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FTC Warns Manufacturers That 'Warranty Void If Removed' Stickers Are Illegal
- GCU-Empiricist 9y agoHmmm . . . so two questions: 1. (serious) What recourse do customers have when the company says your warranty is void because you broke the seal? Because the tech on the phone isn't going to have the power to do anything, he's reading from the binder. (Edit really asking: I'm sure someone here will already know the formal complaint process) /edit 2. (sarcastic) How long before the companies get the law changed de jurie instead of just de facto?
- iaw 9y ago1) My guess would be a lawsuit of some sort.
- GCU-Empiricist 9y agoUnfortunate if so, nothing will change until someone organizes class actions, and then the victims get at best enough to buy a lunch, a cheap lunch.
- staticautomatic 9y agoNot exactly, since individuals could still file small claims suits to get their money back if they don't mind the prospect of giving up the product at issue. I have successfully done this myself under similar circumstances.
- s2g 9y agoYou can't organize a class action, the companies had a shrink wrap agreement to mandatory arbitration. Welcome to 21st century America.
- aeorgnoieang 9y agoAren't you underestimating the ability of Americans to litigate, especially about whether they can litigate? I'm sue you are.
- marcoperaza 9y ago>Welcome to 21st century America. Which is still more plaintiff-friendly than any jurisdiction in Europe.
- pktgen 9y agoUnless the FTC decides to pursue the matter. The FTC can obtain relief for all US consumers and is not bound by the arbitration agreement.
- jfoutz 9y agodoes that still apply? The stickers aren't a misunderstanding, they're illegal. You can't fine print away crimes.
- IncRnd 9y agoThe courts have disagreed amongst themselves regarding the legality of shrink wrap agreements.
- sjg007 9y agoThose are basically unenforceable. You file a lawsuit, big co asks to squash to arbitration, judge says wtf no, this is potentially a class act.. continue.
- syshum 9y agoUnfortunately the Supreme Court disagrees with you https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/supreme-court-backs-binding-arbitration-agreements/2012/01/16/gIQAg4LuGQ_story.html?utm_term=.4dd7bbfeb867 https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/supreme-court-backs-...
- throwaway2048 9y agoA lot of people forget small claims courts are an option, lawyers arnt allowed, and judges are pretty sensible. Its a good option for sub $10k USD claims. Large corps are unlikely to even show up, meaning you win by default.
- djrogers 9y ago> lawyers arnt allowed Not true - any time you take a big corp to small claims court, they're going to send a lawyer to represent them. You are suing an entity, not a person, and the entity will pick who represents them.
- throwaway2048 9y agobut at the same time there really isnt any point for them to send a lawyer that is going to cost massively more than what the claim could be even theoretically.
- aylons 9y agoThere's one point:deterrence. Half of a corporate lawyer's work is about deterrence, anyway.
- funkymike 9y agoMany small claims courts do not allow the company to send whoever they want. Some outright disallow sending lawyers.
- djrogers 9y agoFor person to person suits, yes. For a suit against a corporation who has an attorney on staff? You're getting an attorney. Granted, it may be one who's not familiar with small claims court, but it'll be an attorney. BigCo isn't sending the CEO or the receptionist - they have a legal staff in house, they're gonna use them.
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- Simulacra 9y agoYou could try this: https://www.ftc.gov/faq/consumer-protection/submit-consumer-complaint-ftc https://www.ftc.gov/faq/consumer-protection/submit-consumer-... Not sure if you'll get a response but it will raise some ire and the company is likely to take it seriously. Hopefully...
- db48x 9y agoUse the small-claims court to get a refund on the broken item they refused to repair.
- dawnerd 9y agoAlso if you bought using an Amex they have a pretty decent return policy. Should cover cases like this.
- chris11 9y agoI've usually had good luck filing claims with credit card companies, depending on how long it's been. The one downside is that the extended warranty service may not be as valuable as just filing a normal claim right after you buy something.
