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Chinese news agency Xinhua reports that consumer organizations in the country are taking a closer look at Apple's warranty repairs, criticizing the company over a number of policies including the use of reconditioned parts rather than new ones.
According to the company's after-sale clauses, customers have to agree that Apple repairers utilize used or reconditioned parts to replace damaged parts on the products of iPhones or iPads during the repair process, the provincial consumers' council found in an industrial investigation and released the result on Tuesday.
The customers also have to agree that replaced parts will be retained by Apple, which is believed to probably reuse these parts to repair other products, the result said.
Apple has faced similar criticism in other countries, with Apple executive Farrel Farhoudi having testified before the South Korean parliament on the company's use of refurbished devices as warranty replacements. Apple ultimately changed its policies in South Korea, with customers whose iPhones are deemed defective during the warranty period now receiving new units rather than refurbished ones as replacements.
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Top Rated Comments
Why should it matter? So long as the parts are in perfect working condition and similarly guaranteed, who cares? What is Apple supposed to do with all the perfectly good parts on replaced items? Throw them in a landfill?
If a one year old machine is replaced under warranty, why shouldn't the customer get another one year old machine that is in perfect condition and guaranteed just the same as the one he or she replaced?
To me, this is just common sense. I don't get the objections.
This is not an Apple exclusive practice. IBM has been doing the exact same thing for several years with their AS/400s, iSeries, now Power Systems and Z series, which are mainframes. And the enterprise customers that have these systems pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in yearly maintenance costs.
The maintenance AND purchase contracts clearly specify that even BRAND NEW MACHINES may contain refurbished parts at IBMs discretion. This has NEVER been an issue in my many years of experience, and nobody gives it a second thought.
This practice makes perfect sense both from a cost-effectiveness AND an environmental point of view. :cool: