dell voided my warranty for...what?

[thesurge]

damnit...i just needed to rant. theres a little panel with a screwdriver insert on the top of my dell inspiron 600m, where the power button is, no screws unscrewed. and dell told me i voided my 2 year warranty. F**K DELL. last time i ever buy from them.

*edit: yes, the keyboard was not responding and i did open the top thing after it was broken...does this mean only my warranty on the keyboard is off? or the whole system.

 

[6000SUX]

I feel for you. I will never buy from them, either. Their support sucks, and they recently committed a criminal act against my wife by choosing not to honor her warranty. In her case, she was within the warranty period, and had not unscrewed a single screw or done anything else to the laptop.

I'm warning people away from Dell now. I recently successfully averted two sales for them within my wife's extended family.

 

[6000SUX]

sorry for the double post.

 

[tokamak]

that sucks. I recently narrowed it down to a Dell and an Asus for my new laptop. I picked the Asus and I think I made the right decision.

 

[AmigaMan]

Yeah, I've given up on Dell unless it's a bargain-basement machine. I sank $1500 in a laptop a year ago and the LCD started having issues. That's the last time I spend any large amount of money on them. Because of their cheapness, I just spent $2500 on a MacBook that just kills the Dell in build quality and speed.

 

[gorcorps]

After fiddling w/ my friends' dells all the time, I'll never buy a notebook from them. They'd have to have one hell of a coupon for me to go down that road.

 

[cw42]

"no screws unscrewed"

so if i unscrew the panel for RAM to put in an extra stick you void the warranty?

 

[Brainonska511]

Originally posted by: cw42
"no screws unscrewed"

so if i unscrew the panel for RAM to put in an extra stick you void the warranty?

Most likely not. It is probably considered voiding the warranty because you weren't servicing your notebook under Dell's Tech support's watch and you are not doing a standard, nonwarranty voiding upgrade.

 

[smack Down]

You can't void a warranty. They can only legally deny your claim if they can show you damage the equipement.

 

[thesurge]

Yeh, the guy said something about not having the case documented. My friend had to replace his keybaord 2 times on his dell laptop, but there was no technician there. The thing was that they authorized him to do it and it was documented. They sent him the keyboard he replaced it and sent back the broken one. This is still ridiculous. Anyone know if they can deny service to my whole laptop for that? or just the keyboard because it was the only thing broken when i "opened it".

 

[6000SUX]

Originally posted by: smack Down
You can't void a warranty. They can only legally deny your claim if they can show you damage the equipement.

Yes, you can. When you void the warranty you cancel the contract, and they can deny ALL future claims.

 

[thecoroner]

That sucks. That's why when the Dell technician asks something like "Have you don't anything already to try and fix the problem?", you say no.

 

[smack Down]

Originally posted by: 6000SUX

Originally posted by: smack Down
You can't void a warranty. They can only legally deny your claim if they can show you damage the equipement.

Yes, you can. When you void the warranty you cancel the contract, and they can deny ALL future claims.

See the Magnussen-Moss act. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnussen-Moss_Act

 

[Brainonska511]

Originally posted by: smack Down

Originally posted by: 6000SUX

Originally posted by: smack Down
You can't void a warranty. They can only legally deny your claim if they can show you damage the equipement.

Yes, you can. When you void the warranty you cancel the contract, and they can deny ALL future claims.

See the Magnussen-Moss act. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnussen-Moss_Act

There might be that, but there also might be something buried in your Dell Warranty Contract as to what can and can't be done with your machine.

 

[6000SUX]

Originally posted by: smack Down

Originally posted by: 6000SUX

Originally posted by: smack Down
You can't void a warranty. They can only legally deny your claim if they can show you damage the equipement.

Yes, you can. When you void the warranty you cancel the contract, and they can deny ALL future claims.

See the Magnussen-Moss act. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnussen-Moss_Act

And? Did you take the time to read it? It doesn't say anything like what you're saying. It merely says that companies can't make arbitrary decisions in their own favor.

