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Apple Changes Stance On Water Damage Policy
tekgoblin writes "It appears Apple has changed its stance on whether an iOS device is actually water damaged. If you remember when the 13-year-old girl sued Apple in December, it was because her iPhone's moisture sensors had gone off and Apple voided her warranty. Those sensors have also been triggered by simply exposing the phone to low temperatures. Now Apple says that if the moisture sensors are red but the customer disputes and says no liquid has come into contact with the device, the warranty may still apply."
This will save me a lot of money on dry cleaning.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
Now Apple says that if the moisture sensors are red but the customer disputes and says no liquid has come into contact with the device, the warranty may still apply.
In other words, the sensors are unreliable.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
The funny thing is those papers are used in semiconductor bulk packaging to serve as a warning, not that the parts are unusable due to water but that a pre-bake may be necessary to drive water out that entered the packaging as a result of ambient humidity.
So yeah, anything that involves thermal shifts resulting in possible condensation can set these off while not harming the phone in the slightest. I don't know why anyone thinks these are in any way reliable.
Translation: Our useless sensor is about to lead us into nasty litigation that will likely void our warranty-evasion scheme, so we better open the door a little bit.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
In other words, nothing has changed; it is still at their sole discretion if they wishes to honor the warranty.
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
I know the cell phone companies (including Apple in this overgeneralization) are a bunch of greedy so-and-so's, but a quick perusal of the stories at (The Customer Is) NotAlwaysRight.com will show why the Water Damage excuse is rather valid.
Such as, the borderline fraudulent:
And then, the just stupid:
(Fair warning, though... My Ghostery plug-in shows a whopping 18 web-watchers on that site. No wonder it won't come up on my phone. Or maybe it's the water damage.)
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
So im sure to get modded off topic but i'm reading /. on my 3GS right now
and this new layout apple does not like. For some reason i can never
see the top story. The title is always half cut off by the /. Masthead. wtf??
Its also unbelievably slow to load the page and safari seems to have a hard time
fitting the content to the phone display so who am I to sue in this case, Apple or cowboy
neal? ----sent from my ipho
$action = empty(PHP) ? backToC() : unset(PHP) ; "when the concrete cases are understood, the abstractions are readily
The problem with LDI stickers is that it just shows that the sticker was exposed to liquid. At the unnamed cellphone provider I work for failing a phone for a tripped sticker if they have insurance won't fly. We have to find corrosion or other signs of liquid intrusion on the circuit board.
But seriously people. If you use your phone in extreme conditions and it fails, that is not something that should ever be covered under a warranty. I love how they are saying that the LDI's aren't fair because if you use the phone in -20C and then go inside they can trip. Guess what -20C is BAD for your electronics. Leaving your phone in the room while you shower is BAD for your electronics. If your actively using your devices out there and leaving them exposed you deserve to lose your warranty coverage. Warranty covers defects in the equipment not defects in the user. Remember these people are in the store trying to make warranty claims because their phone is broken. Its not like the phones/devices are working fine. If your stupid enough to do something that trips your stickers Apple has the right to deny you.
Them using stickers as ways to blanket deny a phone is not unique to apple. What is unique to apple is they are the only company that pretty much forces you to go to them for support. If you have stickers tripped in any HTC/Palm/Moto/Samsung devices and your sending your device to them for warranty service, that is gonna be shipped back to you as unrepairable and your gonna be charged for shipping.
What I love in stories like this is the implication that Apple actually gets to CHOOSE when the warranty applies. This is wrong for at least two reasons:
1. You have private rights against Apple which you are entitled to enforce.
2. You have statutory rights which Apple cannot simply declare to be null and void.
On #1, you have the right to hold Apple to the warranty and to the contract of sale. Depending upon how it's expressed at the time you buy the device, the mere fact that a little sticker changes colour does not mean that Apple gets to unilaterally walk away from its obligations to you any more than you can unilaterally alter the terms of the warranty or agreement yourself.
On #2, in many places there are statutory warranties which do not give a flying fuck what Apple's opinion about a little sticker is. Again, they are likely to depend upon whether the device actually was damaged by the user through misuse, or whether it was in fact designed or manufactured in a defective way. Obviously these rights varies by jurisdiction.
The common thread is that Apple's arbitrary statements of "fact" do not in any way affect your right to have a defective product repaired or replaced, or to obtain a refund. The fact that a sticker changes colour does not somehow alter reality to mean that you did drop your device in a glass of water when you didn't, any more than a device which has been carefully half dipped in water would lead to a refund simply because the sticker hasn't changed colour.
