Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

About to begin a battle with Apple. A cautionary tale?

Status
Not open for further replies.
yes good luck and let us know how it goes, I think you have a shot at success, and should definitely look into it more
 
ArmitageShanker said:
Am I breaking the rules by daring to argue?
Click to expand...

I didn't say you were breaking any rules, I merely asked what your purpose was in posting this here. When I post something on a forum, it is because I want feedback. Forgive me, but you seem uninterested in anything but making your own points and belittling anyone who disagrees with you.
 
thelatinist said:
I didn't say you were breaking any rules, I merely asked what your purpose was in posting this here. When I post something on a forum, it is because I want feedback. Forgive me, but you seem uninterested in anything but making your own points and belittling anyone who disagrees with you.
Click to expand...

It's probably because poster after poster completely disregards consumer protection laws in the UK and responds with simpleminded phrases like "Tough luck, you're out of warranty!" He knows he's out of warranty, my god. There are so many inane posts here it's unbelievable. If you're not willing or unable to actually comprehend what this discussion is concerning, just don't post.
 
So how does anyone know its not something you did that caused the earpiece to fail?
Apple or the Judge should take your word that you treated it like gold and never missused it,dropped it or spilled any liquid on the speaker?
I never heard of an incident like that with an iphone and we all read tons of complains about iphones with yellow tint screen, wifi issues to dust under the glass etc...
So its not like a well known defect for something like that to happen a year after someone owns an iphone. And in the end its a cellphone and people know the abuse they go thru with daily use.
Obviously we're only getting your side of the story here.
Just because there is no dents on the phone it doesnt mean anything. You can damage internal components by dropping it but with a case there wont be any scratches on the housing even though there was impact.
Even though you think a cellphone should last 2+ years or for the time of the contract no matter what I think real life scenarios are alot different. I know certain people that go thru cellphones like underware :) They destroy them within months cause of miscare and abuse. And others that have them still looking like brand new years after purchase. So its not one size fits all and all cellphones and peoples wear and tear are not the same. You might think 2 years its fair but more around 1 year would be my guess.
If its worth your time, money and efford go for it.
IMO its not even worth all the time you wasted responding to 100 posts in this very long thread.
 
The speaker in my original iPhone stopped working after awhile. It turns out that it was a problem with the headphone jack; it would detect headphones even when none were plugged in.

I hope you win, if for nothng else but to silence the posters saying you should have just bought Apple care.
 
TBH...I'd just do it online, via a small claims, this is what they are meant for.

Advice from people in the US isn't going to be overly relevant here, as obviously their laws are different to ours.
 
The laws of the European Union embrace all EU members, and there is this one EU law, which tells that any consumer purchase should have at least 24 months of warranty.

When you take Apple to court, it has been proven in some countries, including The Netherlands, that Apple has little way of winning a case when this law is brought up.

And for the record; the duration of the warranty as stated by the manufacturer has nothing to do with the actual law.

So I'd say, if you've got a legal insurance (which means a free lawyer), go for it. There might be a big chance of winning.
 
thelatinist said:
I didn't say you were breaking any rules, I merely asked what your purpose was in posting this here. When I post something on a forum, it is because I want feedback. Forgive me, but you seem uninterested in anything but making your own points and belittling anyone who disagrees with you.
Click to expand...

+1 - he isn't respecting the feedback that we give him. He asked for feedback and comments, we're giving them to him although he continues to deny that he's going to lose the case / he agrees that he is definitely right in relation to the law.

If you're going to argue that a "reasonable amount of time" should be what you feel is correct, I wish you the best of luck.
Click to expand...

Very good point. The OP can't just make up rules as he goes along.

He's going to lose this case.
 
The important thing to remember here is that cover given under the 12 month warranty is in addition to any statutory rights and a warranty cannot be used to reduce any rights granted under the law. The OP is quite correct that he may have additional protection under the UK Sale of Goods act and EU regulations.

The other thing that is important to note (particularly for non UK residents who may not know this), is that in the small claims court, each party is responsible for their own legal fees and only in very exceptional circumstances (i.e. a frivolous case) will costs be awarded against either party.

It is also common for people to represent themselves as it's a pretty informal process and very geared to getting justice for the ordinary person. Large companies in the UK are pretty much terrified of the small claims court because even if they win, they lose due to them having to swallow their own defence costs, and most companies will just settle out of court rather than spending a whole lot of money defending a case.

Of course, Apple could have their day in court on a matter of principle, but even then it only costs the OP the filing cost and a day of their time and they still have a pretty good chance of winning as small claims courts tend to view their role as one of protecting the average person against the "big, bad corporations": The onus will very definitely be on Apple to prove their product was reasonable rather than the other way around.

The UK small claims court is one arena where Apple's size and legal might won't help them one iota...
 
Applejuiced said:
Just because there is no dents on the phone it doesnt mean anything. You can damage internal components by dropping it but with a case there wont be any scratches on the housing even though there was impact.
Click to expand...

There would clearly be more evidence in favour of it NOT being dropped/had liquid spilt on it if there's no trauma to the phone and the liquid sensors are still white.

