
FTC Warns Manufacturers That 'Warranty Void If Removed' Stickers Are Illegal - runesoerensen
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/ne9qdq/warranty-void-if-removed-stickers-illegal-ftc
======
outworlder
This 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.

~~~
opencl
In 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
In 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.

~~~
lysp
This is a big thing in Australia, new laws that came out in 2011 to emphasis
the point.

Especially that products should last "as long as you expect them to last".

Take TVs for example - if you buy a 80" OLED for $500, it might be expected
it'll only last 12-18 months. However if you purchased a 50" 4k TV for a few
thousand dollars, the implied warranty _might_ be 5+ years as it's a product
of reasonable quality and cost.

The best bit about it is that if there is a major fault with the product, the
remedies are: 1) Refund, 2) Replacement, or 3) Repair. And it is the
consumer/purchaser's choice.

So if you purchased a TV for $5000 and then a fault causes it to blow up 5
years later, you can ask to get a full refund, even though the current street
value might only be a few hundred dollars.

The benefit of this is it forces manufacturers to actually build quality
products, knowing they are liable for full refunds if they fail.

It reduces the chance that they'll build "planned obsolescence" using cheap
parts that might only last 12 months and 1 day (1 day past their "warranty").

A longer explanation is here: [https://www.accc.gov.au/consumers/consumer-
rights-guarantees...](https://www.accc.gov.au/consumers/consumer-rights-
guarantees/repair-replace-refund)

~~~
Nerevarine76
Wow, that sounds like some serious liability for the manufacturer. Given these
regulations I imagine these kinds of products in Australia are quite expensive
relative to less restrictive countries.

I also don't fully understand the need for laws to fix the "planned
obsolescence" issue - if a manufacturer's products consistently broke shortly
after the warranty expired (well before expected end of lifetime), why would
anyone continue to purchase from that crap manufacturer...

~~~
lmm
> I also don't fully understand the need for laws to fix the "planned
> obsolescence" issue - if a manufacturer's products consistently broke
> shortly after the warranty expired (well before expected end of lifetime),
> why would anyone continue to purchase from that crap manufacturer...

There's an information asymmetry - if a previously-reputable manufacturer
starts cheaping out on quality to save money, consumers have no way of knowing
until a few years later. And unfortunately this seems to be a common pattern.

~~~
chrischen
What I intentionally design and market a TV that only lasts 2 years, in
exchange for a lower price. This law would prevent that.

What would hapoen to the disposible plates and utensils industries?

~~~
lmm
> What I intentionally design and market a TV that only lasts 2 years, in
> exchange for a lower price. This law would prevent that.

No it wouldn't? The law is that the product is required to last as long as the
customer reasonably expects it to last, if it's explicitly advertised as
lasting for 2 years then the customer can't reasonably expect it to last
longer.

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GCU-Empiricist
Hmmm . . . 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
1) My guess would be a lawsuit of some sort.

~~~
throwaway2048
A 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
> 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.

~~~
brightsize
Washington State:

"Unless a judge grants permission, Attorneys and paralegals are excluded from
appearing or participating with the plaintiff or defendant in a small claims
suit."

[http://www.atg.wa.gov/small-claims-court-0](http://www.atg.wa.gov/small-
claims-court-0)

~~~
InitialLastName
So who would show up to represent the defendant in the case where a multi-
national corporation got sued? Do we expect that the CEO show up to every
lawsuit? A randomly chosen employee?

~~~
parliament32
Officially it can be any employee other than "an attorney-at-law or legal
paraprofessional". I imagine most companies would send whoever has the best
chance of explaining the issue away: some sort of expert or PR rep.

------
andrewla
I'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
In 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
In 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
Nah.. 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.

~~~
gambiting
Yes, an independent expert will show that, but the issue here is that the cost
if litigation is not zero, and the whole case could take months in courts -
all while you're making payments for a car you can't drive at all. And yes,
you can produce a witness that will say "this damage wasn't caused by the
aftermarket exhaust" and Audi will produce a written statement by their
engineering team in Ingolstadt staying "this damage was caused by the
aftermarket exhaust" \- and which side will the judge side with? The makers of
the engine, or an independent expert? I have no doubt that Audi would lie(or
at least make statements which are not false but are not necessarily
applicable in this situation) about it to get out of replacing an engine for
an RS6. I agree that involving the manufacturer of the exhaust would have been
a good idea.

------
iaw
> 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?

~~~
opencl
I 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.

~~~
lurchpop
Bmw will remotely disable a car if you don't use their batteries or have an
authorized dealer install it. Would be cool if that sort of thing was covered.

~~~
sjg007
Now that's a class action lawsuit. Find an attorney and collect.

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chrischen
I 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
That was easy to miss and very important.

------
YetAnotherNick
Meanwhile, warranty void if you run your own software in the device you own.

~~~
manfredo
Isn't this reasonable though? Surely if I overclock and burn out my GPU,
NVidia shouldn't be on the hook?

~~~
wtallis
The 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
What 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
I 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.

------
logfromblammo
I 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
I'm pretty sure those turn in ambient moisture. I don't think I've ever seen
one not "wet".

~~~
dbcurtis
Define "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.)

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jhallenworld
It 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/)

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mnm1
Companies 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
> 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
If 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.

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2close4comfort
Fixing Sh!t is not a crime