- ChuckMcM 9y agoFor your first question, step 1 is to escalate and when you escalate make sure they know you are creating a paper trail. If you can use the term "paper trail" it will help get your call escalated. Ideally you will get to someone senior enough that you can mention this enforcement action by the FTC and they will recognize it. If that fails, you take your paper trail to small claims court. This can be challenging in different circumstances to serve the other party but courts can be pretty liberal here in California. I was watching cases one day and the person had served Microsoft by giving the summons to a Microsoft Store employee who worked in a kiosk at the mall. Microsoft hadn't shown up so they won their default judgement and went to the next step which was to put a judgement lien on the corporation's assets. (long before that actually happens their legal team will pay you your damages). You could concurrently file a complaint with the FTC. It won't give you any money but it will add on to other complaints and that will eventually get action (like this article). Getting a registered mail letter from the FTC tends to get the attention of the right people. As for your sarcastic question it is isn't that manufacturers have tried to get the laws changed, they have been unsuccessful. Support the 'right to repair' efforts when you run into them, talk to your representatives if you get a chance. That will keep the pressure to maintain the status quo.
- vkou 9y ago> For your first question, step 1 is to escalate and when you escalate make sure they know you are creating a paper trail. If you can use the term "paper trail" it will help get your call escalated. Ideally you will get to someone senior enough that you can mention this enforcement action by the FTC and they will recognize it. Do try to avoid the term "lawsuit", though. If you do, any customer service rep that didn't sleep through training will hang up, leaving you free to converse with their legal department... Through snail mail.
- ChuckMcM 9y agoVery good point. I usually say "so how do I spell your name again for my notes?" that is often enough of a clue.
- michaelmrose 9y ago
- integricho 9y agoUnrelated, but, wasn't the Empiricist a System-class GSV? Although, always nice to bump into Culture fans..
- GCU-Empiricist 9y agoYes it's meant as a little bit of self depreciation on a name that's a personal reminder: "don't be the big butt plug"
- andrewla 9y agoI'm curious as to how this works out in practice. I can see the motivation for stickers like this -- half-assed attempts to repair a device can result in the device being in a state where it is no longer reparable by the manufacturer. Is it still possible for a manufacturer to refuse to honor a warranty if that is the case, namely that the device was damaged by a botched repair, and this just says that they can't make that determination based on a sticker alone?
- DonbunEf7 9y agoIn short, yes. An analogy with cars, where the same law already is being applied, will work. (Do we still do car analogies in 2018? And on sites which aren't Slashdot?) Suppose you get your brakes changed at some place which is well-known for brake repair. Then, later, your engine dies but the manufacturer's warranty should still be valid. Then, if the manufacturer wants to claim that the third-party brake repair is the cause of the engine failure (and thus that the warranty is invalidated), the burden of evidence is on them.
- gambiting 9y agoIn general, yes, however - the manufacturer is unfortunately the one who is responsible for both producing and validating the burden of evidence. I know someone with a very expensive car(Audi RS6) who had an aftermarket exhaust and in year 2 of ownership the engine died - Audi refused warranty repair, saying that the modified exhaust could have changed the outgoing pressure of the gasses and caused the engine failure....and they are not wrong, but at the same time the character of the failure made it really obvious the issue was elsewhere. But the manufacturer says that it's caused by something you did so that's that. The whole case is being decided by the court right now, but it's anyone's guess which way it will go - and I suspect it will be ruled in favour of Audi.
- sjg007 9y agoNah.. expert witnesses will show it was a failure elsewhere. Also the aftermarket exhaust will have design specs within tolerances of the OEM. You can run an engine with no exhaust just fine. It will be expensive to litigate that though, maybe more than the cost of the engine repair itself. They should probably include the aftermarket exhaust manufacturer in the suit as well. They have a vested interest in Audi not winning. After market parts have a long history of litigation especially with insurance company repairs. If they are effectively within spec your friend should be fine.
