> This sometimes results in customers being ping-ponged between seller and manufacturer a few times before the seller gives in.

Why would the seller give in, if it can always just ping the buyer back to the manufacturer one more time?

Because small claims court judges tend to side with the consumer in these cases.

How I wish I lived in that world. Here in the US, my wife recently had a nightmare situation where the insurance company insisted that they didn't cover a certain cost because they didn't know what it was sure, the hospital insisted that they had never assessed the cost and so couldn't explain it to the insurance, and yet somehow everyone seemed to agree that the never-assessed cost nonetheless absolutely had to be paid.