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Class-Action Suit Filed Against Apple
AC writes "A class-action lawsuit has been filed against Apple. The plaintiffs allege that Apple failed to fully honor service contracts and warranties, didn't get repair and service businesses properly licensed, stole trade secrets from its own resellers, and sold used computer equipment as new."
How is this different, from, say, Mattel making small doll stores pay more for Barbies than Wal-Mart or Target, resulting in the big chains being able to sell the dolls for less than the independent doll stores are paying Mattel? I mean, neither practice seems particularly nice, but if one is legal shouldn't the other be?
Warning: Apple/Nintendo fangirl. Likes her electronics cute & cuddly. May be rabid.
Too bad none of these resellers hit on a formula to grow Mac market share. They never figured out ways to attract new customers. Isn't that the business of sales?
There are two suits, one brought on behalf of customers, the other on the behalf of the resellers. Although the two cases are related since the consumers case is based around products bought from resellers.
These are big issues, especially for all the apple zealots out there who think apple is a "kinder gentler company."
To an extent Apple have created some problems like this for themselves in recent times, but this article just reads like the usual typical American nonsense:
/. seems to be populated with a lot of articles like this giving the firm impression that Americans will do anything to exploit money with all sorts of feeble excuses. Wasn't Bush supposed to be making legislation to make frivilous class action suits harder to press. I don't like Bush, and my sympathises are generally always with the underdog and the individual rather than big business but it does some like the whole situation has become a complete joke in the US. But then I guess with class action lawsuits, they are not about individuals but about groups of so called 'victims' looking to invent spurious reasons to 'legally' steal money from someone else.
"If someone is more successful than me, it is their fault and I will sue them"
In fact
Of course Apple isn't perfect like I say, but I have a hard time believing in this basis of this issue.
so, because you dont like idea of lawyers making a living we should give companies cart blanch do whatever they will to their customers and partners with no penalty?
since when is every class action suit a BAD thing?
if people like you had your way, and with this President, you will, we would be living in asbestos houses.
I think the real question is whether the companies like Small Dog and MacMall are really feeling a hit in their business. AFAIK, they're not part of these lawsuits.
Indeed. The fact that they're not involved may well be the answer in and of itself.
Even when you consider the plaintiffs (claimaints? whatever) alone, it's rather telling what's probably going on: MACAdam is almost universally known for how much they sucked, so it's no big surprise Apple "ran them out of business."
I also like the bit from TFA claiming Apple Stores were selling product to consumers at 8% under retail price. I don't know what alternate planet the owner of the also-infamous Elite Computers was shopping on, but I've been shopping at my local Apple Store since it opened in 2001 and they've always charged full price (unless you count the one day a year they offer a pittance of a discount on iPods).
Heck, I generally don't shop at the Apple Store for non-Apple goods simply because their prices aren't (and never have been) competitive. When I want something Apple makes, though, it's always a nice place to go play with it first without any pressure, and just shoot the breeze with the sales staff.
I don't shop at my local Mac reseller because my experiences with them have not been pleasant. They're either clueless or aloof or trying to cram products down your thoat. Assuming they even have what I want in stock. Therefore the Apple Store gets my business. If the local resellers would bother competing, I could be bothered to shop there. But as many people have mentioned repeatedly through the TellOnApple fiasco, there are a ton of awful independent resellers.
Imagine, the gall of Apple for opening their own retail stores and charging full price when a network of inept third parties were doing nothing positive for Apple's bottom line or brand.
11. In Apple's ethics document posted on their website, Apple states, "In some cases, the law may also view our resellers as our competitors when we are actually competing for the same types of customers in the marketplace." Why is Apple competing against their independent resellers?
This question is idiotic. By definition, a store is competing with all other stores that try to sell the same things to the same people. A legitimate question would be "Why does Apple run its own retail stores?" to which the obvious answer is: because they make money. Somehow, I'm having difficulty envisioning the shareholder outrage.
Apple only opened their own stores in the first place because the dealers were doing a lousy job! If the dealers were adequate, would Apple spend the hundreds of millions of dollars that it took to launch a whole new retail chain?
Some dealers did a good job and they're still in business today. Others, like MacAdam and Elite Computers, were dingy, slipshod operations with a very poor record of customer satisfaction.
5. Is Apple misleading shareholders as to the company owned retail stores profitability?
I didn't even catch this the first time:
So my question is this, where the heck do the complainants think all of Apple's profits are coming from? The online stores? Their online sales are not that big a portion of sales. Education sales? They deal with huge orders, but the margins are razor thin. I think if the Apple stores were run at a loss, this would show up somewhere.
Now they do write off part of the cost of running the big "flag ship" stores as a company-wide marketing expense, and without that the few biggest stores might show losses. This is legitimate in that those stores are used heavily as PR, and subject to legitimate differences of opinion over how much of the cost should be so attributed, and could possibly be abused. But it doesn't change the fundamental question: if resellers are being driven out of business and the Apple Stores are being run at a loss, where is all that profit coming from???