FTC Warns It Is Illegal to Condition Warranty on Use of Specified Parts/Services | Hacker News Reader

FTC Warns It Is Illegal to Condition Warranty on Use of Specified Parts/Services

ftc.gov

143 pointsDeinos54 comments

Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16803512

Slightly different in that it concerns the use of "warranty void if removed" seals.

I had a Husqvarna lawn edger attachment that broke during the warranty period. After a back and forth with customer service, their only solution for me was to bring to an "Authorized repair center". I would have no problem with that if there wasn't a diagnostic fee, that would be waived if the repair was going to be covered under warranty, or I would have to pay if it was not. The potential fee was $50 on a $100 item. The thing is I could literally hold the broken part in my hand and say "this is what is broken, here is the part number, is it covered?". They could not answer that unless the repair center looked at it. It is a known issue with the flex shaft that many people have documented online. Husq doesn't care, in fact most of their twitter feed is filled with customer complaints.

Credit Card warranty couldn't help because it was within manufacturer's warranty.

I got the Attn. General involved who basically arbitrated the conversation, ultimately did not help one bit. I even cited the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act mentioned here by the FTC.

This has re-invigorated me to try going down the FTC complaint route. It's not about the $100 now, it's about Husq standing behind their products and fixing known issues, and not lying to consumers with BS warranties on the box.

Not helping my case: I bought another one because the attachment is basically the best on the market. I fully expect the same thing will happen again, armed myself with a better 3rd party warranty this time. I hope it at least makes it through 1 season.

I'm glad I don't have any warranty nightmare stories, mine have been universally painless (mostly for computer parts). I've sent back a couple of hard drives over the years and I don't think I even had to talk to customer service for those, the entire process was automated. I had a fairly expensive mouse bite the dust after six months and that only took a short conversation with customer service to get the warranty process started.

Was it a razer chroma or deathadder?

Almost everyone I recommended this mouse to, the wheel broke. Curious if you had the same experience.

No, it was a Logitech G900.

That is how customer service should operate. Husqvarna is the only company I have ever had a major problem like this with. Usually companies try to make their customer happy... not force them to spend money to find out if something is covered under warranty.

Is that part something I could 3D print for you?

Not really, it is a coupler that broke away from the flex shalf. Flex shaft is made of some oily metal crap, can't weld or braze to it. It was a compression fit coupler and the coupler cracked.

Pictured here: http://answerarmy.com/posts/494bc7a370

[edit] - fixing link

I wonder if Keurig will have to change their brewer warranty:

"Only the use of Keurig® K-Cup® brand pods and accessories will guarantee the proper functioning and lifetime of your Keurig® brewer. Any damage to or malfunction of your brewer resulting from the use of non-Keurig® pods and accessories may not be covered by this warranty or may result in a service fee if the damage or malfunction is determined to be caused by such use."

http://support.keurig.com/article?id=kA036000000CJGOCA4

That's likely what their legal team decided on, not what they actually enforce at the customer support level. I've replaced a Keurig. I called them, told them it was not working when plugged in, they asked I send in the little k-cup holder, and sent me a replacement unit.

They don’t have to change anything, it says it may not be covered, which means it may or may not be. In this case it will be covered.

Any damage to or malfunction of your brewer resulting from the use of non-Keurig® pods and accessories may not be covered by this warranty

I don't see a problem with this -- if a 3rd party part/accessory damages the product, the manufacturer shouldn't be held liable. This applies whether it's a bad k-cup or a third party turbo charger blows up your car engine.

Though the onus should be on the manufacturer to show that the 3rd party part was to blame.

I doubt it. The FTC takes issue with modifications voiding warranty even if a modification doesn’t cause the defect.

That text clearly is about causality: if a non-Keurig part caises damage, the warranty doesn’t cover it (actually not even that: may not cover it)

For example, a sticker covering a ventilation opening shouldn’t void your warranty w.r.t. a design error in its power supply, but if that sticker causes your device to overheat and break down, things are different.

A few years back, there was a well-known issue with HP Touchpads where the plastic near the speakers would start to crack.[0][1] HP accepted the Touchpads more or less without question and offered to repair them free of charge.

After I sent mine in, I got a call several weeks later from an HP employee who informed me that they had found "third-party firmware" flashed onto the device (like pretty much everyone who bought a Touchpad after HP discontinued them, I loaded Android onto it). I argued with him for a few minutes about what relevance that has to a well-known hardware defect on the device, but he insisted that flashing a third-party OS voids the warranty. He eventually agreed to repair it, issuing me a "warning" about future repairs and saying that they would wipe it and flash a stock image before sending it back to me.

Would the FTC's warning have covered my incident above had HP not eventually agreed to repair it?

[0]https://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1250645

[1]https://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1502123

One would expect (and hope) it would. It's pretty clear the software changes had nothing to do with the defect.

On the other hand, if the battery exploded after you changed the software....

Part of the reason we need these laws to be enforced is so that manufacturers are discouraged from doing idiotic things like making the application software in any way involved in whether the battery explodes.

