Technology

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Ever seen one of those “warranty void if removed” stickers covering the screw holes on a gadget?

Gigabyte includes: “If the manufacturing sticker inside the product was removed or damaged, it would no longer be covered by the warranty.”

“The Warranty Act prohibits warrantors of consumer products costing more than five dollars from conditioning their written warranties on a consumer’s use of any article or service, such as repair service, which is identified by brand, trade, or corporate name, unless (1) the warranty states the article or service will be provided to the consumer for free, or (2) the warrantor has been granted a waiver by the Commission,” the FTC writes.

“FTC investigators have copied and preserved the online pages in question, and we plan to review your company’s written warranty and promotional materials after 30 days,” the agency is telling each firm.

In 2018, the FTC put Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft on notice for doing the same thing with their game consoles, as well as Asus, HTC, and Hyundai.

iFixit has a blog on how “warranty void if removed” stickers may be legal in other parts of the world.

The original article contains 406 words, the summary contains 190 words. Saved 53%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

Summary:

• The FTC is investigating PC manufacturers for using "warranty void if removed" labels to discourage consumers from exercising their right to repair.
• ASRock, Gigabyte, and Zotac received letters from the FTC regarding these practices.
• The FTC is concerned about manufacturers denying warranty coverage based on these provisions.
• The federal Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act is being invoked to prevent companies from making misleading warranties.
• The Act prohibits conditioning warranties on the use of specific repair services unless provided for free or with a waiver from the FTC.
• The FTC plans to review the written warranties and promotional materials of the companies after 30 days.
• In the past, Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, Asus, HTC, and Hyundai were also warned by the FTC for similar practices.

Jokes on them as I don't care about my warranties, never did. Call me a dumb consumer, but atleast I wrecked the big evil corporation.

edit: I didn't know about Nintnedo doing this, I just knew about the cheaply made joycons that would drift by deSign after a certain point. The sollution to this was so simple but Nintendo chose not to fix it for the entire Switch's life spawn.

Leaving it up to 3rd party switch controller manufacturers. Which who knows how long untill they try to ban 3rd party controllers on Nintendo consoles.

No more mouse screws under the glide pads? Be still my heart.

I honestly wonder how those meetings go. It has to be comical villainous to spend so much time trying to fuck over your customer not allowing them to fix what they purchased from you.

I just don't get it, if an item breaks and I can't at least try to fix it, there is no way I'm purchasing from the same brand again.

So what is the motivation here? The thing that has kept me with companies is good customer service and a generous warranty service.

Denying claims and making it impossible to fix it myself will get you instantly on my ban list.

So what gives? How did we get here?