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Apple Voiding Smokers' Warranties?
Mr2001 writes "Consumerist reports that Apple is refusing to work on computers that have been used in smoking households. 'The Apple store called and informed me that due to the computer having been used in a house where there was smoking, [the warranty has been voided] and they refuse to work on the machine "due to health risks of second hand smoke,"' wrote one customer. Another said, 'When I asked for an explanation, she said [the owner of the iMac is] a smoker and it's contaminated with cigarette smoke, which they consider a bio-hazard! I checked my Applecare warranty and it says nothing about not honoring warranties if the owner is a smoker.' Apple claims that honoring the warranty would be an OSHA violation. (Remember when they claimed enabling 802.11n for free would be a Sarbanes-Oxley violation?)"
Does putting it in the dishwasher void the warranty?
Can this actually be legal? Smoking is ( currently at least ) legal, so how can they penalize a smoker?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
They have an obligation to the customer under the terms of the warranty. They also have an obligation to their employees. They need to honor both, not pick and choose. If they really believe that opening the computer represents a health threat then they need to issue protective clothing and breathing apparatus to their employees. Simple as that. OSHA does not prohibit working with dangerous materials (manufacturing and maintaining computers DOES involve doing so), it just requires proper safety procedures be observed when doing so. The possibility of working with computers that have been exposed to cigarette smoke was not unknown or plausibly considered to be remote at the time when these warranties were issued.
and I get to smoke in my own house, while browsing the Internet (for porn)
That said, I can always tell when a computer I'm working on has a smoker for an owner. The smoke leaves a yellowish to brownish residue. Dust sticks to it. In the worst case I can recall seeing, cooling slots were blocked by congealed fuzzy crap.
It's nasty, and I can see it contributing to component failure in bad cases.
Why did you choose it if you you did not like it?
Gloves and a face mask.
Murphey's fighting Occam, and we're in the stands.
its because second-hand smoke is bad for the Apple workers
But there isn't any "second-hand smoke" actually in the computer. There's the residue that you get from smoke, but that's not actually smoke. It's not particularly harmful unless you breath in a big cloud of it, but that's true of any kind of dust. If you're poking about inside dusty equipment, you should be wearing appropriate PPE anyway.
I used to work as a computer technician to pay my tuition.
Computers that had either failed or seized up due to nicotine/tar build up were impossible to clean, and nearly impossible to repair. The nasty build-up got literally everywhere, clogging heatsinks, coating voltage regulators, caps, expansion slots, and other devices that depend on air convection to stay cool. The only way to get these machines running stably again was usually massive part replacement.
If smoking doesn't constitute improper operation, it should. For all the people bitching out there, smoking has been demonstrated to cause premature failure to humans, particularly second-hand smoke which contains a Noah's Ark of nasty bacteria and pathogens. WHy is it such a surprise that it also kills sensitive electronic equipment?
What a bunch of bs .... post the medical findings and I'll listen.
.. working in a bar 8 hours a day that is filled with smoke is. Living in a house with parents that smoke is. But NOT walking through a cloud of smoke for 5 seconds, or working on a computer.
.. they can STFU.
I have not seen ANY studies that suggest that OCCASIONAL exposure to second hand smoke is a hazard. Yep
Find one that suggests how often somebody has to walk through a cloud of smoke or work on a computer and I'll accept this. Until then
I rarely read replies, it's my opinion and if you thought about your opinion a little more, I'm OK with that.
Having worked on many Macs that were owned by smokers, I'll bet that this particular one was clogged to hell with ash and nicotine stains. Seriously. I've had some iMacs from smokers that smelled nasty, but were still relatively clean inside. Then I've seen iMacs that were utterly DISGUSTING on the inside. Every inch clogged with ash, the whole thing stained...ugh. We had to take it out back with an air compressor. No warranty on that one. I specifically asked Apple's techie tech support about that one (SPS) and asked if EXCESSIVE buildup of cigarette residue was cause for a warranty violation. They said yes and that if that thing had come into a repair depot, they'd have refused to work on it.
Bottom line: I seriously doubt this thing just smelled a bit like cigarettes. It was probably revolting, yellowed, and filled with ash.
They've also refused service on devices where their litmus indicator shows signs of turning pink (http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=9214797, http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/04/14/smart.phones.buggy/index.html, http://techgeist.net/2009/09/apple-iphone-abuse-detection-sensors-abusing-2/). It sounds like they're still looking for more excuses not to honor their "warranty."
I won't be buying any more Apple products.
For once I am pleased with Apple's quirky business policies.
