Belgian Judge May Block Apple Websites Over 'Misleading' Warranty Information

[gnasher729]

[/COLOR]

It's harder to find (Netherlands is fine). Still, there is a link to a page that starts with

Alle producten gekocht van Apple, inclusief niet-Apple producten, vallen onder de wettelijke garantie van 2 jaar van de verkoper tot levering van een goed dat met de overeenkomst in overeenstemming is, bepaald bij de artikelen 1649bis tot 1649octies van het Burgerlijk Wetboek, en de wettelijke waarborg voor verborgen gebreken, bepaald bij de artikelen 1641 tot 1649 van het Burgerlijk Wetboek.

"All products purchased from Apple, including non-Apple products, fall under the (xxx) warranty of two years by the seller that delivery of a good is in agreement with the purchase agreement... " or something like that.


I managed to find that one to, but strangely enough, if you look for warranty from a different direction, you get this:

"Hardwaregarantie
Apple's Eenjarige Beperkte Garantie - (BELGIË)
Alleen voor producten van het Apple-merk"

http://www.apple.com/legal/warranty/products/mac-dutch-be.html

Stating only one year warranty

One year voluntary manufacturer's warranty vs. 2 years (or whatever is legal) legally required seller's warranty.

For one year, you can take your iPhone anywhere in the world, and Apple will fix it. Anywhere.

For two years, you can take your iPhone back to the store where you bought it, and they have to fix it.

Example: You buy an iPhone at Vodaphone in Belgium. For one year, Apple will fix it under the manufacturer's warranty. For two years, Vodaphone has to fix it. Another example: You buy an HP printer in Belgium at an Apple Store. You'll have to ask HP as the manufacturer for how long they will fix it. But Apple, this time as the seller, has to fix it for two years, because they are the ones who sold it to you.

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Reads like by EU Law Apple must provide at least 2 years of warranty support.

So why does Apple even point out 1 year?
(It seems Apple would do better if they offer 2 years there anyway)

Because you didn't read it right.
The _seller_ has to provide 2 years warranty support. Not Apple, unless you bought from Apple directly.

 

[OllyW]

Since they are not happy if PC World treats people with Apple hardware badly, they are very unlikely to stonewall you.

Especially as the staff working on the Apple departments in the big stores are employed by Apple UK.

 

[fifthworld]

One year voluntary manufacturer's warranty vs. 2 years (or whatever is legal) legally required seller's warranty.

For one year, you can take your iPhone anywhere in the world, and Apple will fix it. Anywhere.

For two years, you can take your iPhone back to the store where you bought it, and they have to fix it.

Exactly, with one correction, the minimun one year manufacturer's warranty is mandatory, not voluntary.

To complicate the matter even more, the law does not apply to professional buyers, for them the EU mandate only the 1 year warranty.

The EU legislator is at fault here for making a complicate law, a law that protects consumers only on the paper, probably to gather consent. In fact most of the time do get anything done by sellers you have to go through lengthy and painfully discouraging procedures.

And I know this by experience having worked for several years at one of the major consumer association in Italy.

 

[AppleMark]

Reads like by EU Law Apple must provide at least 2 years of warranty support.

So why does Apple even point out 1 year?
(It seems Apple would do better if they offer 2 years there anyway)

So that you buy Apple Care.

You pay a good amount of your money for an item you know should last a good few years at least. Then are led to understand (by Apple advertising a 1-year limited warranty), that should it break down after 12 months (not damage related), you are out of pocket with repair bills.

Would you always consider paying for a 3 year warranty when you get 2 years free? In many cases the answer is no.

Now consider that in fact in the UK you get 5-6 years warranty, if you know how to claim it.

That is why this whole thing is ultimately misleading.

 

[gnasher729]

Exactly, with one correction, the minimun one year manufacturer's warranty is mandatory, not voluntary.

Tell Samsung that. Six months warranty on batteries.

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So that you buy Apple Care.

Now _that_ is where Apple was told off rightfully.

When you buy AppleCare, you don't buy "3 year warranty". You buy "the difference between 3 year warranty, and whatever protection you would have without buying AppleCare". _That_ is the point where Apple _must_ tell you about statutory rights, because otherwise you don't understand correctly what you paid for when you bought AppleCare.

Not that anyone cares when Dell doesn't tell their customers when they sell extended warranties...

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Now consider that in fact in the UK you get 5-6 years warranty, if you know how to claim it.

You don't get 5-6 years warranty. You have a 5-6 years notice period. That's a totally different thing. After 4 years and 11 months, you would have to prove that the product shouldn't break after that time. Good luck. If you buy a marble statue for the garden, that's expected to last for tens of years, so you should get that fixed after 4 years and 11 months. But a computer isn't expected to last that long.

 

[baryon]

Apple's warranty is always a little bit dodgy, I get the impression they simply don't want you to get your stuff fixed for free if it fails after one year and want to you to pay for AppleCare instead, while other companies are very clear, saying things like "we provide 3 years of warranty", and you know straight away what that means: if it breaks within 3 years, they fix it. With Apple, you never know!

I think that a computer should be expected to last 3 years. It's the normal obsolescence period, and considering it has hardly any moving parts, any fault is the manufacturer's fault unless you dropped it or spilled water on it.

If you buy a £2500 computer, and after 13 months your screen dies, are you going to feel like it's normal to pay another £700 to get it repaired? Are you going to say "well I only bought a computer to last a year, not more, so it's okay".

A cheap car will cost you about twice as much as an expensive Mac, and will come with far more than double the amount of warranty. Considering you can live without a car but not without a computer, I believe computers should have more warranty, especially considering that a car can fail due to many reasons while a computer usually only fails because of manufacturer defect.

 

[fredaroony]

Well, since everyone in the EU loves their consumer protections so much, why not just build a 3-year warrantee into all Apple products sold there, and raise the base price to reflect that.

There is no free lunch.

You think consumer protections are a bad thing? With the price Apple charges for it's products a two year warranty should be included at purchase.

 

[osx11]

Belgium: "This is not clear!"

Apple: "We think different! We're foolish!"

 

[Solomani]

If I were a slightly more suspicious person, I might start to think there was a vendetta against Apple in Europe.

(Disclosure: I live in the UK)

The vendetta is more than just against Apple, however. Europe seems to have a thing against large successful American tech companies. Microsoft was harassed to death when they were the king of the tech sector.

 

[Lymf]

I see a lot of comments saying in short that Europe is against Apple, or against the US, etc...

The truth is: Europe has laws, and any company wherever they are from MUST respect these laws...

Apple moved part of its iPhone production to Brazil to be able to sell their products without this import tax there, as it was the only legal way. Why wouldn't they respect the fact that the law in most European countries is that the warranty is 2 years...

It's pretty simple. It's not a vendetta against Apple, it's about applying the law.

Now some people say that somewhere on the website it is stated that there is indeed 2 years of warranty. This is true, somewhere deep into the small characters (but yes, that's where we expect warranty details to be anyway).

However, being from Belgium (and paying my phone about 30% more than I would if I was in the US... My iPhone 5S 32GB costed me USD 1100!), I expect that 2 years warranty to be apply.

But strangely if you go into an APR (we don't have ARS in Belgium yet ), vendors are advised to tell us the warranty on Apple products is only 1 year. If you go on the chat of Apple's website, they will still tell you that the warranty is only 1 year and that therefore your purchase (phone, computer, etc) is not covered by the warranty and it will cost that much. This is before having even looked into the product to see if this is actually a defect from the manufacturer.

So, in simple, this is why that judge or whoever is doing what he is doing, considering blocking Apple's website until they respect the law, law that in itself is not crazy... It's not like Belgian laws require Apple to give a free refund for 2 years. It is just requiring Apple to cover product defects for normal usage on a period of 2 years, and not mislead the consumer in mentioning it is only one year (mainly their representatives in this case).

 

[gclaeys]

There is a difference between Manufacturer Hardware Warranty & the legal warranty "for hidden defect and product non conformity" aka "consumer law" aka "European law".
By the way, the "European law" is implemented differently in every countries legal system...

My understanding is that the legal warranty is not there to offer 2 year warranty to consumer but there to give 2 year to consumer to complaint in case of manufacturing defect or non conformity issue.
Consumer have to prove the defect after the warranty provided by the manufacturer run out....