It's very simple: a warranty is a contract. If the contract says that you void it by tinkering with the machine yourself, that's the way it goes.

 

[smack Down]

Originally posted by: 6000SUX

Originally posted by: smack Down

Originally posted by: 6000SUX

Originally posted by: smack Down
You can't void a warranty. They can only legally deny your claim if they can show you damage the equipement.

Yes, you can. When you void the warranty you cancel the contract, and they can deny ALL future claims.

See the Magnussen-Moss act. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnussen-Moss_Act

And? Did you take the time to read it? It doesn't say anything like what you're saying. It merely says that companies can't make arbitrary decisions in their own favor.

It's very simple: a warranty is a contract. If the contract says that you void it by tinkering with the machine yourself, that's the way it goes.

And the warranty "contract" is governed by the laws. One of the laws says they can't make arbitrary decisions in their own favor. It is arbitrary to deny the warrant on a keyboard because a screw has been removed.

 

[simms]

IBM > Dell FTW.

 

[6000SUX]

Originally posted by: smack Down

Originally posted by: 6000SUX

Originally posted by: smack Down

Originally posted by: 6000SUX

Originally posted by: smack Down
You can't void a warranty. They can only legally deny your claim if they can show you damage the equipement.

Yes, you can. When you void the warranty you cancel the contract, and they can deny ALL future claims.

See the Magnussen-Moss act. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnussen-Moss_Act

And? Did you take the time to read it? It doesn't say anything like what you're saying. It merely says that companies can't make arbitrary decisions in their own favor.

It's very simple: a warranty is a contract. If the contract says that you void it by tinkering with the machine yourself, that's the way it goes.

And the warranty "contract" is governed by the laws. One of the laws says they can't make arbitrary decisions in their own favor. It is arbitrary to deny the warrant on a keyboard because a screw has been removed.

Not if the warranty states that all repairs must be made by an authorized person, or else the warranty is voided. See?

 

[smack Down]

Originally posted by: 6000SUX

Originally posted by: smack Down

Originally posted by: 6000SUX

Originally posted by: smack Down

Originally posted by: 6000SUX

Originally posted by: smack Down
You can't void a warranty. They can only legally deny your claim if they can show you damage the equipement.

Yes, you can. When you void the warranty you cancel the contract, and they can deny ALL future claims.

See the Magnussen-Moss act. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnussen-Moss_Act

And? Did you take the time to read it? It doesn't say anything like what you're saying. It merely says that companies can't make arbitrary decisions in their own favor.

It's very simple: a warranty is a contract. If the contract says that you void it by tinkering with the machine yourself, that's the way it goes.

And the warranty "contract" is governed by the laws. One of the laws says they can't make arbitrary decisions in their own favor. It is arbitrary to deny the warrant on a keyboard because a screw has been removed.

Not if the warranty states that all repairs must be made by an authorized person, or else the warranty is voided. See?

Sorry, It doesn't matter the law says otherwise. They have to show that the unauthorized person damage the laptop to void the warranty and they can only void the warrant on the part that was damaged by the unauthorized repair.

 

[6000SUX]

Originally posted by: smack Down
Sorry, It doesn't matter the law says otherwise. They have to show that the unauthorized person damage the laptop to void the warranty and they can only void the warrant on the part that was damaged by the unauthorized repair.

Wrong. You started by saying warranties couldn't be voided, and now you're backpedaling, but you still aren't right. Anything written into the contract in a legal way can specify conditions for terminating the contract (voiding the warranty). You can keep arguing with me (although I will tire of it eventually), but you cannot argue with the FTC. Here is a page explaining the Magnuson-Moss Act in some detail:

http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/buspubs/warranty.htm#Magnuson-Moss

A quote from the page:
"While you cannot use a tie-in sales provision, your warranty need not cover use of replacement parts, repairs, or maintenance that is inappropriate for your product. The following is an example of a permissible provision that excludes coverage of such things.

'While necessary maintenance or repairs on your AudioMundo Stereo System can be performed by any company, we recommend that you use only authorized AudioMundo dealers. Improper or incorrectly performed maintenance or repair voids this warranty.'"