If it's a case of persuading the Judge that you haven't damaged the phone yourself, then a pristine looking phone with untriggered liquid sensors would be the way to do that.

Obviously it works both ways - if the screen was cracked and there were scuffmarks all over it you'd get laughed out of Court.
 
matttye said:
There would clearly be more evidence in favour of it NOT being dropped/had liquid spilt on it if there's no trauma to the phone and the liquid sensors are still white.

If it's a case of persuading the Judge that you haven't damaged the phone yourself, then a pristine looking phone with untriggered liquid sensors would be the way to do that.

Obviously it works both ways - if the screen was cracked and there were scuffmarks all over it you'd get laughed out of Court.
Click to expand...

If its small amount of liquid spilled in the earphone piece the sensors will not get tripped and the speaker will get damaged.
 
ArmitageShanker said:
I'll assume you aren't in the UK, jedispongee, and will therefore excuse you. Which? aren't just any old magazine - they are the pre-eminent consumer rights organisation in the UK with unique powers bestowed upon them by government which allow them to lodge so-called super-complaints on behalf of consumers when they see fit. Questioning their knowledge and authority, if you knew who they were, would best be described as naive but more likely as foolish.

...........

I haven't read the full text of the act, and neither do I need to. Organisations such as Which? do that on my behalf. And neither do I intend to study case law to seek out precedents - I can pursue this claim at a nominal cost so there is little to gain from investing the necessary time to seek out and consume the case law.
Click to expand...

Good grief.
 
ArmitageShanker said:
Hi everyone, I'm a UK based iPhone 3G owner and I've recently been having troubles with my handset. I've visited my local Apple store on 3 occasions now in order to try to get the issue fixed, to no avail, and I'm now being fobbed off so I'm now in the unenviable position of being compelled to start using legal threats and, if required, legal action to get Apple to abide by their legal obligation.

I therefore thought I'd post my experience henceforth on here, so that the user community can see how Apple have responded, and continue to respond to my approaches.

So, here's the story:

I bought a 3G 17 months ago (25th November 2008) and had many months of satisfactory use out of it but a few months ago it developed a fault. During calls, usually a couple of minutes in, it switches itself into headphones mode. The workaround when this happens has been to put the phone into speakerphone mode but, naturally, there are occasions when this workaround isn't really appropriate so I decided to get the problem sorted. The phone has also intermittently been struggling to get a signal when other 3G users in my vicinity have been fine.

I made an appointment to get my phone looked at by someone on the Genius Bar at my nearest Apple Store.

His first recommendation was to get a new sim, as his sim appeared to make the phone more responsive than mine. Fair enough, I thought - he's the expert. So I got a new sim and tried it for a week. The signal issue appears to have been resovled but the headphone mode issue remained so I made a second appointment to visit someone on the Genius Bar.

He advised that I should do a factory reset of the OS, without then doing a restore, in case there was a corruption in software. He also opened up the handset and reseated some stuff (out the back so I didn't actually see what).

A week later, the problem remains so I visited the Genius Bar again today to see what they advised next.

The advice was that the phone must be faulty but, as it is more than 12 months old, it was a chargeable replacement. As you might expect, I wasn't impressed by this, but I had anticipated that this might happen and took along a copy of an issue of Which? magazine (I am a subscriber) so that I could present them with an example of a consumer with a similar problem with Dell.

The case cites the Sale of Goods Act which, to quote Which?, says that "Goods must be fit for purpose and of satisfactory quality. Among other things, this means they must last for a reasonable time. What's reasonable depends on the goods, and the cut-off point relates to the time you have to start court action - six years from the date you receive the goods."

Now, the key points here, in my opinion, are as follows:

1) By any 'reasonable' person's measure, it is fair to expect a phone to remain in perfect working order for the duration of the contract it was sold with (in my case 18 months.

2) The phone has been subject to no trauma, exhibits no signs of any trauma, and nor has it been damaged by water or any other kind of contaminant.

I would therefore argue that under the Sale of Goods Act, despite the phone being outside of the manufacturer's 12 months warranty, Apple are legally obliged to repair or replace the phone.

The manager that I spoke to in the store, having read the article, didn't disagree with me about where they stood in relation to the Act but said that he was not allowed by Apple to provide me with a free replacement, despite what the Act says, as his employer defines the rules that he personally has to abide by.

So now I'm at home with my faulty handset and about to start dealing with Apple corporate. Any predictions from anyone how this is going to pan out?
Click to expand...



despite all of the negative posts in this thread i thought i would give you some positive news.

This actually happened to a good friend of mine, however the fault was slightly different (his phone would not hold calls at all). His phone was also out of warranty and he followed similar steps to you, also with the same result.

this is where it gets positive! he wrote a strongly worded letter to Apple, quoting the exact same law (sales of goods act), and would you believe it he was able to get a free replacement, after having sent the original faulty device to apple. Whether it was sent in the UK or US i do not know, but i assume it was the UK.

my suggestion to you is to do the exact same thing, you have nothing to lose and you will hopefully get the same outcome as my friend.
 