I had almost the exact same experience with my MacBook. I made it into a hackintosh and later tried to have the keyboard replaced (the white ones that would stain yellow).

They gave me a hard time about it but ultimately agreed to do so. I think the store person was just following a script.

How can a MacBook be a hackintosh?

Install Linux on it.

Ah, that is kind of the opposite of a Hackintosh. A Hackinlinux, perhaps? :)

A Macinix perhaps?

I assume Waterluvian is using the term to refer to a mac laptop with Windows or Linux installed onto it.

Correct. I used the wrong term.

How do you make a mac into a hackintosh?

Cool! I own a Traeger wood pellet grill (smoker), and there's a big warning label that says if I don't use their brand of pellets that my warranty may be void.

I thought this was pretty much BS, but good to hear officially that this kind of thing is not OK.

Classic two-part tarriff. Nothing like putting a generic garbage bag into a trash can that screams at you that you need to use their 300% marked up version.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-part_tariff

How could they tell?

Two thoughts:

First, using pellets intended for heating rather than cooking is a health hazard.

Second, low-quality pellets that disintegrate, are improperly sized (aka too big, clog the auger, too small, cause burn temp inconsistencies) can damage the machine.

Odds are, it's standard boilerplate to cover them in case you use it improperly, and would only be invoked if that is obvious upon inspection.

Yeah, the wording sucks, because it seems like they would turn down repairs that aren't caused by the pellets in use. Maybe there's a better way to word it- IANAL.

But including unenforceable clauses into a contract arguably constitutes a deliberate attempt to deter the consumer from exercising his rights. That's what at stake here.

Wait, does this mean I can root my Kindle fire and my Android phone without voiding their warranties?

Interesting question, I would guess contingent on: does software count as a "part"?

It's an interesting question. I can think of a valid reasons for software voiding a warranty. E.g. if I use non-recommended software to drive a CNC machine, and it causes a destructive head crash, or custom engine management software to make my car go faster and it wears out the engine more quickly. Increasingly, the integrity of machines is dependent on software.

It may also be unreasonable to put the burden of proof on the warranty issuer, that the damage was caused by the user's arbitrary choice of software.

If the validity of the warranty clause depends on the extent to which the software may affect the device's physical integrity, then I can imagine some manufacturers locking users into their software by making that dependence more opaque.

One school of thought is that it’s defective hardware design if well-behaved software is all that’s keeping hardware from catastrophically failing.

Often the line between hardware and software is blurred (is FPGA logic or processor microcode hardware?). Avoiding catastrophic failure may be a non-trivial problem. In the example case of a CNC machine, you must avoid putting too much strain on a tool, or suddenly colliding with the workpiece, thus requiring knowledge of the workpiece geometry. Software can also be easily updated to mitigate hardware faults or design problems (e.g. processor bugs).

I think if you can show that the alterations did not cause the failure, yes, it follows that the warranty would still apply. I'm not sure whether the burden would fall on you or the company to prove their case, however.

That has always been the case. The meme of "voiding your warranty" seems to have been adopted more as some hipster badge of honor rather than the actual legal situation.

Whether companies will be less likely to attempt to deny people's warranty rights as a result of this "stern warning" remains to be seen.

I'd personally like it if the FTC started outright suing companies for these stickers with the fraudulent legal advice.

So how does this law interact with garbage products that enforce "Use of Specified Parts/Services" with DRM?

Better yet, how do we know when its a DRM factor, vs not?

This seems overly generous to the consumer. If I buy a product such as an iPad, then break the screen, then replace the screen with an inferior (dimmer, say) part, can I now claim back to Apple that the product is unsuitable and expect a replacement within the terms of the warranty?

Even if this is about unrelated parts, such as a battery failure after replacing the screen, how much effort will it take the manufacturer to a) ensure that the device has no other less obvious changes and b) ensure that the parts that were replaced didn't have an unexpected effect? Certainly I've seen, in manufacturing devices that emit EM, unintended consequences where parts caused interference significant enough to damage other parts (usually through unexpected signals.)

It's clearly a win for consumers but I wonder how companies can carry the burden. Perhaps all-inclusive warranties will fade into history as a result.

It is definitely a concern. The company would have to prove that the third party component caused the problem.

With your example, this would be fairly clear as the screen wouldn't be covered. It can clearly become ambiguous in some cases, though.

Also, this isn't a new law. It is just them stating their intent to enforce the Magnussen Moss Warranty act (enacted in 1975) against companies that (often intentionally) mislead customers.

Apple would have to provide its own internal standard for screens, and show that the replacement screen did not meet the standard. Replacement screen manufacturers now potentially have access to the Apple standard, and can build parts that meet it.

They could just buy a bunch of products, replace some original parts with their own aftermarket or repair parts, then wait for something else to break under warranty.

If the manufacturer denies warranty coverage from the replacement part, the proof can be used to improve the product. If the manufacturer doesn't deny coverage, that's evidence it is an acceptable, non-interfering replacement.

This is entirely a straw man, and doesn't even represent the reality (or age!) of the law.

