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Currys/PC World (UK) Voids Warranty on Hardware if Buyer Installs Linux

posted by n1 on Saturday October 25 2014, @07:55AM   Printer-friendly
from the is-it-still-1998? dept.

gewg_ writes:

Roy Schestowitz notes:

Today I learned something somewhat shocking. A policy which I believed was some kind of controversial fringe policy from way back in the days of Vista is still in place, and it's in place right here in the UK. Currys/PC World is totally overzealous with its GNU/Linux-hostile policy, which is almost definitely dictated by non-technical management, maybe in collusion with Microsoft.

[...] an old desktop of mine died on me and I sought a replacement immediately (within the hour). [...] Currys pretty much devoured the competition [...and] has an outrageous policy regarding warranty.

As it turns out--and this was confirmed to us by multiple people (in multiple PC World stores) after arguing for more than half an hour--once you install GNU/Linux (even if it's dual boot with Windows) no damage to hardware would be covered by the warranty (keyboard, screen, and so on). One of the sellers, who follows the Linux Action Show, regretted this but also defended this policy because it's imposed from above.

No matter how ridiculous a policy it is, changes to [zeros] and ones on the hard-drive (to remove spyware), according to Currys, would void the warranty on what clearly is not connected to [the pre-installed] software. [...] we decided we just couldn't do business at PC World. The company is inherently GNU/Linux-hostile. Avoid Currys.

 
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  • (Score: 1) by robpow on Saturday October 25 2014, @11:20AM

    by robpow (1575) on Saturday October 25 2014, @11:20AM (#109875)

    Guarantees and warranties are additional to the legal statutory protections that consumers enjoy when buying goods from retailer.

    Trading standards have a quick blurb on the differences:
    http://www.tradingstandards.gov.uk/advice/problemswithgoods-sum16.cfm [tradingstandards.gov.uk]

    While I think the company's policy in this case is far too simplistic and draconian I can see the issues behind that that are trying protect against. Imagine a noob installing all manners of OS and drivers that they don't fully comprehend and end up melting some components because they messed with the fan controller. Not likely but certainly possible and enough a reason for a product manager higher up to say no.

    If it happened to me I'd just nuke the boot sector and hand it in like that.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 25 2014, @03:11PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 25 2014, @03:11PM (#109930)

    Retail sales is a low wage, and therefore, low skill occupation. Trying to figure out exactly what is wrong with a computer, can take many hours of high skilled labor.

    Accept that cheap computers are disposable. If you want to play around with Linux, go to a Pawn shop, and buy a used computer. This computer I am typing on cost $100, with a broken battery. It works fine.