@myforwik. So Australians are dishonest and Americans honest, wow go the racist attitudes! ... or is it that many large multinational companies treat Australians like cash-cows?
Australians can pay more than 100% for exactly the same software as an American, In fact newspapers here found it was cheaper to fly to LA and pick up a copy of some Adobe software than it was to buy the same product in Australia! (Ie a $1500 airfare and still able to get the product more cheaply!!)
Games, music, movies, all delivered electronically are generally 30 to 40 % more expensive than the US (after taking into account tax and exchange differences).
It's often referred to the 'Australia Tax', where companies charge far more to Australians for exactly the same product as is sold overseas and why there is a prevalence of people using VPNs to get around geo-locking by (primarily greedy) American companies who are happy to sell you a movie on iTunes for $4.99 but me one for $6.99
It has never been 'socially acceptable' to rip off companies here.
I have never, ever, ever heard of apple replacing a phone for someone that was water damaged, when I broke my iPad screen a year ago the apple replacement cost me $429. This article is about apple care plus, which is currently not in Australia.
You are right about the government sticking up for our warranty rights though here. We have what is called a statutory warranty which can not be overruled. It does NOT cover wear and tear or accidents or water damage despite your ridiculous claim. What it does state is that an item should work for a reasonable period of time based on what you spent on it. The Nokia phone for $50 comes with a one year warranty, it is 'reasonable' to expect that a cheap phone would last for a year. It is not reasonable that the $1100 phone (marketed as a premium product) that you purchased from apple dies 370 days after you purchased it or even 18 months later ... a generally accepted level of warranty was thought to be 2 years by my government... Remembering this is NOT water damage, NOT dropping phone etc etc, instances I've seen of warranty replacements under statutory law have been due poor battery life (battery deterioration, not the issues that many of us had with our iphone 5), and also the issues that affected quite a number of home keys on the iPhone 4 or 4s at just over the one year mark (how many Americans were ripped off by apple because their non apple care phone's home key stopped working due potentially shoddy materials that really should have lasted longer?)
This equally applies to the $300 and the $3000 TVs and other products that you might have purchased also, both with one year warranties, I would think such a government initiative is common sense and holds companies accountable.
I find it a strange mentality that you would think it acceptable that you should be forced to buy an extra warranty for a phone costing over a thousand dollars because it is not made well enough that a company can't guarantee it for more than a year without a premium being added to the cost. I guess your companies need to be 'more honest' and give realistic warranty periods.
