Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by martyb on Thursday May 03 2018, @01:54AM   Printer-friendly
from the now-about-those-tags-on-my-pillow... dept.

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow3941

The FTC says that if companies don't change their warranty practices, it may take 'legal action.'

The Federal Trade Commission put six companies on notice in early April for illegally telling customers that getting third-party repairs voids the warranty on their electronics. You've seen the stickers before and read the messages buried in end user license agreements. Plastered on the back of my PlayStation 4 is a little sticker that says "warranty void if removed." That's illegal.

Motherboard has obtained copies of the letters via a Freedom of Information Act request and has learned the names of the six companies that were warned. They are Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, Hyundai, HTC, and computer hardware manufacturer ASUS.

[...] The FTC believes all six companies are violating the 1975 Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act, which states that no manufacturer charging more than $5 for a product may put repair restrictions on a device its offering a warranty on. Despite being illegal, many companies have such restrictions. Apple, noticeably absent in this round of of warning letters, often steers customers away from third-party repair services.

"Warranty language that implies to a consumer acting reasonably under the circumstances that warranty coverage requires the consumer to purchase an article or service identified by brand, trade or corporate name is similarly deceptive and prohibited," the FTC letters said.

[...] In three cases, the letters also specifically say that the use of warranty-void-if-removed stickers or "seals" break the law; language in the Playstation 4, HTC, and Asus warranties mention that the warranties are void if a seal is removed, something that the FTC mentioned it is "particularly concerned" about.

Source: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/xw7b3z/warranty-void-if-removed-stickers-sony-microsoft-nintendo-ftc-letters


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday May 03 2018, @11:48AM (7 children)

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Thursday May 03 2018, @11:48AM (#675007)

    How many thruhole caps are there in your cellphone?

    Even bigger stuff like PCBs found in new cars and going more and more to SMD only, as small as possible even when they don't need to be.

    --
    🌻🌻 [google.com]
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday May 03 2018, @01:36PM (4 children)

    by Grishnakh (2831) on Thursday May 03 2018, @01:36PM (#675040)

    They *do* need to be: thru-hole components are a PITA to work with, and don't play well with automated assembly equipment. For places where they still use electrolytic caps, they've largely moved to SMT versions of them (which are basically thru-hole ones stuck on a little plastic holder that keeps it upright with solderable terminals sticking out the side which reflow nicely), even though they're more expensive than the thru-hole versions: the labor savings more than pays for the cost difference in components.

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by kazzie on Thursday May 03 2018, @02:33PM (3 children)

      by kazzie (5309) Subscriber Badge on Thursday May 03 2018, @02:33PM (#675078)

      Speaking as a hobbyist / bodger / fixer of things with a soldering iron in the shed, I consider the surface mount stuff to be the PITA.

      I've fixed a few Game Gears that suffered from leaky (SMT) capacitors, soldering through-hole replacement s to the board surface, but getting my wife's Mac Classic II working after that is still sulking. (I need to open it up again and do another pass at trying to clean the electrolyte off all the nooks and cranneis of the board, I suppose.)

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 03 2018, @04:21PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 03 2018, @04:21PM (#675133)

        I've fixed a few Game Gears that suffered from leaky (SMT) capacitors, soldering through-hole replacement s to the board surface

        Your problem is that you are trying to attach through-hole parts to SMD pads. I would be worried about the pads being ripped off the board too with this arrangement. Why not get an equivalent replacement? Then soldering it on would be easy.

      • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday May 03 2018, @06:30PM (1 child)

        by Grishnakh (2831) on Thursday May 03 2018, @06:30PM (#675208)

        I've done tons of soldering, and SMT is far, far easier than thru-hole for rework, unless you're talking about BGAs. The key is getting a hot-air rework station. Try desoldering a DIP chip without damaging it; I can remove an SOJ/SOIC chip in a few seconds with my rework station and then replace it in a few more.

        • (Score: 2) by kazzie on Friday May 04 2018, @06:09AM

          by kazzie (5309) Subscriber Badge on Friday May 04 2018, @06:09AM (#675518)

          I've desoldered a fair few DIP-chip RAM chips on 8-bit micros. As they're already faulty I'm not generally fussed whether they get more damaged, but I invariably get them out in one (physical) piece. It probably isn't as quick as your use of a rework station, but I don't own one of those.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 03 2018, @04:18PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 03 2018, @04:18PM (#675130)

    Even bigger stuff like PCBs found in new cars and going more and more to SMD only, as small as possible even when they don't need to be.

    Hand-soldering SMD parts is not particularly difficult. You will probably want a couple extra tools compared to through-hole work:

      - soldering iron
      - flux pen
      - tweezers
      - solder wick
      - solder wire (as thin as reasonable)
      - jeweler's loupe (for visual inspection)

    A meter with a good continuity test function is helpful when inspecting for shorts.

    For very small packages like 0402 (metric) a microscope is probably needed. Still, I have seen people hand-solder these successfully.

    SMD passives tend to be substantially cheaper than their through-hole counterparts, so you can save money too.

    A bigger problem is that SMD passives are frequently not labeled, which can make it difficult to determine suitable replacements for failed parts if you lack a schematic.

    • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday May 03 2018, @09:48PM

      by JoeMerchant (3937) on Thursday May 03 2018, @09:48PM (#675342)

      Hand-soldering SMD parts is not particularly difficult.

      Tell me how you feel after working on a densely laid out board with 0402s and a few 0201s that you have to do anything with.

      --
      🌻🌻 [google.com]