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Class Action Lawsuit Over Apple Providing Refurbished Replacement Devices Proceeding to Trial in August
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Can you name me one company that will give you a new one, hell its hard enough just trying to get your money back on junk.
Warranty covers manufacturer defects and I shouldn’t end up with old parts because apple’s QA is trash. As a customer I want new parts for replacements and if it means spending more upfront then so be it.
Some people are going to disagree with you and you’ll have to deal with that. Saying they have their head in the sand is immature. Last reply to you.
It all depends on the value/cost of the PCB in question. They don’t seem to rework circuit boards for HomePods or Apple TV units.
The question is how well trained are the folks doing the work? Is it one person doing the diagnostics to determine the bad components and then that person reworks the board or are there separate people involved? How skilled are they? Replacing a bad component is fine, but letting corrosion on another part of the board pass inspection isn’t good. When I worked as an ACMT, I’d check out the boards for any missed damage before installing them into a MacBook. I’ve seen boards with small amounts of corrosion and damaged connectors as well as the part(s) that were reworked.
It’s got to take a bit of fuel to ship these back to China for rework (refurbished and general replacement parts from Apple all day “PRODUCT OF CHINA” on the box)
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I deal with it just fine, this is a discussion board where we discuss things. If you don't like my argument and want to continue down the discussion path you're free to explain why you think new parts are warranted. If not, just don't reply and we leave it at that.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
No you'll get one that was rebuilt from the ground up and rigorously tested to perform as-new.
Inside the return window, sure. But why would I expect a brand new device if it fails 11 months into warranty?
Outside of the return window I would expect the device to be repaired at best. Getting a well tested re-manufactured device that's passed all the tests with flying colors, is a bonus in my book.
This problem has been adresses in Denmark – and the Danish courts back in 2016. The case was, that a Danish consumer had bought a new phone in 2011, but within the next 1½ years it was swapped out twice with a refurbished phone. The consumer demand that Apple either repaired his phone, swapped it with a new phone or annulled the purchase and gave him his money back. Apple did not comply, so the consumer registered a case with the consumer ombudsman, who came to the conclusion that Apple did not comply with the Danish Sale of Goods Act, when they didn't give the consumer a new phone, but only a refurbished one.
The consumer ombudsmand took the view – based on an IT expert's comment – that the sales price of a refurbished phone is lower than a new one (even though it has the appearance, life expectancy and usability as a new one). Apple took the consumer ombudsman to court, and the court said that the consumer had a legitimate expectation to receive a new phone – even tough a refurbished phone objectively lives up to the demands, that followed the original deal – and because a refurbished phone could contain used parts, then it could not be considered as new.
Apple decided not to appeal the courts ruling.
I know that Denmark is civil law, and USA is common law (and that the Sales of Goods Act is also different), so it might not be the same ruling in the US.
www.plesner.com
The consumer ombudsmand took the view – based on an IT expert's comment – that the sales price of a refurbished phone is lower than a new one (even though it has the appearance, life expectancy and usability as a new one). Apple took the consumer ombudsman to court, and the court said that the consumer had a legitimate expectation to receive a new phone – even tough a refurbished phone objectively lives up to the demands, that followed the original deal – and because a refurbished phone could contain used parts, then it could not be considered as new.
Apple decided not to appeal the courts ruling.
I know that Denmark is civil law, and USA is common law (and that the Sales of Goods Act is also different), so it might not be the same ruling in the US.
Ny dom - en ombyttet telefon må ikke have brugte dele
Hvis en erhvervsdrivende vælger at omlevere en vare på grund af en mangel, har forbrugeren ret til at få en vare, som svarer til den oprindeligt købte vare. Hvis der er købt en fabriksny vare, må den erhvervsdrivende således ikke anvende brugte reservedele i den ombyttede vare - også kaldet et...
I remember talking to a Genius when I was getting a phone replaced. He really was trying to sell the refurbished to me when I didn’t care so he seemed very happy that I was relaxed about. So we were chatting about why people worry.
He showed me that if you read the actual terms when you sign for the refurb device it states ‘may contain up to 1 refurbished part’ meaning your “refurb” at most is 99% brand new.
He showed me that if you read the actual terms when you sign for the refurb device it states ‘may contain up to 1 refurbished part’ meaning your “refurb” at most is 99% brand new.
