Comment by jasode | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jasode | Hacker News Reader

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>Manufacturers push the term "gray market" to imply that resold goods are somehow bad [...] The term "gray market" is linguistic manipulation to benefit manufacturers at the expense of customers, society, and the environment. Let's stop using the term.

From my experience reading manufacturers' warnings[1] about this, they never use the phrase "gray market" because a lot of consumers don't understand what that terminology means. It's more that the dealers/retailers and some savvy consumers use the phrase "grey market".

There is a category of _new_ (not used) products that have the following attributes:

- sold by unauthorized dealer : i.e. no contractual relationship with the original manufacturer to buy from them and then resell the item

- sold without a manufacturer's warranty : any warranty must be honored by the unauthorized reseller or some other 3rd party or comes with no warranty at all

So instead of the cumbersome long-winded hyphenated term of "unauthorized-retailer-and-no-manufacturer-warranty market", the industry just shortens it to "gray market". It's a useful label of what the product is. You're right, it's not unlawful or unethical to sell unauthorized/unwarranted merchandise as long you inform the customers.

E.g. Most of the luxury watches sold on amazon.com (Cartier, Rolex, etc) are "gray market" because they don't come with manufacturer's warranty. If you buy a Cartier watch from Amazon[2] to save money and it's broken and needs repair, you can't take it into a Cartier retailer at the mall to have them fix it. There's nothing wrong with it as long as customers understand the tradeoffs of lower price vs service convenience. Even though the watches are genuine instead of counterfeit, they don't come with manufacturer's documentation to get factory-authorized service.

[1] one example of a manufacturer warning about "gray market" without ever using that terminology: https://usa.yamaha.com/support/unauthorized_sellers/index.ht...

[2] https://www.amazon.com/s?k=cartier+ladies+watch&s=price-desc...

In places with decent consumer protection laws (like California), manufacturers must honor warranties regardless of who you bought the product from.

The term "unauthorized dealer" is another word to stop using. In a free market, everyone is authorized to buy & sell every safe product at all times.

>In places with decent consumer protection laws (like California), manufacturers must honor warranties regardless of who you bought the product from.

This is incorrect, and you're unintentionally spreading misinformation. California law specifically uses the term "grey market" and manufacturers do not have to honor warranties of products purchases through unauthorized channels as long as it is disclosed to the consumer. See the actual text of the law: http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displayText.xh....

>The term "unauthorized dealer" is another word to stop using.

I think you're too focused on words instead of the underlying behavior. Even if we outlawed the phrase "unauthorized", you still have the reality of manufacturers refusing to enter wholesaler contracts with any dealer. You'd still need an alternative word to describe a dealer that sells products without a contract to purchase directly from the manufacturer. Whether we use a cumbersome multi-hyphenated phrase or come up with alternative jargon to avoid the word "unauthorized" ... the reality still remains that manufacturers will not enter into buy/sell contracts with every dealer.

Some savvy and sophisticated consumers will want to know if dealer X doesn't have a direct relationship with the manufacturer as part of the purchasing decision. You don't like the word "unauthorized". Ok, that's fine. But what alternative label do you propose for that non-existent relationship?

That law explains how an item that was not originally sold in the US can have no US warranty at all, for anyone.

So the claim that "manufacturers must honor warranties regardless of who you bought the product from" is still true. If it ever had a US warranty, that warranty will not be invalidated by any selling or reselling.

>That law explains how an item that was not originally sold in the US can have no US warranty at all, for anyone.

The law is not about what wasn't originally sold in the USA. Instead, it's specifically defines "grey market" imports and the whole purpose of the following text is for resellers to disclose the product's grey market status to inform the buyer. The California law does allow for resellers to "hide" the grey market status only if the reseller (not the manufacturer) has a "reseller warranty" equal to or better than the manufacturer's warranty.

>So the claim that "manufacturers must honor warranties regardless of who you bought the product from" is still true.

No it isn't. Please read section 1797.81 again carefully. Read the actual text excerpt:

"1797.81 (a)(1) The item is not covered by a manufacturer’s express written warranty valid in the United States "

I.e. You can't buy Nikon/Canon grey market cameras or Cartier grey market watches in California and force the manufacturers to honor the warranty. California law does not force this.

