Apple Offers Free Repairs of Products Damaged in Japan Floods

[MacRumors]

Apple has announced that it will repair any Mac, iPhone, Apple Watch, iPad, iPod, or Thunderbolt Display directly damaged by heavy rains in Japan in July, free of charge, so long as the product is actually repairable.

Affected customers can contact Apple by dialing 0120-27753-5 to arrange for pick up of any eligible products through the end of September, according to a notice on Apple's website spotted by Japanese blog Mac Otakara.

Apple will service the damaged products free of charge and then return them to customers, although there may be delays, as delivery services by courier companies are suspended in some areas due to damage from the floodwaters.

Record rainfall in southwestern Japan in July resulted in widespread flooding, landslides, burst riverbanks, and collapsed buildings across the region.

Article Link: Apple Offers Free Repairs of Products Damaged in Japan Floods

 

[Guidonculous]

Dunno if this is common, but super cool regardless.

 

[robbietop]

There were multiple really bad hurricanes last year in Apple's home country, one of which put a whole city under water and the other pretty much destroyed Puerto Rico.

And yet Japan gets free repairs.

 

[haruhiko]

A very smart gesture to bring a bit of relieve to the Japanese people, and probably won't cost them a lot.

 

[benshive]

Must be a huge relief for those people to see this. Way to go Apple

 

[TimmeyCook]

Imagine if they did this thing in any country other than Japan... I know I would take advantage even though I don’t need.

Seriously, this is big.

 

[GBrooks]

There were multiple really bad hurricanes last year in Apple's home country, one of which put a whole city under water and the other pretty much destroyed Puerto Rico.

And yet Japan gets free repairs.

Apple collectively raised $13,000,000 to aid the relief efforts in Puerto Rico last year.

 

[Mr. Donahue]

Now that’s a stand up move Apple!
That’s the Apple that keeps people loyal.

 

[topgunn]

I like that Apple is doing this to help ease the pain for the victims of the flooding in Japan. I am curious to see if this is something Apple does moving forward.

Less than 1 year ago, 100,000 homes were flooded in Houston by Hurricane Harvey. I am sure many Apple devices were made unusable by flood waters but were still repairable. With Apple having a large presence just a 150 miles away in Austin, it seems like that would have been a great time to roll out a program like this.

I would love to see Apple continue this trend. Time will tell.

 

[The-Rift]

Good Apple
[doublepost=1532697537][/doublepost]

Imagine if they did this thing in any country other than Japan... I know I would take advantage even though I don’t need.

Seriously, this is big.

So what advantages would you take...? Curious

 

[Billfmtx]

Please disregard the following paragraph which was written with ignorance. I have since been enlightened and, hopefully, will not write any more idiotic comments.

My TCW of comment is that I certainly would not want a product, that is not inexpensive, that has been through a flood no matter what repairs they do. Apple should replace, not just look at and fix, the damaged products. Would you want a 40k car after it has been through a flood? After purchase, wait for delivery, ship for fix, wait for fix and return - no thanks.

 

[keysofanxiety]

There were multiple really bad hurricanes last year in Apple's home country, one of which put a whole city under water and the other pretty much destroyed Puerto Rico.

And yet Japan gets free repairs.

By that logic, nobody should do anything at all.

Oh, you donated to a charity which helps starving children in Africa? Well what about the charity for animal abuse, or child trafficking, or saving the rainforest? Monster! Don't you care about any of those other things?

 

[Mike MA]

Nice one, especially in comparison to other companies. Yet I think donations like this should rather involve countries with less prosperity first. My opinion.

 

[Creepitor]

There were multiple really bad hurricanes last year in Apple's home country, one of which put a whole city under water and the other pretty much destroyed Puerto Rico.

And yet Japan gets free repairs.

Just get out of here with your cynicism

 

[alex00100]

There were multiple really bad hurricanes last year in Apple's home country, one of which put a whole city under water and the other pretty much destroyed Puerto Rico.

And yet Japan gets free repairs.

Oh my god! You are not entitled to a charity just because it happened somewhere else. Japnanese people are less wealthy in general than Americans yet pay the same money or more to apple than you, why the hell do you deserve free repairs more?

 

[haruhiko]

There were multiple really bad hurricanes last year in Apple's home country, one of which put a whole city under water and the other pretty much destroyed Puerto Rico.

And yet Japan gets free repairs.

You don't actually want everyone to get free repair. You just don't want the Japanese to get the free repair.

 

[Princejb134]

Apples customer service is amazing. What other company would do this?

 

[macintoshmac]

Do not get me wrong on this:

Apple likes to raise money usually for relief efforts or anything, and as someone above pointed out, it raised a large sum of money for Puerto Rico.

In contrast, I believe, they are offering free repairs to Japanese people because, for sure, it would cost them not much (they would have some idea of what they are looking at in terms of repair costs) and, by and large, the Japanese are highly scrupulous people.

It is really nice of Apple to do this. Would also like to see which other company, if any, would do this - I doubt they can, because of the serious bottomline hit they will encounter.

 

[gene731]

There were multiple really bad hurricanes last year in Apple's home country, one of which put a whole city under water and the other pretty much destroyed Puerto Rico.

And yet Japan gets free repairs.

Well I am just asking this as a honest question so don’t beat me up to bad. As another poster said if it is water damaged who would want that to be repaired leading to my question.
Never have been to Japan but do they have flood/homeowners insurance that wouldn’t either replace or compensate for their loss?

 

[AJ5790]

What a greedy company... /s

 

[OldSchoolMacGuy]

There were multiple really bad hurricanes last year in Apple's home country, one of which put a whole city under water and the other pretty much destroyed Puerto Rico.

And yet Japan gets free repairs.

Apple has done this numerous times for other disasters including in Texas, Florida, Alberta, the UK, and other areas.

Notice what all the above have that they don't have in Puerto Rico? An Apple, such as the Apple Store. Pretty hard to provide support if you don't have support in the country.

 

[chromite]

There were multiple really bad hurricanes last year in Apple's home country, one of which put a whole city under water and the other pretty much destroyed Puerto Rico.

And yet Japan gets free repairs.

Ah, the smell of subtle racism in the morning.

 

[OldSchoolMacGuy]

My TCW of comment is that I certainly would not want a product, that is not inexpensive, that has been through a flood no matter what repairs they do. Apple should replace, not just look at and fix, the damaged products. Would you want a 40k car after it has been through a flood? After purchase, wait for delivery, ship for fix, wait for fix and return - no thanks.

Apple is under zero obligation to help repair these products, in fact water damage is normally a condition under which they won't attempt any repair (bring your water-damaged MacBook Pro to them here in the US and they won't even attempt to fix it). They could let these people be out all that money and have no choice but to buy new products, but instead they're trying to help.

And what do you do? You complain that it's not enough. Wow.

 

[dontwalkhand]

Apple has done this numerous times for other disasters including in Texas, Florida, Alberta, the UK, and other areas.

Notice what all the above have that they don't have in Puerto Rico? An Apple, such as the Apple Store. Pretty hard to provide support if you don't have support in the country.

What about mailing it in?

 

[dannyyankou]

Ah, the smell of subtle racism in the morning.

Japanese isn’t a race.

Either way, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with asking why they didn’t offer free repairs in the Harvey floods.