All Apple stores could close for 30 days in Italy over warranty case
theregister.co.uk
theregister.co.uk
For the record, this isn't just Italian law, but it EU law. All half a billion (or so) people in the EU can benefit from this sort of protection.
AppleCare is not required, and in includes other things that are not covered under implicit rights, such as onsite support, or telephone support outside of 1 incident/90 days.
In Germany, the burden of proof reverses after six months (i.e. after six months the buyer has to proof that a defect was present when they bought the product – I have not idea how you can do that short of hiring some sort of expert), making the two year warranty basically useless. No company will do anything for you after six months.
Also, I can very much understand why Apple found itself in the situation it is in Italy. In Germany there is a very clear difference between a „Garantie“ (lit. “guarantee”) and a „Gewährleistung“ (≈ “defects liability”).
A „Garantie“ is a contract between seller (or a company which made the product) and buyer with certain guarantees and conditions the seller provides. That’s exactly what Apple does with their one year warranty. The conditions are very different from those of the law.
A „Gewährleistung“ is what the law requires the seller to do if there is any defect in the product that was there when it was sold. How that is implemented in detail differs from country to country. Also note that I’m talking about the seller here. Apple provides their warranty no matter where you buy your Apple product. You can go directly to them if you have a problem, no matter where you bought it. That’s not so in the case of the „Gewährleistung“. To make it easy for buyers, they can always go to their sellers with problems that are covered by the law.
They probably were too broad in their EU policy and ignored that Italy is so damn finicky about this.
Again, in Germany there is no confusion because we have two different words for it. Well, there is some confusion but the two words is how all companies do it. I don’t think companies are even allowed to advertise something that is your right anyway (like the mandated warranty), that’s probably the reason why they don’t say anything.
That's actually what the EU law says aswell. first 6 months fault is presumed to be there from the start. After that, you must show it was faulty.
From customer care they said "er... wait ten minutes please... I have to contact my boss over this, I'm not sure if the product is covered". Two minutes later my friend was recalled and the Apple guy confirmed that they will handle the problem as if it was still in the first year of the guarantee.
Here, for example, is the Apple page for the Dutch market detailing the different guarantees (in Dutch): http://www.apple.com/nl/legal/statutory-warranty/
It seems then that the issue is about communication, not about actually offering a lesser guarantee and ignoring EU law.
Looking at the UK warranty page: http://www.apple.com/uk/legal/statutory-warranty/
They are clearly saying that they are only going to fix problems within the first year (Apple One-Year Limited Warranty). They say that the EU law says: "Defects present when customer takes delivery". But that's very open and misleading. If I hard drive breaks on the 15th month, is my fault or Apple's? If the battery drains too quickly? If the screen starts doing faulty things?
The European law is very clear, if something breaks within the first 2 years because of a factory/design problem, it's Apple fault. They have enough margin not to be cheap about that and making European customers angry.
That's simply not true.
> They say that the EU law says: "Defects present when customer takes delivery".
And that's what EU law says, although several countries have gone further in their local implementation of it.
> If I hard drive breaks on the 15th month, is my fault or Apple's? If the battery drains too quickly? If the screen starts doing faulty things?
Apple's if it breaks during normal use, yours if it's due to abnormal use.
> They have enough margin not to be cheap about that and making European customers angry.
What you mean is that some wrongly informed people are angry after reading some biased press articles and are taking sides in a supposed 'Apple VS EU' battle - the big mean corporation against the little consumer.
If you ever have this problem, take it to small claims court and it will get sorted in no time. Caveat emptor.
Hope you're not under the impression that Apple will just 'cave in' and fix it out of court to minimise hassel.
Check out http://www.seattlerex.com/seattle-rex-vs-apple-the-verdict-i...
> If Apple could have replaced my logic board at no cost to themselves, then why in the hell did they drag this out for so long, and why did they send two people to court to try and make sure that I got absolutely nothing? Friends, this is a question I have been asking myself for three months, and it is a question that I do not have the answer to.
For references, consider this page: http://store.apple.com/it/browse/home/shop_mac/family/imac/s...
Which states:
"iMac include 90 giorni di assistenza telefonica gratuita e garanzia limitata di un anno"
meaning:
"iMac includes 90 days of free telephone assistance and a limited one year warranty"
This basically means that a less than extremely savvy customer will buy either a longer warranty, or not claim a warranty after a year because he thinks it's expired.
This is actively Evil.
Yeah, I was kind of expecting a horror story along the lines of the Youtube lawsuit, or something like that, but I think Apple is pretty clearly in the wrong. The law may or may not be a good one, but it's pretty clear.
However if you protest you get the 2 year warranty, but not everyone knows how to protest and what do say to convince Apple employees ;)
I experienced the worst service of my life from Apple South Africa. My iPad USB cable frayed, and I was first told that it was not under warranty. Then I found it was, from the call centre who asked me to take it in to the nearest iStore. When I took it in, the salesperson refused to help until I made an appoinment. I phoned their local call centre which instructed him to help me, and the he still refused to help. I had to get the manager involved. Three weeks later -after they lost my serial number twice- I finally got a replacement cable.
You can't use the local App Store to buy games (since they haven't bothered to arrange for self-rating like other app stores). This is never mentioned by Apple South Africa in their marketing material.
My theory is that their overseas branches/distributors were set up for an older era, and they can't keep up with Apple's sudden rise.
Can you say a bit more about this? I don't follow.
http://www.thyon.com/blog-entry/items/apples-lack-of-games-m...
There are workarounds for South Africans, some easier than others, but it is very annoying, and Apple never mentions that you can't buy games with a South African App Store account in their advertising.
For those who are confused by the European concept of guaranteed two-year warranty.
P.S. Not every Italian cares about apple stores.
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=size+of+italy+vs+nether...