Everyday a new punch in Apple’s face 🤣
“Apple has denied any wrongdoing in this case...” yeah yeah like those killers that keeps denying that they killed somebody, despite of uncountable of DNA proofs on the table... they must be right then... 😱
“Apple has denied any wrongdoing in this case...” yeah yeah like those killers that keeps denying that they killed somebody, despite of uncountable of DNA proofs on the table... they must be right then... 😱
The entire logic board is 1 part isn’t it
I'll play the other side of the fence on this (as I do like refurb parts): Recent MacBooks have very few parts, the logic board is one piece of PCB with everything soldered on it. I doubt Apple considers each component on the logic board a separate part. So if it's a bad logic board that was repaired, that's a pretty good chunk of the product.
My certified refurbished iPad Air started playing up after about three months. After finally getting an appointment in a store (a month saga) they offered me an in store refurbished replacement on the premise I accepted that it would only acquire the remaining 9 months of warranty ( I thought that was pretty mean spirited at the time), anyhow the replacement wouldn’t even start up whilst in the shop and so they fetched another that was ok, but I did clarify if that one had 30 minutes less warranty! Point being, I can imagine iPads come back for all sorts of reasons and I would suspect if they look pristine, perhaps they are not all tested very robustly?
Well my Samsung S2 packed in and they sent me a launch day S3? Amazon quite often send brand new sealed replacements?
Store refurbished is a completely different thing to a Factory Refub - I would not have accepted a store refurb as a replacement at all.
You don't.
If that's of critical importance to you, then best to buy your devices on or near launch day so as to ensure no replacement could be substantially older.
Apart from the battery, which is replaced when Apple refurbishes iOS devices, I'm unsure of any other components for which age is an area of concern. We might theoretically what-if a logic board (with embedded SSD) replacement, but until it's shown those aren't being replaced new logic boards that instance would seem to be moot.
That is both true and makes sense. I can't see them putting effort into reworking home pods and Apple TV. I personally have no experience on the consumer side. On the broadcast television side...almost everything is high dollar. I was told by people that I know from companies like Grass Valley Group, Sony, Ikegami, etc that they have test jigs setup and they have people where each one knows a few boards inside out, they troubleshoot and repair them.....sit at a bench all day....uuhhhh.
Yes, that shipping could be costly, unless it's done in bulk and they do a couple of pallets on a flight along with new product.
That is true for most modern electronics. That's why I think the "right to repair" could be hard in some categories. Open almost any new, modern TV and everything is 1 board, some even have the power supply on the one board. So all that's inside is a logic board and an LED/LCD/OLED panel. What are you as a consumer going to fix?...unless you are just happen to be at that level of knowledge and ability.....I add that in because I know that there are people who can do it.
I’m not sure that the above statement is accurate. Refurbished units sold as such and refurbished warranty replacement devices both come from the same sweatshop, the difference being the units used as replacements at the stores are boxed with out any accessories and the refurbished products on Apple’s site come with new accessories.
If you buy a refurbished iPhone/iPad/iPod from Apple’s online store or have it swapped out at the “Genius” Bar, both have a new battery, and new outer shell. It’s pretty much just a new looking device with a repaired/reworked logic board inside. When the device is first launched, those replacements contain all brand new parts.
Products like AirPods, AirPods Pro, mice, keyboards, chargers, adapters, cables, etc are replaced with brand new units. The defective ones are “recycled”. Ever seen what happens to your bad AirPod? They cut the stem off (rendering them useless) with wire cutters and recycle it.
Yup, I got a brand new Mac mini, wouldn't boot after restoring my files, got a replacement logic board with like 20TBs of data written. This was in 2019 so it couldn't have been used for about more than a year, and in the year that I've had it I've written about 2TB.
That's not exactly what that (most likely means). I would read that as the device was tested and remanufactured. Up to one component was replaced with a refurbished part. It they had to replace more that one part to bring the device into compliance the second and beyond part(s) would be new replacement components. Or, the device is deemed lost and recycled.
But, there is nothing wrong with refurbs anyway...
Even the parts that they use to repair products are sometimes defective things. I've found myself having to ship my mac for more work right after I received it. rather sad.
This kind'a blows me away. Not because I disagree with the complaints issued by the plaintiff, mind you... but because I had no idea there were any laws which prohibited that kind of activity. And more importantly: because it's an activity that I was completely certain was in-no-way-shape-or-form unique to Apple. I simply must assume that these laws are relatively new, because until I read this article, I just assumed this was the norm across the tech industry.
