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Comment by radicalbyte | Hacker News Reader

They claimed that it wasn't covered because the machine was brought in Germany. I live in The Netherlands and brought it here. Also I contacted Apple Support to checked my serial number and then gave me the address to take it to. Which I did.

They charged me $100 to get my machine back without repair.

Also bear in mind that the EU is a single market, warranties etc are, by law, required to be honoured over the ENTIRE single market. Not just one country.

Especially when the closest Apple Store to me is IN GERMANY.

I have since returned it to Amazon who will refund it (they're taking their sweet time though, I need to call them next week as they should have transferred already).

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So you haven't purchased it from Apple but instead you've purchased it from Amazon. This may change things. In Europe you have two ways of dealing with it, either by manufacturer warranty (completely good will and on terms set by the manufacturer) or by consumer rights (warranted you by law, overruling any warranty restrictions).

Sellers often will try to steer you to use warranty as it removes their responsibility, Amazon is certainly shady here. Apple will often straight on give you a full refund or a new device (often newer model), that happened to me with quite few iPhones and MacBooks.

Know your rights.

Amazon helped instantly however my mistake was talking to Apple. They didn't even ask if I'd spoken to the retailer. I was, at the time, focused on just getting it fixed as I needed to get the data off of it (the entire Apple + external monitors thing is also a shit-show, terrible UX, terrible design and terrible documentation).

I'll keep buying from Amazon as their support is great and prices competitive. I don't trust Apple buying from them directly.

I had a Macbook Pro 2018 that a friend of mine bought for me in Moscow because it was much cheaper there (due to grey import, I think). I didn't have Apple Care or anything. When its touchbar stopped working in 2020, I brought it to Apple Store in Amsterdam and complained about it and also about faulty butterfly keys (one keycap fell off, "t" and "e" key were registering double presses each time). So the guys at Apple Store simply took it and replaced the whole top case so I've got a new keyboard, new touchbar, and - the best part - a new battery.

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