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In Norway (and I guess most of Europe) the manufacturer's warranty is often useless for lots of products, as the state mandated protection is much stronger. I d

In Norway (and I guess most of Europe) the manufacturer's warranty is often useless for lots of products, as the state mandated protection is much stronger. I don't care if a headset I buy comes with 1 year warranty, because the law gives me 5 years. And I think it's a good thing environmentally. Because a consumer cannot really know how durable a product is, so producers try to lower prices by reducing quality. Which makes it so that one has to buy new stuff more often, leading to lots of waste. But these laws solves that, the cost of a bad quality product cannot be hidden and passed on to the consumer.

Nursie 5y ago
Yeah for the EU I think that there's a law that effectively says things should last as long things should be expected to last. For major appliances IIRC this has been shown in court to be as much as ten years. I think at some point in the past apple caught a lot of flack for this over "Apple Care", a paid add-on to give you a longer than basic warranty, but neither the original nor the enhanced warranty were as good as the legally required warranty anyway. I guess this probably still applies in the UK, for now, as well.
alliao 5y ago
we have similar mechanism in New Zealand, under consumer guarantees act. But the way it played out is quite differently. Retailers end up slapping on a little extra as insurance. With lower priced items they'd just buy a bit more and just exchange. With more expensive items they'd try to fix but often contract the jobs out anyway and just give customer a new unit then sell on the refurbished product on the second hand market. I still come across many who don't know the law, and retailers take advantage of it by coercing gullible consumers into submission. And those who are able to whisper the magic words of consumer guarantees act gets a relatively speedy resolution.
404mm 5y ago
Coming from Europe, this is one of things I really dislike in the US. Products don’t have to have a warranty by law. You can find lots of subpar merchandise with 90d or even 14d warranty. And another issue, you have to deal with the manufacturer with warranty claims after some period (typically 2weeks, again, may differ). Oh and a favorite trick is to have a mandatory warranty registration within X days from purchase and/or pay shipping one or two ways (which is easily $20 each way, depending on size and carrier) So yah, you toss a lot of stuff at the end.

Nursie 5y ago

Yeah for the EU I think that there's a law that effectively says things should last as long things should be expected to last. For major appliances IIRC this has been shown in court to be as much as ten years. I think at some point in the past apple caught a lot of flack for this over "Apple Care", a paid add-on to give you a longer than basic warranty, but neither the original nor the enhanced warranty were as good as the legally required warranty anyway. I guess this probably still applies in the UK, for now, as well.

alliao 5y ago

we have similar mechanism in New Zealand, under consumer guarantees act. But the way it played out is quite differently. Retailers end up slapping on a little extra as insurance. With lower priced items they'd just buy a bit more and just exchange. With more expensive items they'd try to fix but often contract the jobs out anyway and just give customer a new unit then sell on the refurbished product on the second hand market. I still come across many who don't know the law, and retailers take advantage of it by coercing gullible consumers into submission. And those who are able to whisper the magic words of consumer guarantees act gets a relatively speedy resolution.

404mm 5y ago

Coming from Europe, this is one of things I really dislike in the US. Products don’t have to have a warranty by law. You can find lots of subpar merchandise with 90d or even 14d warranty. And another issue, you have to deal with the manufacturer with warranty claims after some period (typically 2weeks, again, may differ). Oh and a favorite trick is to have a mandatory warranty registration within X days from purchase and/or pay shipping one or two ways (which is easily $20 each way, depending on size and carrier) So yah, you toss a lot of stuff at the end.