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Apple Fined By Italy For Misleading Customers About Warranty Terms
beaverdownunder writes "An Italian watchdog has fined Apple 900,000 euros ($1.2m, £750,000) for failing to inform Italian shoppers of their legal right to two years of technical support, recognizing instead only a one-year standard warranty. This had led people to pay extra for Apple's own support service, AppleCare, which overlapped with the government-mandated guarantee."
Service plans are probably the most profitable thing anybody sells. Just like rebates, odds are very very high that the person buying said plan won't ever use it, so it's pretty much free money a lot of the time...
Where was this concerned Italian government when MTV sent over the Jersey Shore cast?
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
That is corporate ethics at it's absolute worst. You can be sure that it's likely Apple in Italy knew of the situation and was milking it if they got a fine like that... :(
I wonder if the fine even approaches the profits they made abusing the laws like that.
GrpA
Enjoy science fiction? "Turing Evolved" - AI, Mecha, Androids and rail-gun battles. What more could you want?
It's almost a form of taxation. Apple takes Italian fanboi moneys, then the government fines Apple.
The real question is whether Apple comes out ahead or behind after the fine.
F*uck Apple.
Sent from my Macbook Pro
Apple's profits from selling the additional warranties in the entire country of Italy is almost certainly more than the fine, so it was a good business decision for them to flout local law if this is all they're going to face.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
When a company does this to a product, force them to provide a lifetime warranty on that product. They will be much more careful.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
"Technical Support" from Apple is like going to church. You get told things like "because that's the way it is" and when you press, you never get the "why" part of it. I learned long ago about the compatibility between Apple and business -- there is none by the standards I have come to expect in the PC world. There is no "next business day, on site, accidental damage" support from Apple. When I learned that, I could never again take them seriously where business was concerned.
Tho years of guarantee on consumer goods is not just an Italian law, it is a European Union directive.
Sure but thats not the point. If they had informed their customers of the 2 year warranty that they were entitled to by law, that would have informed their decision as to whether to go for the extra AppleCare or not. The thing is, they thought the choice was between AppleCare and a 1 year warranty.... but it wasn't. They were misinformed, by the same party who was profiting from decision, and thus had motive to mislead them.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Every european customer is supposed to know
that. Without seeing the actual court ruling I only can assume that some customer rights organizations filed a suit because they found the apple advertizings missleading.
That is what the newspapers claim, and the court (seems to have) ruled. However I find this unbelieveable. ...
Every product in the EU since ages has a law gurranteed 2 years "guarranty". If you see how few people buy the AppleCare extra guarranty I find this whole case bollocks
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
DIRECTIVE 1999/44/EC OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL
of 25 May 1999
on certain aspects of the sale of consumer goods and associated guarantees
THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION,
Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European Community, and in particular Article 95 thereof,
Having regard to the proposal from the Commission(1),
Having regard to the opinion of the Economic and Social Committee(2),
Acting in accordance with the procedure laid down in Article 251 of the Treaty in the light of the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee on 18 May 1999(3),
(1) Whereas Article 153(1) and (3) of the Treaty provides that the Community should contribute to the achievement of a high level of consumer protection by the measures it adopts pursuant to Article 95 thereof;
(2) Whereas the internal market comprises an area without internal frontiers in which the free movement of goods, persons, services and capital is guaranteed; whereas free movement of goods concerns not only transactions by persons acting in the course of a business but also transactions by private individuals; whereas it implies that consumers resident in one Member State should be free to purchase goods in the territory of another Member State on the basis of a uniform minimum set of fair rules governing the sale of consumer goods;
(3) Whereas the laws of the Member States concerning the sale of consumer goods are somewhat disparate, with the result that national consumer goods markets differ from one another and that competition between sellers may be distorted;
(4) Whereas consumers who are keen to benefit from the large market by purchasing goods in Member States other than their State of residence play a fundamental role in the completion of the internal market; whereas the artificial reconstruction of frontiers and the compartmentalisation of markets should be prevented; whereas the opportunities available to consumers have been greatly broadened by new communication technologies which allow ready access to distribution systems in other Member States or in third countries; whereas, in the absence of minimum harmonisation of the rules governing the sale of consumer goods, the development of the sale of goods through the medium of new distance communication technologies risks being impeded;
(5) Whereas the creation of a common set of minimum rules of consumer law, valid no matter where goods are purchased within the Community, will strengthen consumer confidence and enable consumers to make the most of the internal market;
(6) Whereas the main difficulties encountered by consumers and the main source of disputes with sellers concern the non-conformity of goods with the contract; whereas it is therefore appropriate to approximate national legislation governing the sale of consumer goods in this respect, without however impinging on provisions and principles of national law relating to contractual and non-contractual liability;
(7) Whereas the goods must, above all, conform with the contractual specifications; whereas the principle of conformity with the contract may be considered as common to the different national legal traditions; whereas in certain national legal traditions it may not be possible to rely solely on this principle to ensure a minimum level of protection for the consumer; whereas under such legal traditions, in particular, additional national provisions may be useful to ensure that the consumer is protected in cases where the parties have agreed no specific contractual terms or where the parties have concluded contractual terms or agreements which directly or indirectly waive or restrict the rights of the consumer and which, to the extent that these rights result from this Directive, are not binding on the consumer;
(8) Whereas, in order to facilitate the application of the principle of conformity with the contract, it is useful to introduce a rebuttable presumption of conformity with the contract c
That is not so simple. Misleading bit is that Apple advertises "included 1 year AppleCare, + extra 2 years for extra money," while saying nowhere that customers actually by law have 2 years of warranty.
Now, the simplest distinction of AppleCare and standard support is that former is international, latter is local.
IOW, there are some extras AppleCare covers, but they avoid mentioning how precisely it differs from the standard support, what's covered for 1 year, what's covered for 2 years, what's covered with the optional AppleCare.
All hope abandon ye who enter here.
Actually, the UK implements this directive through the Sales of Goods Act, which gives a consumer redress against the retailer for up to 6 years if goods do not conform with the sales contract, or last a 'reasonable' length of time.
I just wish the penalty had had more Teeth. As the company with more cash on hand than God, a $1.2M penalty barely a penalty.
$1.2M penalty is a $1.2M penalty. If you were the lawyer whose job it was to check all the legal terms on Apple's Italian website for conformance with Italian laws, and the company just got a $1.2M fine because you didn't do your job competently, then you are in trouble. And you can bet that your successor is making sure it won't happen again.