I also wonder whether Apple implying that it is their random declarations of policy which determine whether you have refund rights might not be illegal. Certainly under Australia's new Australian Consumer Law it will be a serious offence to make false or misleading statements about what rights consumers have, and as of 2012 goods will be required to include a statement from the manufacturer confirming the consumers rights under the legislation.
Read Pynchon.
I dont know about AT&T's smartphone insurance, but when I got mine from a nameless company that rhymes with Lint, the person at the store actually told me "If it fails due to water damage, dont tell us, dont bring the phone in, call the warranty number and say the phone was lost, you'll just have to pay $50 for a refurbished one, but they wont flat out reject the warranty".
But, I know some providers wont insure smartphones, because they're so "Expensive". And if you're worried about data...remember the old addage: Backup Backup Backup!
OMG... I have a sig?
I dropped my original iPhone in the tub. I was taking a soak and reading/answering emails -- one of those hell weeks where I was working around the clock and getting 45 minutes of sleep a day, if I was that lucky. I dozed off for a minute and startled back awake, and had let the bottom of the phone drop into the water. It was dead, dead, dead. I tried drying it out with desiccant, but no luck. It had *not* triggered the sensor (it was still pure white). I was honest though, took it to the store and told them what I had done. They replaced it with the 3Gs for $100 and a re-up on my AT&T contract.
They completely replaced the innards on my uni-body MacBook Pro, gratis, when it started having power management issues. It would just shut down at random. This, despite the fact that I had previously taken the thing completely apart to clean the keyboard out after my daughter dumped a full can of Diet Sprite into it. It had been six months since that had happened, so I was confident the new issue was unrelated, and they had evidently seen enough of the same symptom to agree with me.
I imagine the experience varies from Apple Store to Apple Store, but the one here certainly treats me well. I have no complaints. I can say that for very, very few other vendors.
this is my experience with apple: i have a debilitating medical condition not dissimilar to chronic fatigue. it makes me severely lethargic and has impacted my life greatly. i am currently on disability. i also have a late 2006 macbook pro which i use logic on. it heats up & shuts down so to prevent that i put a casserole dish of ice under it. hey it works. anyways one night i had extra ice so i threw it in my trash can which has a plastic liner. i never throw liquid in a trash can like that but due to my condition i decided i could do it & deal with it later. the next night i was in bed & using my iphone when, lying in bed, i set the phone on my book case, at which point it fell. i figured, shit. i'll get it in the morning. well half an hour later i had to use the restroom so at that time i decided to pick up my phone. at which point i found it in the trash can, submerged in water from the ice i threw into it the night before. i took it to the apple store to see if anything could be done as far as fixing or replacing it. they DO have an exchange program where one may give them their damaged phone and get a replacement for $199. this is a very fair practice to me. i was so happy i didn't have to pay $600 for a brand new one. so before you guys whine about how 'greedy' apple is (always amuses me how some can consider a company to be greedy as if it is a single sentient being..) at least they have a program like this. microsoft never would. speaking of, as the guy was helping me, i explained to him how it happened, due to my condition, etc. i also had my disability papers to prove it. i brought them in case there was any negotiable cost (the guy before said cost 'depended' etc. but was mistaken). anyways, at the end of my appointment, when i was to sign off on the exchange, the guy showed me a zero balance. he waived the fees completely and gave me a brand new iphone, free of charge. this was a very kind and generous act. also, as one poster cynically says "now they'll take other points into account (presumably including, but not limited to, whether there is any other evidence of liquid damage, how convincing the customer's story is, how good a mood the manager is in that day, how attractive the customer is, how much fuss the customer kicks up, and the proximity of that day's lunch break)." -i believe it's the other way around. apple has ALWAYS been helpful to me, as i've always been honest and straight with them. before my appointment i heard one of the 'geniuses' tell another customer 'honestly it's not the dumb questions. what bothers me most is when people lie to me straight to my face. it's just insulting.' so maybe apple uses those sensors as just one more piece of criteria when they know they're being lied to by some jackass who comes in with a phone that was obviously submerged. another point of generosity is where if one has a broken ipod out of warranty, they can exchange it for 10% off a new one. apple doesn't have to do that, but they do. i'd save the kdawson-esque anti-corporate outrage for someone who actually deserves it.