In addition to being a biohazard, enough smoking over time by many people seems to actually deposit a greassy residue on the inside of the computer parts, like the heat sinks, integrated circuits, fan blades. I used to be the IT administrator for an office of a dozen people, back when it was somehow allowed to smoke indoors in the office while you work. And the style was for everyone to smoke. As a non smoker I was a minority, and had to put up with working in that mess.
But for the computer parts, after about six months the parts looked as though someone had sprayed them with PAM cooking oil, and then dusted with ashes. All chunder stuck on fuzzy layer of dust bunnies, and "that" smell of 1000 cigarettes. We went through a lot of computers because of the lack of ability for the parts to cool themselves with the ambient air circulation inside the cases.
So my fendangled point was, it is not fair for Apple, or any computer company to have to honor warranty claims for computers that were subjected to the abuse of a smoker, as the hardware was subjected to environmental conditions that was not in any of the designed intended use. For example, if I put my computer through a dish washer, they would have the equal right to not honor my warranty claim, as I 'intentionally damaged' it in much the same way. I would like to see other companies start doing this too.. Buy a car? Did you smoke in it ? Oh, now it has no resale value, sorry.
Disgusting is not a legal reason to void a legal contract.
I find cigarette smoking to be pretty repulsive myself, though I do enjoy a good cigar from time to time. I think we've gone too war with the war on smoking though. There are actually municipalities now that are considering banning smoking outdoors. WTF is wrong with that picture?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Why did you choose it if you you did not like it?
House, barn, stable and several hectares of land for (relatively) peanuts.
We have these things, called detergents, also water which can be used to "clean" things. I know that's a novel concept for many smokers. Then we have this other stuff called "paint" which can be put on top of pre-existing walls with a "brush" or "roller" to cover what cannot be "cleaned".
Deleted
Please tell me this a joke right? Smoking is a personal choice and should be left as that. You wanting to impose HARSH penalties on smokers is nothing more then you wanting to dictate the actions of another person. You even want to impose your will in my private home? What the hell man. What would give you, or anyone else, the right to tell me what I can do in my own home? I choose to smoke cigars and pipes and I will continue to do so even if illegal. They can come and take them when they come for my guns.
1200 in the US die every day from smoking related illnesses 135 of these are from passive smoke 115 fatal car accidents happen every day in the US (no mention of how many die in each)
People die from one or the other, but how much is a life worth?
Passive smoke and roadkill isn't that different really. Where the real hipocracy is, is when life-time smokers expect expensive treatment to keep them alive for another 5 years.
As a rake (and smoker) myself, i am already aware of the years (of boring life) I won't get, I need no treatment, i may live 5-10 years shorter, but i enjoyed every single day of what i had. As for the 135 passive smoke deaths, it could be avoided with considerate smokers, just as considerate drivers rarely kill anyone.
Liberty isn't just about money, guns and cars, it's just as much about what kind of life you wanna lead urself.
If I was as pragmatic and objective as I claim to be, would I be commenting?
Have you ever opened up a computer that a really heavy smoker has been sitting in front of for years? It's disgusting. Everything has a coating of tar on it, it stinks even before you power it up, and when you try to work on it, it's all gummy.
I'm just amazed that more hard drives and more fans don't fail because of smokers.
It's pretty bad when you wipe the screen and the paper towel turns ORANGE!
Is Apple being dumb? Now that smokers are the minority, I don't think so. Let them pay for supplemental coverage, same as health insurance. Besides, if you want to quit smoking, there's an app for that
But the reefer madness and junk science used by the tobacco prohibitionists has convinced people of the lies that second hand smoke is worse than plutonium. And lawyers and juries and OSHA will enforce these lies that will have employees opening computers in biohazard suits while they will sit quietly on a bench while a diesel bus idles next to them.
Apple users don't take the bus, you insensitive clod.
"All these years believing you're the signified monkey, only to find out you're just a big hunk of nobody cares."
The outgassing from those computers is worse for your health than cigarette smoke residue, I assure you.
Ecplain to me why an unsupported argument gets a mod-up to +5, Insightful.
When I worked TV repair, we'd jack up the estimate on smoker's TVs to compensate for the nastiness factor. The electrical charge attracts the particles from the ambient air and the build-up in some environments can be dramatic -and fast. Failure was very often scum related, either by blocking cooling air, or providing an arc path for the High Voltage.
The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.
ok, I'll bite with my ignorance of why this then only applied to Apple, not other US IT companies?
When SOX was passed, there was a lot of discussion about what it meant for the company I was working for at the time. SOX made the CEO and CFO personally liable for the company's compliance with accounting rules. As an engineer, a lot of the discussion in my area centered on software upgrades. How did we have to account for upgrades and bug fixes?