- iaw 9y ago> The FTC hasn’t said which six companies it sent letters to, just that they “market and sell automobiles, cellular devices, and video gaming systems in the United States.” Does anyone else read this to imply that Tesla got a letter?
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- VLM 9y agoI'm pretty sure more than a decade ago my dad had a keyless entry fob for a car, who's make I do not recall, that had a sticker to discourage battery replacement. This anecdote is only relevant in the sense that the sticker might not be on the hood of the car; remote control for AV system or keyless entry or tire pressure monitoring gadgets inside the wheels are definite possibilities.
- opencl 9y agoI would be shocked if Tesla is not on the list. They do not take very kindly to people even daring to connect to the diagnostic port on their cars, literally calling people on the phone (because of course their servers log everything you ever do with the car and they know who owns each car) and telling them to stop: https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/posts/610152/ https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/posts/610152/ It does not bode well for any sort of attempt to repair the things.
- ghaff 9y agoTesla has also basically thumbed its nose at the Massachusetts Right to Repair law. Technically they comply in that you can access their service manual online but it's $30 [per hour] or $3,000 per year or something like that.
- FireBeyond 9y agoAnd, I believe, before that, you had to go to a Tesla dealership to view it. After making an appointment. After paying a fee. And you weren't allowed to make copies of anything or take photos.
- 2close4comfort 9y agoFixing Sh!t is not a crime
- logfromblammo 9y agoI wonder how this applies to those moisture-evident stickers they used to put inside phones so they could deny warranty if you answered a call in the rain or spilled a drink on the table or something similar. Technically, they don't say that wetting the sticker will void your warranty, but if the sticker shows that it was wet, the manufacturer would have denied warranty coverage anyway.
- jimktrains2 9y agoI'm pretty sure those turn in ambient moisture. I don't think I've ever seen one not "wet".
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- dbcurtis 9y agoDefine "ambient". Here in semi-arid California, they might work just fine. OTOH I once spent two weeks in Borneo.... my Palm Pilot (yes, it was a long time ago....) crapped out within 24 hours. Electronics really suffered there. (A friend and I repaired a ham radio amplifier for a local ham. We found the problem.... in the form of a skeleton of a gecko that had gotten itself across the filter caps of the 1200V @ 900mA power supply.... not directly a moisture problem, just a general jungle problem.)
- sjg007 9y agoI think it is their proof that something wet happened. You could sue in small claims and ask for evidence that the stickers perform (or file an FTC complaint). The new phones though claim to be water proof or at least water resistant so that denial probably won't hold up anymore.
- petee 9y agoNot really the same situation though is it... That sticker is to confirm damage beyond warranty, not to restrict the end users ability to fix the problem. Anyway, proof of misuse or consumer damage should void your warranty.
- outworlder 9y agoThis was not in the US. My father used to own a computer repair shop. Some of the computers were assembled by us, some were not. After a service was performed, there was a warranty (two months if memory servers). What would happen is that people would pick their computer up, open it, do some stupid stuff, and then come back and try to claim the warranty. Best one was some guy that installed the CPU in a incorrect orientation on purpose, to see if it would "improve performance". Burned out the CPU and motherboard and tried to blame us. This was back at the Pentium Overdrive days. So we started adding those stickers in the case itself. People would be free to remove them, but we would not honor any warranties if so. As a consumer, I know it sucks. But I do know the other side, people will do really stupid things and then try to get others to clean up after them.
- jjoonathan 9y agoThe MMWA would not require you to provide service in that case.
- opencl 9y agoIn the US manufacturers don't need to fix things that users break but they legally need to prove that the user's actions were the cause of the failure. If someone performs their own oil change on their car and then a wheel falls off the manufacturer can't just say that you popped the hood open so the warranty is void. I'm not a big fan of car analogies but cars were the main reason this law was passed in the first place. In principle this law applies to any purchase over $15 that has a written warranty agreement, but in reality most companies feel free to ignore it because few customers are even aware of the law and even fewer are going to bother going to small claims court over anything less than a few thousand dollars.
