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It's not an uncommon practice in Australia (from a high level). (Never looked into the legalities though....) One example I know of is that Kathmandu offer a "

It's not an uncommon practice in Australia (from a high level). (Never looked into the legalities though....) One example I know of is that Kathmandu offer a "lifetime warranty" on their goods, but that lifetime is their definition for how long that item is expected to last. As an example they might say "rain jacket x has a product lifetime of 5 years"; so a warranty claim at 4 would be covered but one at 6 years would not (if the staff act 100% in accordance with the policy). (These numbers are entirely arbitrary and not based on their policy.) It's actually surprisingly inline with consumer laws, but consumer law has a "reasonable expected lifetime based on what you paid for the item" type clause (such that a $15 jacket has a different lifetime to a $800 one). It's worth remembering for things like expensive TVs that only have a short warranty, because it often pans out that the expected lifetime (because of the price) is higher than the manufacturer offers, but they still have to cover the fault (because of consumer laws). (It's not accounting for a retrospective change though...)

dspillett 9y ago
The TomTom situation is worse than that for some (many?) users though. This isn't a device losing support because it is at the end of its physical life expectancy, or because of tech advances in th eX years since the customer bought it (as some of the devices are still available to buy), but because they can't be bothered to keep it up-to-date. They could at least maintain a slightly cut down version that does work on the older designs, for instance. If someone bought one of those devices in the last year or few I would hope there is a case for it being returned as "not fit for purpose". You could argue that it still works with older maps, but in some cases this could potentially be dangerous. In the case of a sports watch like mine not getting updates wouldn't be a big issue (I might not get new features, but the old ones would still work, I could still use it as a distance tracker and to tell the time) but for a mapping the device up-to-date maps are an essential part. For devices still on shop shelves, any sold near a statement that updates are a feature are actively being mis-sold. Who picks up the hit for having to sell these devices off cheap: TomTom or the retailer? Some retailers are going to be as irritated as the end users.

dspillett 9y ago

The TomTom situation is worse than that for some (many?) users though. This isn't a device losing support because it is at the end of its physical life expectancy, or because of tech advances in th eX years since the customer bought it (as some of the devices are still available to buy), but because they can't be bothered to keep it up-to-date. They could at least maintain a slightly cut down version that does work on the older designs, for instance. If someone bought one of those devices in the last year or few I would hope there is a case for it being returned as "not fit for purpose". You could argue that it still works with older maps, but in some cases this could potentially be dangerous. In the case of a sports watch like mine not getting updates wouldn't be a big issue (I might not get new features, but the old ones would still work, I could still use it as a distance tracker and to tell the time) but for a mapping the device up-to-date maps are an essential part. For devices still on shop shelves, any sold near a statement that updates are a feature are actively being mis-sold. Who picks up the hit for having to sell these devices off cheap: TomTom or the retailer? Some retailers are going to be as irritated as the end users.