
Microsoft, Sony, and others still use illegal warranty-void-if-removed stickers - doener
http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/233120-microsoft-sony-and-other-manufacturers-still-use-illegal-warranty-void-if-removed-stickers
======
falcolas
I'm curious to see how these laws will end up applying to Tesla cars, given
all of the restrictions Tesla has been throwing up in front of consumers who
want to fix their own cars (or buy salvage title Teslas).

~~~
franciscop
I was exactly thinking about this, more specifically how it affects to the
software or battery packs in them.

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
I'd imagine the DMCA's anti-DRM circumvention provisions make their software
rules airtight, unfortunately.

------
acd
I tend to think about the household equipment my grandma bought that where
made of sturdy iron parts and lasted a life time vs the current cheap plastic
buy and throw.

Examples
[http://www.antiquesingersewingmachinevalue.com/img/1.jpg](http://www.antiquesingersewingmachinevalue.com/img/1.jpg)
vs [http://ecx.images-
amazon.com/images/I/71WYLMoKDDS._SL1500_.j...](http://ecx.images-
amazon.com/images/I/71WYLMoKDDS._SL1500_.jpg)

old machine
[http://img.tradera.net/medium/375/231691375_31cc85f8-542b-44...](http://img.tradera.net/medium/375/231691375_31cc85f8-542b-44ab-a128-8b96230e028d.jpg)
vs [http://www.xn--grcia-csa.net/wp-
content/uploads/2013/10/10.j...](http://www.xn--grcia-csa.net/wp-
content/uploads/2013/10/10.jpg)

Its like economics and the environment with global warming is running two
opposite agendas. The economists wants us to produce and consume more "stuff"
because that is good for jobs and the economy. For the environment and global
warming we should consume less stuff and repair more of the things we own. If
we baugt things that lasts a life time we can stop global warming.

I would like to have changed laws which says being to repair the equipment you
own is mandatory. There should also be some kind of label which says how long
the device is expected to last. Hard drive manufacturers do accelerated MTBF
testing so it should be possible for other equipment too.

How do we address the economics vs environment issue?

~~~
dTal
>The economists wants us to produce and consume more "stuff" because that is
good for jobs and the economy.

Isn't this just the Broken Window Fallacy? All the effort spent making ten
shitty products instead of one good one could have been better spent improving
our lives elsewhere. If economists want this, they're bad economists.

I do see a problem in that the efficiency of manufacturing has far outstripped
the efficiency of repair. If you have a fully automated assembly line and
you've already put in the capital outlay, it's way cheaper to tell the
machines to make another one than it is to pay someone to spend time
diagnosing and fixing a faulty unit. This must surely lead to massive
materials waste if nothing else.

But then you have to ask yourself, is that bad? And if it really is, why isn't
that reflected in the price of the materials? Are there unaccounted
externalities? If so, then we need to impose those through tax and regulation.

~~~
merpnderp
Modern economics no longer believes the Broken Window Fallacy is actually a
fallacy. The theory goes that when inflation is low, low unemployment can be
resolved by taking a tiny pinch of wealth from everyone in the form of
inflation and paying a person to do what the free market considers a worthless
job (like breaking and then fixing a window). This capital now transferred to
the previously unemployed window repair person will then be correctly invested
in the free market by their demands, the same as if they were truly gainfully
employed.

We see this theory applied to roads being repaired before they truly need it,
shielding regulations and subsidies for businesses the market has punished,
even education subsidies that push people into fields where there is little
demand.

But at least there is plenty of opportunity for graft and corruption.

~~~
mwfunk
What is a real-life example of someone being paid by the government to break,
then fix a window (metaphorical or otherwise)?

~~~
merpnderp
I already gave really good examples. Repaving roads that are still viable
through regular maintenance.

There are plenty of examples and most have to do with encouraging the
replacement of goods that normally would still be considered useful. For
instance all the cars that were crushed for cash, with the only requirement
being they were still fully functional.

[EDIT] Keep in mind, inflation, a tax on all wealth, was being used to destroy
wealth, in the interest in spurring further economic growth. It just so works
out that industries and corporations closely aligned with politicians were the
economic winners. Shocking, right?

------
Can_Not
To anyone more familiar with the subject: if a company illegally denied your
warranty, is there any reason why small claims court wouldn't resolve the
issue?

~~~
edoceo
In USA small claims cannot be used for a person suing a company. Its why there
are not 1000s of small claims against Comcast

~~~
nommm-nommm
Huh? What? This isn't remotely true at all, not in the least. You can sue a
company in small claims court all you want, a company can and does also sue
you in small claims court as well. My sister in law was sued in small claims
court by a large company.

If that were true nobody would be allowed to sue their landlord since many
(most?) landlords operate as LLCs. Small claims court is the primary way
landlord-tenant laws are enforced.

Even if it was, nobody brings a small claims case in federal court, even if
that was allowed. You bring a case in your State court and every single State
has different rules and procedures for small claims court.

There are plenty of small claims against Comcast.

[https://consumerist.com/2008/01/21/suing-big-companies-in-
sm...](https://consumerist.com/2008/01/21/suing-big-companies-in-small-claims-
court-is-fun-and-easy/)

~~~
edoceo
Thank you! I had bad data.