If the Belgium government wanted to make it simple they should allow to complaint directly to the manufacturer and not only to the reseller as it is now in Belgium

If you want some more information about the law from Government website in Belgium (sorry did not found it in english):
http://economie.fgov.be/fr/consommateurs/Garantie/Wettelijke_garantie/
http://economie.fgov.be/nl/consument/Garantie/Wettelijke_garantie/

Apple Documents can be found here:
https://ssl.apple.com/befr/legal/statutory-warranty/Belgium_French_Statutory_Warranty.pdf
https://ssl.apple.com/benl/legal/statutory-warranty/Belgium_Dutch_Statutory_Warranty.pdf

source:
https://www.apple.com/benl/support/contact/
https://www.apple.com/befr/support/contact/

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However, being from Belgium (and paying my phone about 30% more than I would if I was in the US... My iPhone 5S 32GB costed me USD 1100!), I expect that 2 years warranty to be apply.

Do not forget that apple website in the US do not include taxes while in Europe it include it in the price that apple advertise on its website...

In Belgium the taxes is of 21% so it make a difference of "only" 9% (from your own calculation)

 

[nebo1ss]

The vendetta is more than just against Apple, however. Europe seems to have a thing against large successful American tech companies. Microsoft was harassed to death when they were the king of the tech sector.

Maybe if they paid their Taxes they would not get harassed as much.

 

[Parasprite]

I think if there is a vendetta, it would be all things from the USA. I am not saying there is, just that in general there is a distrust of the USA in Europe and it is not isolated to a single company.

That's called ethnocentrism, and it's practiced everywhere.

But they do it best where I come from.

 

[Oletros]

Tell Samsung that. Six months warranty on batteries.

Tell that everyone, batteries are consumables and have 6 months warranty

 

[thekev]

A cheap car will cost you about twice as much as an expensive Mac, and will come with far more than double the amount of warranty. Considering you can live without a car but not without a computer, I believe computers should have more warranty, especially considering that a car can fail due to many reasons while a computer usually only fails because of manufacturer defect.

You've clearly never been in Southern California sir.

 

[gnasher729]

Tell that everyone, batteries are consumables and have 6 months warranty

Apple batteries have 12 months warranty. And with the time they are designed to last, they are definitely not what I would call consumables. Are you saying they are with Samsung devices? That's quite insulting to Samsung and should put anyone off from using Samsung devices with batteries.

 

[Oletros]

Apple batteries have 12 months warranty. And with the time they are designed to last, they are definitely not what I would call consumables. Are you saying they are with Samsung devices? That's quite insulting to Samsung and should put anyone off from using Samsung devices with batteries.

Apple batteries can have the warranty they want, EU laws treat them as consumables so they have 6 months warranty

Funny how some try to bash Samsung with any possible thing.

 

[gnasher729]

But strangely if you go into an APR (we don't have ARS in Belgium yet ), vendors are advised to tell us the warranty on Apple products is only 1 year. If you go on the chat of Apple's website, they will still tell you that the warranty is only 1 year and that therefore your purchase (phone, computer, etc) is not covered by the warranty and it will cost that much. This is before having even looked into the product to see if this is actually a defect from the manufacturer.

It must really be very, very hard to understand. There isn't one warranty, there are two. One is given to you by the manufacturer. The other one is given to you by the seller of the product. They are different warranties. The manufacturer's warranty has no legal requirements and runs for one year. The seller's warranty is different from country to country and depends on the product; it may be two years for computers in Belgium.

In the UK, the only legal requirement is to add the magic sentence "your statutory rights are not affected" that might make you think your statutory rights are reduced. For example "You can't return shoes bought in our sale. Your statutory rights are not affected. " "Apple gives you one year manufacturer's warranty. Your statutory rights are not affected". Statutory rights are assumed to be common knowledge and need not be mentioned, except like in these examples.

 

[Oletros]

Apple batteries have 12 months warranty. And with the time they are designed to last, they are definitely not what I would call consumables. Are you saying they are with Samsung devices? That's quite insulting to Samsung and should put anyone off from using Samsung devices with batteries.

http://www.apple.com/legal/warranty/products/mac-english-uk.html

Your Hardware Warranty
Apple One (1) Year Limited Warranty - (UK and Ireland)
For Apple Branded Products Only
...

