FTC says Warranty Void stickers bullshit, Warns Manufacturers they are illegal. - Sensationalist Headlines

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/ne9qdq/warranty-void-if-removed-stickers-illegal-ftc The Federal Trade Commission put six companies on notice today, telling them in a warning letter that their warranty practices violate federal law. If you buy a car with a warranty, take it a repair shop to fix it, then have to return the car to the manufacturer, the car company isn’t legally allowed to deny the return because you took your car to another shop. The same is true of any consumer device that costs more than $15, though many manufacturers want you to think otherwise. Companies such as Sony and Microsoft pepper the edges of their game consoles with warning labels telling customers that breaking the seal voids the warranty. That’s illegal. Thanks to the 1975 Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act, no manufacturer is allowed to put repair restrictions on a device it offers a warranty on. Dozens of companies do it anyway, and the FTC has put them on notice. Apple, meanwhile, routinely tells customers not to use third party repair companies, and aftermarket parts regularly break iPhones due to software updates. "The letters warn that FTC staff has concerns about the companies’ statements that consumers must use specified parts or service providers to keep their warranties intact," the FTC wrote in a press release. "Unless warrantors provide the parts or services for free or receive a waiver from the FTC, such statements generally are prohibited by the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act, a law that governs consumer product warranties. Similarly, such statements may be deceptive under the FTC Act."

Fucking finally

Right to repair.

Okay, now Canada, your turn to follow suit

Void stickers are fucking awful, sometimes they just make the thing look uglier because they're placed in a really annoying spot

Shit like this drives me up the wall. You can't even CLEAN some electronics without first having to break the warranty I'm looking at you PS4

Cleaning devices are usually so easy that any idiot can do it with a mere google search and not break it, unless they try tearing it apart or something. You either lose it in the long run cleaning it because haha warrenty, or you're at the whims of some faceless company that'll just replace it who also caused the problem to begin with.

IIRC, this is also going to help out farmers quiet a bit. Lot of them have be forced to resort to hacking their own tractors and shit these days, because they are unable to do repairs and diagnostics without breaking warranty.

Haven't they always been not illegal but simply non-binding? like if I change my phone's speaker and then the CPU dies due to a factory issue then I stil have warranty and it's up to the company to prove I was the one who broke it.

I had an issue with a server at work where I bought 4 32 gig ram sticks and I couldn't install one because it had one of these stickers on the preinstalled one, it seemed so brain dead I had to actually email their support where I got a snide answer by some smartass on the other side. https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/229156/bf4f1b24-6683-410d-a378-57bce0d4a5b9/image.png So its been stuck with 96GB out of its advertised 128GB maximum capacity.

If the support is snine, just ask for their supervisor contact then just run up the chain until somebody fixes it for you. If they don't give it to you, go over their head through a different agent and fuck them over. If that doesn't work, just threaten to sue and they'll fold immediately. I've only had to do that twice ever but it works nearly instantly no matter how shit your customer service experience has been. Just elevate your issue to the point of some supervisor of a supervisor who can fix your problem by waving their hand to make a customer happy.

I just got done watching a review of the Anet E10 3D printer and the "warranty void" sticker is literally placed just so that the first time you plug it in, the case bows inward and breaks the sticker. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGF6QbaXpiM

So this means those void warranty stickers on the 4 screws connecting my GPU fan to the card are bullshit, and I can do as I like with my product now? Time to save for a water cooler.

It IS worth noting that any damage incurred by your modification of a device can still void a warranty, as warranties cover manufacturer workmanship, not yours.

I remember buying a damn DVD car player and it had that stupid ass sticker, but it was placed tactially when you slide the radio into your 2DIN socket it would tear the sticker. Lost my warranty 20 minutes after I bought it simply because I had to install it into my car. Broke after 6 months, RIP.

I had a laptop that I had to send to the manufacturer to replace the keyboard. When I got it back it had a warranty void if removed sticker on the bottom covering a screw. Due to it being on the bottom of a damn laptop, after two days of use it peeled off on my trousers. Had to send it back to fix the hinge breaking and they refused cause the sticker was removed.

Thats awesome. This policy has always struck me the wrong way. Why shouldn't I be able to open a console or laptop I bought to attempt to fix it myself? They just do it so you're forced to go to them for repairs.

What about cases where you have to return the item in an unopened box in mint condition if it needs replacing? I've never understood that one.

that doesn't deal with the drm complaint, though it does free them up to go to third party shops, the problem is those shops still don't have the right to technical data and diagnostic tools from the manufacturer

On the other hand though, there's a legitimate use for them, namely the chucklefucks who think "Well I can fix it myself!" and they can't, or those who fuck it up some other way (spilling shit in it), so they take it apart to "fix it"/clean it and then send it back to the manufacturer because "lol it no work it's your fault". Assholes: Ruining shit for everyone since the dawn of Man.

According to Vice's Motherboard, via the Freedom of Information Act, they obtained a copies of emails sent by Lois Greisman, the FTC’s associate director of marketing practices, on April 9 to the six companies that they believe are violating the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act, and were given 30 days to change policy. https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/xw7b3z/warranty-void-if-removed-stickers-sony-microsoft-nintendo-ftc-letters Those six companies are Hyundai, ASUS, HTC, and the three major video game console manufacturers (Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo). The letters can be found in the source, as they go into detail what language needs to be changed.

Fucking get em boys

The only rules like those I know of are for when you want to return/replace a product when there's nothing wrong with it or do you mean something else?

Good. My arcade stick has one right on a screw placed in a spot where if you arent careful, you could poke right through and tear it.

I kinda get what your getting at here, but forgive me as I'm going to get a bit poetic. I feel the "Well I can fix it myself!" attitude is a large part of human ingenuity, you learn a lot valuable lessons just by messing with things, and I imagine It's how a lot of people got their start. To stifle this attitude is to kill progress. It worries me a lot to see how irreparable things are getting, planned obsolescence is a pox upon man.

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE the "Fix it yourself!" crowd (I'm one of them), I'm talking the "I'll fix it myself!" people that don't even try to learn anything about what they're doing before they try to fix it. Case in point, a computer I had to completely rebuild for an old woman because her chuckle-fuck nephew or whoever tried to "fix it himself", and by the time I got to it, the CPU and heat-sink were just bouncing around inside the case, pins bent on the CPU, the heatsink causing untold damage to the motherboard (it was still firmly attached to the CPU somehow...), rendering the system completely FUBAR.

PS4 is awful design all around I still don't know where the fucking power button is

Tangential to this thread but NPR did a nice bit of coverage on this exact issue, it's a good read/listen if you can find the show Farmers Look For Ways To Circumvent Tractor Software Locks