------
matthjensen
Warranty-void-if-removed stickers reduce the cost to the company of providing
the warranty, among other effects. Outlawing these stickers increases the cost
of warranties to consumers who have no interest in opening the hardware. In
this situation, it is unclear whether the use of government rule making -- and
the use of government force to uphold those rules -- enhances overall welfare.
I would be interested to hear from the regulators what assumptions were
necessary to justify the policy.

~~~
csydas
I disagree and would like to see evidence to support this claim.

I admit my evidence is anecdotal, but when I assisted with computer repairs at
a University, regardless of whether or not a user had broken the warranty
sticker companies would do whatever was in their power to refuse service or
provide improper/inadequate service on machines. As I often worked with
foreign exchange students who really needed their machines repair as opposed
to buying new ones, I would often act as an authorized intermediary for the
students and would work with the manufacturer warranties directly. Numerous
times consumers would be accused of having violated the warranty because of
"broken warranty stickers" when we hadn't so much as removed the battery on
laptops that still had detachable batteries. The machines would be returned to
the student having been opened by the manufacturer and then the blame would be
put on the student.

Combine this with the fact that standard warranties are very short and even a
paid for warranty often won't cover the most common damage to portable
electronics (water damage), and I guess I'm wondering what you're even paying
for.

Warranty support is a sham for many companies, and often times the focus of
warranty support is to find a way to dismiss the claim rather than honor it.
There are some that are very good with their warranty support, but also quite
a few that are horrible. Apple, for as controlling and mean as people make
them out to be, only have moisture damage stickers inside their products, and
their exclusions only include mistreatment of the device and non-certified
third party service that causes damage (third party service itself isn't
forbidden, just if they wreck the machine, Apple eschews their
responsibility). Other companies put warranty stickers right atop screw heads,
preventing things like swapping hard drives, RAM, or other easily replaceable
components without voiding the warranty, quite illegally as the article
demonstrated.

So even if there is a cost reduction that can be demonstrated, if it comes at
the cost that I can't swap out HDDs on my own without voiding my warranty, I
think the extra cost is better, since you're paying far more than the extra
few $$$ in order to get the largely non-usable warranty.

~~~
cmdrfred
I work for an MSP. This is HP's motivus operandi. We had a number of machines
that constantly blue screened. Reviews of the crash dump were impossible
because in the middle of the dump the system would lock up. We also had a
number of Dell machines in the same Active Directory domain running the same
software that had no issues. After about 3 months of testing (and about 5
'lost' tickets) the client was getting pissed due to a lack of a resolution.
We did everything they asked. The final response was that Internet Explorer
was not supported on these machines and we needed to stop using it (In this
case, basically "Don't use the machines you paid for and they won't
bluescreen"). Not IE 8 or 9 mind you, IE11 on Windows 7 machines. I asked them
to update their website to reflect this, as I'm sure many customers would like
to know, they never did. (It was bullshit, the problem was bad ram, when I
replaced it with some I had laying around everything worked fine) It happened
that IE11 was a requirement for the web app they use. Eventually we were able
to get the VAR to eat the costs and send us replacements, but HP never claimed
any responsibility whatsoever. It's on my never buy list now, what a
nightmare.

~~~
Spooky23
One of the fun parts of working at a mega-enterprise is being able to screw
vendors like this to the wall.

Example:

\- 15 minute callback from a L2 engineer, 98% compliance or hardware
replacement.

\- PC vendors had to hit specific targets for failures in the first 90 days --
exceed a certain number of failures and everything gets replaced.

\- 72 hour call-to-resolution with penalties that climbed up for SLA misses.

The upshot is that the vendor actually tests our shit in the factory. The
downside is that folks like your customer who lack leverage get the reject
parts.

------
Kenji
So, does that mean I am allowed to open up my Xbox One once in a while to
maintain and/or clean it (the dust that accumulates in fan-cooled systems is
insane, expecially over a timespan of years)? I feel like it would cost me
more money and trouble if it breaks and they refuse warranty.

~~~
etatoby
> expecially over a timespan of years

The warranty for most products is limited to one year (two in the EU by law,
sometimes three if you pay more.) After that period, no company will repair or
refund anything, even if it fails spectacularly.

As soon as that time expires the maintenance is in your hands, so it's a good
habit to start by taking it apart, give it a good cleaning, check for
corrosion and for faulty capacitors, maybe upgrade the RAM or the disk if you
like.

~~~
monocasa
Maybe, maybe not. For systemic issues (like the 360's RRoD, and the Wii had
dirty laser lens that kept them from reading dual layer discs) they generally
fix them past the warranty to stave off a class action suit.

~~~
striking
It wasn't that they were dirty, just that a particular potentiometer had the
wrong setting on 1% of drives released before SSBB.

------
benologist
Another area like this is refund policies, Australia recently found Steam was
violating consumer protection laws for their former refund policy that was
designed to deny refunds. Lots of sites/services continue to have similar
policies.

[http://www.smh.com.au/business/consumer-affairs/online-
games...](http://www.smh.com.au/business/consumer-affairs/online-games-giant-
valve-found-to-have-breached-australian-consumer-law-20160329-gnt2wd.html)

------
davidgerard
Somewhat amused in context to see "By using the Ziff Davis site, you agree
with our use of cookies." immediately on the page.

------
DocG
Soes anyoneone know,is it the same in EU?

