Apple blacklisted by Chinese consumer watchdog

It's rare but

I have come across sellers / manufacturers that when they have replaced a faulty product with new they start the warranty again. Most exceptional was a Phillips electrical toothbrush with a two year guarantee, which broke at age 23 months and one week old. It was replaced free of charge with a new unit and came with a full new two year warranty.

As for Apple, it's not unusual to have something repaired with a refurbished item. Dell had problems with XPS laptops nvidia games cards which tended to over heat and burn out. They acknowledged the fault but if it happened during the extended warranty period of two to three years they'd offer a refurbished motherboard, mainly because they stopped producing them.

As for Apple, if they are doing this it is probably because the number of repairs are so great it is a way of cutting costs.

Most shops do nor train their staff in what the rights of a consumer are, that can go right up to management level.

A few years ago I was bought one of the old style 32" JVC from comet.

In the first month the repairman had to come out 5 times to fix it as it had a habit of switching off by itself, and having sound or a picture but not both.

Comet said you cannot return it as they would do all they can to fix it!

The final straw was when the repairman changed the EPROM board telling me it was a problem with dry solder, but installed a board from a 28" model. He left the wrapper behind, and when I tried to adjust the picture for magnetism (32" screens had a facility to straighten and level the picture but the 28" did not have it) several set up menu items were missing.

I called Comet they denied the wrong part was put in and when they finally admitted it courtesy of the wrapper they said the repairman was just doing me a favour to get it working again and would replace the part as soon as possible. They STILL refused to take it back.

Solution: I took the very heavy TV back to the store and left it right in the middle of the automatic entrance doors and told every customer who came in not to buy a television from them.

Ten minutes later the store manager offered a new Sony television and extended 5 year warranty.

Problem solved.

Exactly, in the business world that's what "2bn lost revenue" means....they lost 2bn of what they were expected to earn...

Re: Warranty extension after repair?

Romania, I think. Or one of the ex-Eastern Bloc countries. The company I work for had issues there because each replacement you send has to have the same warranty as the original rather than covering the replacement for the remainder of the original's warranty term. Not so much a problem with covering it, our kit is reliable enough, more a problem that it's an unusual situation and all the internal workflows can't account for it.

Re: Warranty extension after repair?

From memory they ARE required to warrant the repair for, IIRC, 3 months. If a repaired bit breaks inside that period (even outside the original warranty) then it should be replaced for free.

Re: Short termism?

Doesn't EU law say it should be two years? After all apple got into a lot of trouble in Italy because of that very thing.

Re: Short termism?

i've had non apple phones die on me after 18 months and the mobile company fixed it for free...

Personally I avoid apple devices like the plague....

Oh and its not 1 year mandetory waranty, the sale of goods act gives you 6 Months where you guaranteed a replacement, BUT for up to 6 years they are still liable IF the device should last longer, i.e. how long should a phone last? considering there are no moving parts, I would expect a phone to keep working for 10-20 years, battery maybe not...

Re: Short termism?

"...so that's just outside the statutory 1 year warranty period here in the UK...."

I think you'll find that the Sale Of Goods Act revolves around what is considered to be "fit for purpose" when it comes to deciding when liability ends. In the case of something sold on a two year contract, I suspect that you'd find in court that "fit for purpose" there would be a minimum of, er, two years.

However, as the contract is with a mobile telco it's probably their problem rather than Apple's. Certainly worth a punt in the Small Claims Court for anyone in that position I would have thought (assuming that the piss is not being taken and the device looks like it has been treated with reasonable care). I'm sure there will be an actual lawyer along in a moment to clarify this.

Re: No refurb parts on repairs?

Lets see.

Parts thrown in landfill (most likely actually shipped to China for disposal) Result:

Buy new parts from China: Result

Re: No refurb parts on repairs?

Forces them to manufacture more.

Re: Beware

When was this?

Just last year I returned a an iMac with a a slight display problem. I called Apple and confirmed that I could return it to any store in the UK. The other store accepted it without any problems.

Also note the returns period has always been 14 days, not 15.

Re: Surprised?

> I can't recall an instance where any manufacturer/retailer offered you the faulty bits back

It comes from things like car repairs - if you take your car into a garage to be fixed, and you *buy new parts to be fitted to it*, the old parts are still your property, and you have the right to have them returned[1].

This, of course, is an entirely different situation to what Apple are doing with warranty repairs.

Vic.

[1] You should generally exercise this right. I've seen garages swear blind to haev replaced parts that they clearly haven't touched[2]. Demanding the old parts back usually forces them to admit the lie...

[2] There was someone on the Citroen XM list a few years back that had taken his car into a repair place. They told him they'd changed the shocks. But XMs don't have shocks...

Re: No money in after-sales service

I've realised that the trader you use often is far more interested in keeping customers happy. Buy a £200 telly at a supermarket and, while the pre-sales service/advice is non-existent, they seldom quibble if you have to return the product with a genuine fault.

Buy the same telly at an electrical retailer and the outcome may be less happy.

The business reason is pretty simple -- Sainsbury or Waitrose rely on you shopping weekly. Comet/Currys can only sell you a telly every five years or so -- and who knows if you'd return to them, even if you were happy with their service.