I remember my days in desktop tech support, about two decades ago or so. I was supporting a company that had basically gone all-in on Dell products; not a single new computer was purchased that wasn't a Dell. And we were a big company, too... not like this was just a few computers or anything; you could have easily formed the impression that we were trying our best to keep Dell in business single-handedly, based upon the number of laptops and desktops that came through our support centers. So naturally, we received some pretty significant advantages on our warranties and on the service levels we received; next day, in person support for any broken parts, regardless of reason!
Except there was that one catch: refurb parts were absolutely the norm, no matter the problem.
In one particular instance, I went through the standard software configuration on a new "ultraportable" laptop for a very high profile user... a head mucketymuck who knew he was important and didn't hesitate to assert himself when it was necessary -- but generally a good guy to work for. My tasks involved wiping the Dell image (because there was something wrong with their images at that time, which always-always-always spawned random software crashes in the long run) and then reinstalling all of the required software. The software install took some time, so I had been working with this laptop for several hours already with no issues at all. Once that was completed, I delivered it to the end user and as was customary, I stuck around to assist him in getting everything up and running.
Except that it wasn't. Up and running, that is. The newly purchased laptop that had been working flawlessly before was suddenly exhibiting all kinds of issues. I sheepishly and with profuse apologies took the laptop back to my cube to try to figure out what was going on.
I won't bore you with the extensive debugging efforts that we undertook, but suffice to say it turned out to be a failed motherboard that just coincidentally decided to start acting up at exactly the worst moment. Dell agreed to send out a technician with a replacement board, which of course would be a refurb. I informed the end-user, and he was absolutely livid! "It's a brand new computer! It was faulty right out of the box! How on earth can you justify giving me refurbished parts, considering how much this laptop cost in the first place?!?" (I'm paraphrasing, but you get the idea.)
Needless to say, all of his complaints (which I had the misfortune of having to share with our Dell rep) fell entirely on deaf ears. He got a refurb, and as far as Dell was concerned, that was the end of it.
Of course, it would be nice to think that maybe the dénouement of the story could have been that the end user got such a bee in his bonnet that he responded by killing their contract with Dell or something like that... but unfortunately, I don't think he was that high up in the food-chain. (As I said... it was a big company.)
I remember my days in desktop tech support, about two decades ago or so. I was supporting a company that had basically gone all-in on Dell products; not a single new computer was purchased that wasn't a Dell. And we were a big company, too... not like this was just a few computers or anything; you could have easily formed the impression that we were trying our best to keep Dell in business single-handedly, based upon the number of laptops and desktops that came through our support centers. So naturally, we received some pretty significant advantages on our warranties and on the service levels we received; next day, in person support for any broken parts, regardless of reason!
Except there was that one catch: refurb parts were absolutely the norm, no matter the problem.
In one particular instance, I went through the standard software configuration on a new "ultraportable" laptop for a very high profile user... a head mucketymuck who knew he was important and didn't hesitate to assert himself when it was necessary -- but generally a good guy to work for. My tasks involved wiping the Dell image (because there was something wrong with their images at that time, which always-always-always spawned random software crashes in the long run) and then reinstalling all of the required software. The software install took some time, so I had been working with this laptop for several hours already with no issues at all. Once that was completed, I delivered it to the end user and as was customary, I stuck around to assist him in getting everything up and running.
Except that it wasn't. Up and running, that is. The newly purchased laptop that had been working flawlessly before was suddenly exhibiting all kinds of issues. I sheepishly and with profuse apologies took the laptop back to my cube to try to figure out what was going on.
I won't bore you with the extensive debugging efforts that we undertook, but suffice to say it turned out to be a failed motherboard that just coincidentally decided to start acting up at exactly the worst moment. Dell agreed to send out a technician with a replacement board, which of course would be a refurb. I informed the end-user, and he was absolutely livid! "It's a brand new computer! It was faulty right out of the box! How on earth can you justify giving me refurbished parts, considering how much this laptop cost in the first place?!?" (I'm paraphrasing, but you get the idea.)
Needless to say, all of his complaints (which I had the misfortune of having to share with our Dell rep) fell entirely on deaf ears. He got a refurb, and as far as Dell was concerned, that was the end of it.
Of course, it would be nice to think that maybe the dénouement of the story could have been that the end user got such a bee in his bonnet that he responded by killing their contract with Dell or something like that... but unfortunately, I don't think he was that high up in the food-chain. (As I said... it was a big company.)