Just one example of a permissible voiding of a warranty, and it says nothing about the improper maintenance being done by the consumer.

The reason I knew you were wrong from the start is that your belief stems from a basic misunderstanding of what contracts really are. A contract can be made to specify anything that does not contradict some law in effect. This includes clauses in warranties (which are contracts) designed to void the warranty if some trigger situation occurs.

Here's the text of the Magnuson-Moss Act if you want to dig deeper:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode15/usc_sup_01_15_10_50.html

I did some reading, and talk of the Act seems to be popular on car-modding forums, where people are often of the delusion that no modification they make to a car can void any warranty. That's not true. Service contracts are even easier to void, from what I can see, and there's also a big difference between a full and an extended warranty.

 

[6000SUX]

Incidentally, the person that made that Wikipedia post didn't even know enough about the Act to spell its name correctly.

 

[6000SUX]

Originally posted by: thesurge
damnit...i just needed to rant. theres a little panel with a screwdriver insert on the top of my dell inspiron 600m, where the power button is, no screws unscrewed. and dell told me i voided my 2 year warranty. F**K DELL. last time i ever buy from them.

*edit: yes, the keyboard was not responding and i did open the top thing after it was broken...does this mean only my warranty on the keyboard is off? or the whole system.

I just read through Dell's warranty conditions. They state that Dell will still repair other items in the system. If you have trouble with them, let me know and I will point you to the specific verbiage.

 

[smack Down]

"While you cannot use a tie-in sales provision, your warranty need not cover use of replacement parts, repairs, or maintenance that is inappropriate for your product. The following is an example of a permissible provision that excludes coverage of such things.

'While necessary maintenance or repairs on your AudioMundo Stereo System can be performed by any company, we recommend that you use only authorized AudioMundo dealers. Improper or incorrectly performed maintenance or repair voids this warranty.'"

Just one example of a permissible voiding of a warranty, and it says nothing about the improper maintenance being done by the consumer.

They have to show that any repair was improper or incorrectly done repair, damaged the part. They can't void the warranty on the basis that the work done was unauthorized.

 

[smack Down]

See 2304. Federal minimum standards for warranties of the full text you linked

(c) Waiver of standards
The performance of the duties under subsection (a) of this section shall not be required of the warrantor if he can show that the defect, malfunction, or failure of any warranted consumer product to conform with a written warranty, was caused by damage (not resulting from defect or malfunction) while in the possession of the consumer, or unreasonable use (including failure to provide reasonable and necessary maintenance).

Dell has to prove that the damage to the keyboard was caused by him opening up the keyboard. If they can't show the damage wasn't from a defect or malfunction they have to honor the warranty.

 

[6000SUX]

Originally posted by: smack Down

"While you cannot use a tie-in sales provision, your warranty need not cover use of replacement parts, repairs, or maintenance that is inappropriate for your product. The following is an example of a permissible provision that excludes coverage of such things.

'While necessary maintenance or repairs on your AudioMundo Stereo System can be performed by any company, we recommend that you use only authorized AudioMundo dealers. Improper or incorrectly performed maintenance or repair voids this warranty.'"

Just one example of a permissible voiding of a warranty, and it says nothing about the improper maintenance being done by the consumer.

They have to show that any repair was improper or incorrectly done repair, damaged the part. They can't void the warranty on the basis that the work done was unauthorized.

The question is not about Dell, but about warranties. Do you or do you not understand yet that a warranty can specify just about anything? It could have a blue-face clause, to wit:

"The customer guarantees that they shall wear blue face paint every day of their life, or this warranty shall be rendered null and void."

Then if the customer's caught without the paint, the warranty would be void. The burden is actually NOT on the basis of the vendor, either! In fact, the consumer can be required to seek alternate resolution with them before bringing a lawsuit. The Magnuson-Moss Act is as much about protecting the vendor as the consumer.

You started out by saying that no warranty could be voided, and seem to have shifted your position somewhat without acknowledging it, which is interesting.