Under Italy’s Consumer Code, consumers have a legal right to free warranty service for 2 years. Apparently Apple failed to disclose this fact to their customers, instead touting their corporate policy of 1 free year of warranty service, and urging customers to buy an additional year of AppleCare, essentially making people pay for the second year of warranty service they’re normally legally guaranteed for free. Tsk, tsk, tsk, Apple.
(photo credit: smartphoneenvy.com)
The free year of service and subsequent paid year of AppleCare is Apple’s warranty policy in the US and other countries, but it was misleading at the very least to apply this same policy in Italy, given their Consumer Code.
Apple’s fine of 900,000 Euros covers the failure to disclose the 2-year warranty and selling overlapping AppleCare coverage. Also as part of the settlement, Apple has 90 days to change their Italian AppleCare offerings to reflect the mandated 2-year warranty and update their Italian website to notify customers of the legal settlement.
It’s not clear what will happen for people who bought the year of AppleCare because of Apple’s practices before the settlement.
Via The Verge