As I recall, selling a product with the expectation of future free upgrades could be interpreted as booking revenue in advance of sales. If the customer's decision to buy was based on the expectation of the upgrade, and the seller books the revenue at the time of the sale, then the seller has booked revenue for a non-existent sale -- the future upgrade. By giving away free upgrades, the company could be establishing the expectation of future free upgrades, making the CEO and CFO potentially liable for accounting malpractice.
In the end, we decided what a lot of tech companies, including Apple, seem to have decided -- bug fixes would continue to be free, since they are addressing a product defect and not enabling new functionality. Upgrades, even if it was just to enable a latent feature of the hardware, would not be free.
Let me turn that around on you. Nobody forced those people to work in coal mines without proper lung protection. Nobody forced those people to work in asbestos mines without protection. We have laws to protect workers because they are generally not in a position to protect themselves. When you need money, you can't afford to refuse to work in a place that allows smoking. If you think otherwise, that probably means you have never been poor enough to understand.
Regarding the city streets, that smoke turns into dirty-looking sidewalks from the tar, cigarette butts floating up on the beach and in our streams, and other environmental harm that goes way beyond the immediate harm to people nearby. As far as I'm concerned, if people want to smoke in their own homes, that's okay. As soon as they inflict it on other people, they're crossing a line. People don't choose to be asthmatic, and they don't wear big signs that say "stay away from me if you smoke". I would argue that nobody forced the smokers to smoke around other people, but they do, and often without caring who it offends or even makes sick. And *that* is why people fight back and pass laws about smoking in public places. It's because smokers egregiously abused their rights and harmed others.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
I can't say whether this new policy is in line with their warranty, but I don't see how anyone would make a case that it's discriminatory even where smokers are a protected class. They are targeting the smoke itself, not the smokers. If you're a smoker but you don't do it around your computer, or it just happens to be reasonably clean, you're going to be fine. If you don't smoke, but you like to store your computer in your chimney flue, they're still going to refuse to work on it.
On the other hand, smoke residue is hardly the most dangerous or disgusting thing anyone has had to deal with on the job, and using OSHA as an excuse seems pretty weak. If they just acknowledged that they're going to treat excessive smoke exposure the same way they would excessive heat or humidity, that would seem entirely reasonable.
It may be more of a danger to children, but to dismiss an environment that is coated with poison dust as harmless without further study is absurd.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=what-is-third-hand-smoke
First, let's change the rhetoric to "chemicals" instead of the FUD "poison." Virtually the same chemicals exist in wood smoke that exist in cigarette smoke--unsurprising since they're both combustion byproducts of plant matter. If you want some pretty reliable numbers on amounts resulting from combustion, I refer you to the EPA's AP-42 for wood combustion (scroll down to Ch. 1.6). Pretty much every scary-sounding chemical in cigarette smoke is also in your friendly campfire. Dioxins, arsenic, mercury, lead, etc. The difference is people actively breathe in the smoke from a cigarette, which leads me to...
Second, how a chemical enters your body and in what quantities is equally important. Just as you haven't died from your first exposure to a campfire, so too will you not die from incidental exposure to cigarette residue. Inhalation and injection are efficient ways to get chemicals into your body, but absorption through undamaged skin is pretty damn inefficient for most.
All this to say that "third hand smoke" is a FUD buzzword. It's nothing more than the microscopic particulate traces (i.e. ash) containing the same compounds you'd find from standing near a campfire. Back to the topic at hand--that incidental exposure to a surface stained by cigarette smoke is unlikely to cause anything other than personal discomfort as long as you wash your hand afterwards.
1) Smokers pay far more taxes than non-smokers. They are well within their rights to tie up whatever medical resource that they want.
2) A car pollutes the air far more than a cigarette does. While a smoker might be the cause of secondhand smoke, a driver is the cause of air pollution, low visibility haze, global warming and the eventual death of the planet.
3) Mind your own business. Is your life so miserable that you have to impose yourself upon someone else's?
If smoking is as dangerous as they claim it is, people 50+ would be dying from lung problems and other smoking related problems in droves - but they're not.
In 100 smokers, 17 will die from lung cancer. In 100 non-smokers, 1 will die from lung cancer, often a second-hand smoke victim. About 87% of lung cancer in USA are caused directly by smoking.
Out of population 300 million in USA, about 11 million will die from lung cancer caused directly by smoking. That's with historically low percentage of smokers in USA, which is now about 22% on average. That's for lung cancer only, where smoking also is a major contributor to other illnesses among which heart attacks and strokes, the numbers of which probably make lung cancer deaths pale in comparison.
Do the media exaggerate? Compared to what? Swine flu has caused about 4000 deaths in USA and still we see panic-inducing coverage every day. That is exaggerating. Millions of people quietly dying from smoking caused problems is a hard number. The reason you believe people don't die "in droves" from smoking seems to be more a case of wilful ignorance on the subject.