This warranty does not apply: (a) to consumable parts, such as batteries or protective coatings that are designed to diminish over time, unless failure has occurred due to a defect in materials or workmanship;

 

[everything-i]

I'd recommend that they should add: xxxx statutory warranty for products purchased from Apple, whether manufactured by Apple or by someone else. xxxx manufacturer's warranty for products made by Apple, no matter where they are purchased.

And a footnote: For items purchased from Apple but not made by Apple, check with the manufacturer for manufacturer's warranty terms. For Apple products purchased not from Apple, you have the same statutory rights against the seller.

That just over complicates the message. Suffice to say anything purchased in the EU has a mandatory 2 year warranty which is what they say on their site. They even state that the UK and Scotland have even better statutory warranty than this. This is just sounds like some guy in Belgium trying to get his 15 minutes in the spot light. Look around at any manufacture or supplier web site and they all talk about one year warranty and say nothing about statuary warranty periods in the EU. I was even offered a two year extended warranty in a major uk electrical chain at the weekend which would have been a total waste of money but I don't see headlines about them only Apple because they appear to be the easy target.

 

[Macman45]

The web site comparison looks pretty clear to me.

I can't find any complex or misleading information there either...Personally I choose Apple care for a couple of reasons, first is the peace of mind when or if things go wrong...( I've only ever made two claims, one for a faulty ATV and one for a new iPhone 5.) both products were replaced the next day.

Second point is resale value...It's simply higher if you have AC covering the product you are selling.

The EU is so tangled up in red tape and jargon that these cases can take months / years to resolve. I can't really see an issue for Apple here.

 

[Oletros]

I can't find any complex or misleading information there either...

Well, is the UK site, not the Belgian one

 

[weezyt]

Well, since everyone in the EU loves their consumer protections so much, why not just build a 3-year warrantee into all Apple products sold there, and raise the base price to reflect that.

There is no free lunch.

Warranty

 

[gnasher729]

Well, is the UK site, not the Belgian one

I couldn't guess the country code for Belgium first, so I checked Netherlands which looks very much like the British one. The Belgian one looks different and the information is harder to find (actually, there are two Belgian ones and I looked at one only). Might be that someone messed up at Apple.

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Apple batteries can have the warranty they want, EU laws treat them as consumables so they have 6 months warranty

Funny how some try to bash Samsung with any possible thing.

If someone posts that Samsung has longer warranties than Apple then finding an example where they have shorter warranties is surely not bashing. Unless you find anything that isn't raving support for Samsung "bashing". And clearly EU law can treat them whatever they like, but Apple gives you 12 months warranty on the batteries. And I'm sure I'd get a battery fixed after a longer time if there wasn't extreme use.

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That just over complicates the message. Suffice to say anything purchased in the EU has a mandatory 2 year warranty which is what they say on their site. They even state that the UK and Scotland have even better statutory warranty than this.

The 5/6 years isn't warranty period, it's the claim period. Let's say your Mac breaks after 3 months, Apple tells you they'll replace it if you return it to the shop, and you forget it all and arrive 4 years 11 months after purchase at the shop. They have to fix it, because you have five years time to make a claim; the fault was in the first six months. But if it breaks after 4 years 11 months, they'd only have to fix it if it is a product that is supposed to last that long. Not a chance with a computer.

 

[Gasu E.]

If it was a new law, ok. But Samsung, Acer, HP, Sony, Philips, ... all they give minimum 2 years warranty for years. On all consumer electronics.

Apple chooses for valid business reasons to have offer uniform service terms world-wide. Apple also chooses for valid reasons to include support services in their bundle, not just a repair/replace warranty. They either would have to remove support services from a 2-year warranty, or raise base prices more than would be justified by a simple warranty extension. I don't think consumers would react well to either, nor accept the valid business reasons for doing so. I would expect 70% of the MR readers who see this comment will immediately react that Apple is making enough money, and therefore should just absorb any additional costs; which would prove my point.