>If it ever had a US warranty, that warranty will not be invalidated by any selling or reselling.

You're inadvertently trying to say something else here but it's missing a word. I will correct your statement to be: "If it ever had a [VALID] US warranty, that warranty will not be invalidated by any selling or reselling."

The "grey market" products such as cameras/pianos/watches through side channels never had a valid US warranty in the first place.

>But the "grey market" that we're talking about with AMD processors [...] You're using a much narrower definition that doesn't fit this entire conversation.

I thought mleonhard was making a general statement about "grey market" outside of these specific AMD chips.

> The law is not about what wasn't originally sold in the USA. Instead, it's specifically defines "grey market" imports and the whole purpose of the following text is for resellers to disclose the product's grey market status to inform the buyer.

That's what I'm trying to say. This law only applies when there are distributors or other parties that were sold the product outside the US and import it into the US.

> Read the actual text excerpt: "1797.81 (a)(1) The item is not covered by a manufacturer’s express written warranty valid in the United States "

That text excerpt says that if a product meets that criteria, it must have a label stating so. It doesn't say when that happens. "Every retail seller who offers grey market goods for sale shall post a conspicuous sign at the product’s point of display and affix to the product or its package a conspicuous ticket, label, or tag disclosing any or all of the following, whichever is applicable"

> You're inadvertently trying to say something else here but it's missing a word. I will correct your statement to be: "If it ever had a [VALID] US warranty, that warranty will not be invalidated by any selling or reselling."

Okay, I guess? I would say that an "invalid warranty" is not in fact a warranty, so the use of the word "valid" is redundant. But pretend I said "valid" if you want.

> The "grey market" products such as cameras/pianos/watches through side channels never had a valid US warranty in the first place.

But the "grey market" that we're talking about with AMD processors is largely composed of products that were sold in the US, with a valid US warranty, that are now being sold off later. You're using a much narrower definition that doesn't fit this entire conversation.

Thanks for putting in the effort to check my comment.

I'm not a lawyer. I read through the rest of the California consumer warranty laws and some of the Uniform Commercial Code which California also uses. A warranty goes with a product. It does not matter which company sold the product. A manufacturer cannot refuse to honor a warranty just because it doesn't like the reseller who issued the receipt.

The California law you linked applies to products that were originally sold outside USA. International trade is complicated. That law tries to protect buyers from confusing different products that have the same name. It has an important caveat at the top:

"(1) The item is not covered by a manufacturer’s express written warranty valid in the United States (however, any implied warranty provided by law still exists)."

Implied warranties are made by law. Express warranties are made by manufacturers & resellers and provided in writing to buyers. Even if a foreign-purchased product is sold in the USA with no US express warranty, it still has implied warranties.

New goods have implied warranty periods of at least 60 days. Products without express warranties have implied warranties of 1 year. https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySectio...

Used goods have implied warranty periods of at least 30 days: http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection...

And the other protections apply. For example, manufacturers/resellers must provide technical documentation for repairing electronic products (>$99) for 7 years from date of manufacture: http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection...

>The California law you linked applies to products that were originally sold outside USA.

Neither sections "1797.8. (a)" nor section "1797.81. (a)(1)" talks about products "originally sold outside the USA"

The law talks about _imports_ and not what was _sold_in_foreign_country_. The law then further defines that some imports are considered "grey market".

Using the phrase "originally sold outside the USA" that's not even there in the text of the law is copying the same mistake that Dylan16807 made.

>A manufacturer cannot refuse to honor a warranty just because it doesn't like the reseller who issued the receipt.

I'm not sure why you believe this? I can't find any court case that forces manufacturer to honor a warranty when it is purchased from unauthorized resellers.

>Implied warranties are made by law. [...], it still has implied warranties.

Both UCC and California law allows for manufacturers and sellers to disclaim implied warranties. Search for word "disclaim" in the actual California law text: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displayText.x....

Disclaimers will look similar to the following text: "SELLER MAKES NO WARRANTY OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR USE. NOR IS THERE ANY OTHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTY."

(I'm sure everyone has seen that verbage before but never really paid attention to it because what most people care about is the manufacturer's warranty.)

How do you presume this grey market distributor got ownership of the item outside the US if it wasn't sold to them outside the US?

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