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Comment by jiggawatts | Hacker News Reader

This is illegal in Australia due to consumer-protection laws that automatically apply. I wonder how Amazon is getting around this, because the agency that punishes vendors tends to come down like a ton of bricks if they get wind of this kind of behaviour...

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When I lived in New Zealand, there was a cellphone shop in Auckland that refused to warranty a Nexus 4 that broke (neither Google nor LG warranty this device, unless you buy it from the Google store). The shop refused to fix it because I had unlocked the bootloader and installed LineageOS. They then told me it would cost $12 to ship the phone back to me! People at work told me, "Don't let them get away with that. We have consumer protection laws."

I had to take them to a tribunal. It was like 2 hours for the first session, and they wanted a second one (another 1.5 hours). I made the argument that I can buy a Windows laptop and put Linux on it; showed stats how many people install Lineage, how the mobile data failed first, then the Wi-Fi, and then the phone refused to boot, which is an indication of hardware failure (not my software modifications).

I fucking hate that company. Hours wasted and the judge awarded me my $450.

What's really stupid? Why didn't Google/LG warranty the devices themselves? This should have been as simple as the company just shipping the device back to LG and shipping me a new one. Pushing the warranty down to the individual vendors to repair is fucking assassin.

That's a miserable story. I have used the Consumer Guarantees Act here numerous times, perhaps a couple per year. I have never been to a tribunal ever and am not aware of anyone who has, that is not a normal experience.

I had a Nexus 6p bootloop on me after about 14 months of use. Neither Google or Huawei would accept responsibility because my 1 year warranty just ran out! Fortunately I paid with a credit card that came with extended warranty feature so I called them and they returned back all my money once I provided the evidence of failure.

Australian consumer rights exist independently of the warranty offered by the producer. My guess is that it's perfectly legal not to offer an explicit warranty (or one with very short duration), however, it is illegal to refuse refund/repair when reasonably requested. Crucially, the lack or expiry of an explicit warranty is not a valid defence -- it's about the product meeting quality expectations given its cost.

Not sure about Australia, but I know how the EU warranty works. It is not the manufacturer who is responsible, but the seller. So for example Apple offers 90 days warranty on purchases from third party stores and 2 years on purchases from Apple stores. In the case of Amazon, they have to offer 2 years on all items “sold by Amazon”.

In Australia the seller is obligated to remedy your problem. They can't punt you to the manufacturer. The buyer is allowed to seek out the manufacturer though, if they want to.

This is the relevant webpage: https://www.accc.gov.au/business/treating-customers-fairly/c...

or they just don't sell them?

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