What the law implies is that Apple needs to continue to warrant the REST of the iPad, even if someone else has done work on the iPad at some point, unless that work caused the damage being claimed under warranty. They are perfectly able to say that they won't cover damage caused by you (or, by extension, anyone you hire to work on your iPad).

If the screen came from another provider, then Apple no longer needs to cover the screen at all, in fact. That's perfectly legal under current law. But Apple can't cancel the warranty on the rest of the device if the screen replacement procedure didn't cause the damage.

If, for instance, the iPad (the one with a replaced screen above) stops holding any charge after six months due to a faulty battery, and there is no connection between that new problem and the screen replacement procedure, then Apple still needs to cover the repair or replacement of the battery.

The problem is that if a competent screen repair voids all warranties, then you are being forced to go to Apple for all repairs. And that's what is illegal.

If a car dealer requires that you get the oil changed at a dealer in order to maintain your warranty, but something completely unrelated fails, they can't then say "Sorry, your warranty is void because you didn't pay our high maintenance rates."

That's what the law is about, and it's been that way since 1975 (!!), so I don't think we're going to suddenly see a drop in all-inclusive warranties just because the FTC is cracking down on a half dozen companies that aren't in compliance.

This isn't entirely a strawman. One of the things that pretty much all repair professionals seem to hate is dealing with hardware that people have tried to fix themselves, especially stuff dating from the days where this was possible, because it's a huge amount of work to try and figure out what they could've screwed up. Now every company with a warranty has to either put in that work or give no-questions-asked warranty replacements to people who damage the products they sell, and all their other customers have to pay for it.

Only for versions of "now" that date back to 1975, since that's when the law was passed.

As far as the screen goes, I presume that warrantee would only cover the original parts. The warrantee for the original parts would be in tact in that case, and in your example, the original parts are functioning as intended. The case where replacement parts (or the replacement process itself) damaged the original product is a concern.

I think it has to come down to a balance ultimately -- wherever you place the bar, companies and customers alike will find ways to abuse it, it'll just be easier for one group or the other. I think overall though we need to err towards giving more power to consumers for one reason: Both groups have a lever to protect themselves from damages, companies can raise the cost of or not offer warranties, and costumers can choose to not buy the products. However, there's always an inherent information imbalance in the direction of companies -- they know their product better than you do, they know what they cheaped out on, they might have exclusive access to replacement parts, or exclusive expertise for repairs. And this in general makes it much easier to abuse consumers.

Companies should stop selling warranties that are only economically viable if they break the law then.

It's not a new law or decision

The first warranty I checked had clear violations.

> 4.1.1 Exclusions. Customer has no warranty rights with respect to defects or non-conformities caused by (i) use of the Products with hardware or software that Company has not specified as suitable; ... (v) installation or maintenance of Products by someone other than Company; ...

https://www.seagate.com/css/terms-us/hardware-sales-terms/

That's not a violation. It specifically says "caused by". If it said something like "Customer has no warranty rights wrt defects or non-conformities if they've used the product with hardware or software...", then that would be an actual violation.

I'm wondering how Apple will handle this regarding third-party parts.

A lot of people don't now that for years (well at least a decade, actually) Apple policy has been that users can do their own upgrades without voiding the warranty. For hard drives, example. Obviously this doesn't apply for soldered-in SSD drives, I'm talking about spinning drives converted to SSD, or capacity upgrades for those same traditional form factor drives, using third party drives (well all traditional drives are third party for Apple, but you get the point).

Apple has a lot more sense than haters give them credit for. Their policies vary on a case by case basis depending on the specifics of the part and the potential impacts on important factors like security. For example you don't want an adversary or an abusive household member being able to install their own hacked version of the fingerprint sensor hardware on your phone while you are not looking.

Things are only as strong as the legal cases behind them.

Apple recently told me that my battery, despite being well within it's advertised number of charge cycles, needed to be replaced, and that it would cost some absurd amount of money.

This is obviously bait and switch, but am I really going to take them to court over $300? Just the lost time of filing any paperwork about it would end up costing me more money.

So yeah, this stuff is all great, but who cares if none of us actually have the time to take them to court.

$300 to replace battery? I thought battery replacements are $79 and $29 under their promotional pricing from the controversy? Or did you replace a macbook battery?

FYI, Apple has replaced things for me out of warranty all the time (macbook battery, charger, etc, for free). The Genius bar staff have a lot of leeway and when I'm sitting there I always observe some people being extremely discourteous or playing obviously dumb, and in response getting completely different service than what I would normally get.

>$300 to replace battery?

Sorry, it was actually $200: https://www.apple.com/support/macbookpro/en/battery_body.htm...

If your 2012 macbook is well within the normal amount of charge cycles at this point then you must not have used it much.

One time I got into a dispute with an insurance company over about $500. I sent them a letter outlining the legal basis for my grievance and said that I would be considering legal options in small claims court if I didn't get a satisfactory response. It was settled pretty quickly via phone call after that.

My point is that you have to be willing to show that you will escalate and you are not bluffing. Companies don't wanna go to court any more than you do.

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