- sjg007 9y agoIn fact limited warranties are a scam. You have express and implied warranties by default. So if you expect your dishwasher to last 10 years but it only lasts 5 and the limited warranty said 1 year.. if that limited warranty was not disclaimed properly then you can take the manufacturer to small claims and most likely win. Companies try to get you to sign a product registration card to get you to agree to the limited warranty. It's all a scam. If your dishwasher blows up, call the manufacturer, ask them to fix it, if they refuse, pay for the repairs then take the manufacturer to small claims court and you will most likely win.
- YetAnotherNick 9y agoMeanwhile, warranty void if you run your own software in the device you own.
- manfredo 9y agoIsn't this reasonable though? Surely if I overclock and burn out my GPU, NVidia shouldn't be on the hook?
- wtallis 9y agoThe hardware shouldn't be relying on drivers in the host OS to protect it from melting. That's too failure-prone even when the user isn't trying to push the limits of the hardware through overclocking. Thermal and voltage limits need to be enforced by the peripheral device itself either in hardware or in its own firmware. Relying on software running on the host CPU to provide a realtime response to critical situations is foolish. Extreme overclocking of the sort that can break your hardware should require soldering or external re-flashing of a firmware ROM.
- mulmen 9y agoWhat if I change the firmware? What if I change the hardware? Where is the line and why distinguish between a pure hardware product and a combined product that uses both hardware and software? Why should we legislate engineering decisions?
- wtallis 9y agoI don't think any of those are productive questions. If you alter firmware that is usually unchanged over the life of the product (as for a desktop graphics card) and you specifically edit the rules it contains for thermal throttling, then you are obviously liable for the lump of slag that you end up with. Likewise if you're making hardware modifications that compromise the thermal management capabilities. In either case, it will be pretty easy to show after the fact that the product was modified, and that your modifications were probably related to the failure. None of that applies when the host software is responsible for preventing hardware damage. As I've explained, relying on software running inside of Windows to prevent hardware damage is asking for trouble even without user intervention. You may also notice that I'm not advocating for "legislating engineering decisions"; though there are plenty of situations where engineering decisions obviously should be determined by legislation, this is more a question of after the fact liability to be worked out by the courts, which are generally pretty good at figuring out whether to place the blame on a user or on the engineers.
- mnm1 9y agoCompanies like Apple have been in violation of this for years. Sending them a letter isn't going to do anything. The FTC should either fine these companies or admit that it's not going to do anything. It's absolutely ridiculous that these companies get a pass on this for years. What incentive do they have to remove their stickers or change their policies?
- eitland 9y ago> or admit that it's not going to do anything. What would that be good for? Honestly. Now they have started applying pressure. They can start sending fines later this year or next year. But giving up? I can't seen an upside in that.
- mnm1 9y agoIf people see their public agencies failing them, maybe they'll vote differently or at least act in accordance to try to effect change themselves. Pretending to do things makes the public complacent because they think those things get done. But I agree, fines are much better if they're really coming up.
- jhallenworld 9y agoIt would be nice if companies were required to provide service information and parts. There is a long history concerning this issue starting with the 1956 consent decree against IBM: https://repair.org/history/ https://repair.org/history/
- chrischen 9y agoI was baffled by this but then read this sentence buried in the article: > "Unless warrantors provide the parts or services for free or receive a waiver from the FTC, such statements generally are prohibited by the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act, a law that governs consumer product warranties. Similarly, such statements may be deceptive under the FTC Act." It seems this rule only applies if the warranty services are not free. If the warranty covers free repair, they are still allowed to deny said free warranty if tampering is evident.
- John_KZ 9y agoThat was easy to miss and very important.