To OP, I'm not sure why you bothered asking the question here (no, I'm not saying you're not allowed). Because you seem to only want agreement with you and immediately dismiss anyone who doesn't agree with you. If you already have your mind set that you are right, why are you wasting your time asking us?

Go ahead and try it. Let us know how it went (cause now I'm sure people who are reading this are curious who was right on how the courts would rule). You seem to already be determined that you are right, so why are you asking here rather than going ahead and doing it.

My own opinion (and I'm not trying to say whether you'd win or not, just my opinion) if I were judge is that a year is reasonable for the manufacturer to warranty the product and after that it is reasonable to say that they can't "guarentee" it will always work. Sure, I agree it should last more than a year (or rather it does not impress me when something lasts only a year), but I don't think it's unreasonable for the mfg to say they cannot guarantee that.

And I put my money where my mouth is. My macbook's hard drive died literally less than a month after warranty. I did not argue about that it was now my responsibility to fix it when I went to the Apple Genius's (I just wanted advice to make sure it was the hard drive and if my info was still salvageable. They managed to tell me how to save my info, I was very happy!). Sure, I am disappointed with the quality of my Macbook (more cause that's not the only issue I've had with it in three years, I've never had such a poor quality Mac *sigh* Apple is slipping). But I don't think it's unreasonable they only warrantied it for a year (specially just for the hard drive honestly).

And I don't think the length of your contract means anything in relation to the phone they sold. They only sold you an item to get you in a contract, they didn't guarantee you'd always have a phone to use for that contract. Once again, this is my opinion and how I'd rule as a judge (since the law is pretty much very open to interpretation so in the end it does seem it is up to the Judge to decide if you or Apple is being reasonable. It's honestly a pretty poorly worded law imo cause it leaves way too much to interpretation and personal biases).
 
Check with your bank. I just found out that any electrical device I purchase using my RBS debit or credit card has an additional 1 year warranty after the initial manufacturers warranty expires. This saves me taking out Applecare on my iPhone as if any repairs out with the Apple 1-year warranty are required, the bank will pick up the tab.
 
tigress666 said:
To OP, I'm not sure why you bothered asking the question here (no, I'm not saying you're not allowed). Because you seem to only want agreement with you and immediately dismiss anyone who doesn't agree with you. If you already have your mind set that you are right, why are you wasting your time asking us?

Go ahead and try it. Let us know how it went (cause now I'm sure people who are reading this are curious who was right on how the courts would rule). You seem to already be determined that you are right, so why are you asking here rather than going ahead and doing it.

My own opinion (and I'm not trying to say whether you'd win or not, just my opinion) if I were judge is that a year is reasonable for the manufacturer to warranty the product and after that it is reasonable to say that they can't "guarentee" it will always work. Sure, I agree it should last more than a year (or rather it does not impress me when something lasts only a year), but I don't think it's unreasonable for the mfg to say they cannot guarantee that.

And I put my money where my mouth is. My macbook's hard drive died literally less than a month after warranty. I did not argue about that it was now my responsibility to fix it when I went to the Apple Genius's (I just wanted advice to make sure it was the hard drive and if my info was still salvageable. They managed to tell me how to save my info, I was very happy!). Sure, I am disappointed with the quality of my Macbook (more cause that's not the only issue I've had with it in three years, I've never had such a poor quality Mac *sigh* Apple is slipping). But I don't think it's unreasonable they only warrantied it for a year (specially just for the hard drive honestly).

And I don't think the length of your contract means anything in relation to the phone they sold. They only sold you an item to get you in a contract, they didn't guarantee you'd always have a phone to use for that contract. Once again, this is my opinion and how I'd rule as a judge (since the law is pretty much very open to interpretation so in the end it does seem it is up to the Judge to decide if you or Apple is being reasonable. It's honestly a pretty poorly worded law imo cause it leaves way too much to interpretation and personal biases).
Click to expand...

Here's where the difference in cultures is somewhat influencing your post. Here in the UK (and most of the EU) manufacturer warranties last for at least two years on most products. One year isn't very long for premium electronic equipment.
 
ArmitageShanker, I don't know UK law, so I can't comment on your question. I do have a favor to ask, and I am hoping you may entertain it. In the event you do proceed against Apple, would you create a thread here and post your progress. I find this fascinating and feel I could learn something by following your process.
 
matttye said:
Here's where the difference in cultures is somewhat influencing your post. Here in the UK (and most of the EU) manufacturer warranties last for at least two years on most products. One year isn't very long for premium electronic equipment.
Click to expand...

Well, alright, if there is a precedent there that most electronics have 2 year guaranties, I could see the judge ruling in his favor.

Here the precedent is 1 year (or less, I know for some gadgets 90 days is more like it). I would be very surprised at a 2 year warranty here (actually, I do have one item that had that and it wasn't an electronic, a motorcycle tank bag from Givi. I thought that was an exceptional warranty).
 
Its actually quite simple: i've never heard that iPhones usually stop working after 17 months. Mine surely didnt, the one's from my friends didn't.
SO, if you didnt mistreat yours, its save to say its faulty. Probably was from the beginning.
So i would do exactly what you said, if they dont help, sue them.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back