufacture other items of office equipment: desks, chairs, cupboards, filling cabinets and smaller objects, such as filing cabinets, stapling machines and so on, until now when there are fifty-six different items listed in their catalogue.

Now Harper & Grant Ltd. is a growing company.