Belgian Consumer Organization Sues Apple For Not Respecting Warranty Law 168
New submitter thygate writes with news of more trouble for Apple with its warranty terms complying with E.U. regulations. From the press release: "For many years warranty issues are at the top of the charts of complaints dealt with by consumer organizations. One of the recurring problems are the complaints about Apple. 'Test-Aankoop/Test-Achats' found major problems fixed on the information provided by Apple and its authorized distributors regarding the legal guarantee, the commercial one year warranty, and the warranty extension through the 'AppleCare Protection Plan' of 2 or 3 years. A lawsuit against Apple has been filed (English translation; original)) with the Commercial Court of Brussels. In a precedent in Italy, The commercial practices of Apple were found to be misleading. Apple was sentenced to pay € 900,000 and was obliged to change their contractual legal warranty and guarantees to consumers."
Re:Obligated (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:EU and US price differences... (Score:3, Insightful)
They already do this. A USD 2199 macbook is a EUR 2199 macbook. But the question is why Apple should be allowed to sell hightech junk which needs repair within two years. Hardly value for money.
Re:My dad once purchased Apple Care (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple Care is extended warranty, and is not insurance.
That's the entire point of his post.
It all depends on whether you believe the crack was caused by a manufacturing defect or improper/accidental user behavior. In his case, he clearly believes it was a manufacturing defect. Of course, you can choose not to believe him if you want, that's your call.
I doubt you would get a replacement for notebook either.
That's a strawman. He was asking for the device to be fixed, not be replaced (which according to him at least, could have been easily done).
Besides, an extended warranty doesn't just extend the default limitation of a standard manufacturer warranty, but it's supposed to dictate more advantageous terms than a standard existing warranty (even when a defect is found only within the standard warranty period).
So if one is to truly believe that this was caused by a manufacturing defect, and not user behavior, it wouldn't be unusual to expect better warranty service when one has purposefully purchased better warranty service in the first place.
Re:So what is Apple actually accused of? (Score:5, Insightful)
espite what the law may imply, the 2-year guarantee is not "free."
The law doesn't imply 2-year warantee should come for free but that must be included in the front price of the product.
"Yet another example of a law taking away your opportunity."
There's a non fair bargaining position on the seller: we knows perfectly what the innards of the product he is selling are, but the seller can't. This way the buyer is protected knowing there's a minimal quality all products needs to abide to. It leverages the playing field for all vendors, hardly a way of taking away oportunities, except for oportunities to abuse the buyer, of course.
Re:Precedent? (Score:3, Insightful)
both cases are based upon a UE directive that states that every item sold in the UE has to have 2 years warranty while Apple tell its users that they have only 1 year warranty and can buy an extention to 2-3 years so both cases have a common ground (the UE directive) but the actual results, fines and such can differ as per local laws.
Re:Gender-equality (Score:5, Insightful)
I think you forget what insurance is.
If everyone pays insurance by the risk that they personally pose, we all just end up paying for our own costs. Thus, "insurance" in that sense becomes just a middle-man who takes a percentage of what we have to pay anyway.
Insurance is intended to cover lots of people because the 1% who actually have an accident that month are covered by the 99% who didn't but still paid a (small) premium anyway.
The problem is not the equality, but the way the insurance companies DO NOT PASS those savings on to customers (i.e. if they have 50% male and 50% female drivers, say, the female drivers will pay and subsidise the males and, by comparison, the males pay the same but have more accidents so get a better deal). The question is really why does a bad woman driver get a better insurance than a good male driver when everything is recorded and added up? That's the problem that was solved by the equality legislation, and the insurer's profiteering from it is the INSURER'S being arseholes.
Any "insurance" where you end up paying more than others isn't insurance (US medical insurance is another example - if I have to pay more because I have condition X, then why would I pay it to an insurance company when I could just put it in a bank and pay it direct? Hence most people who need insurance, don't have it, which ruins the point of medical insurance - it just becomes easy-money for the insurer's because the high-risk pay their own bills, effectively, and the low-risk pay every month for nothing).
It's just red-tape around paying what you owe anyway. And most modern "insurance" is exactly like that. If we ALL paid flood insurance, it would cost us 2p each a year. If only those who live in flood plains pay it, they might as well just put it in the bank and pay costs of each flood as it happens because it's only the high-risk people who are subsidising the majority of the insurance anyway. Some countries have blanket car insurance, because of this - every driver pays exactly the same and is insured to the same level. They can buy MORE insurance if they want, but everyone benefits from the basic insurance and pays less than they otherwise would.
And then people wonder why there are areas of London, say, where you cannot get insurance for your car because NOBODY there has insurance (Tottenham was in the news just last year for this - it's so hard to get insurance, because nobody else has it in the local area and it costs the insurer's money to pursue them when there's an accident, that nobody has insurance - something like 40% of drivers registered to Tottenham addresses are uninsured!).
Insurance isn't about "you cost me more, so I charge you more". Insurance is a blanket cover that covers the total costs of everyone it insures, paid for by everyone contributing an equal amount. Anything else is red-tape and bullshit. Notice, then, that car insurance rising because women have the pay the same as men now (i.e. closer to "real" insurance), is red-tape and bullshit and not related to the legislation at all.
Just wait for the trials about age discrimination on the same thing - why should someone get discriminated against because they are 20 with 10 years of driving experience, compared to someone who is 50 with 5 years of driving experience? And then they'll be a trial about where-you-live not being good enough to judge your insurance risk (especially if you drive around the country a lot), etc. etc. etc. and we'll slowly creep our way back to "proper" insurance.
Re:Precedent? (Score:2, Insightful)
WOHHHHH!!! Stop there. What bit about not imbuing any law-related implications on the term are you misunderstanding? Maybe you should put down your law-books, they're clearly clouding your mind, and just look at an English-language dictionary for a definition of the word:
PRECEDENT n.
1 : an earlier occurrence of something similar
Case closed.