The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, a business competition watchdog organization, has forced Apple to make modifications to its refund policy in order to comply with consumer protection legislation, reports the Sydney Morning Herald. According to the group, Apple misled customers with regard to what types of refund or repair they were entitled to.
According to the claims, the U.S.-based company did not provide customers with sufficient compensation for faulty devices to comply with Australian law. Now Apple has been forced to re-evaluate its practices and will have to re-examine countless potential violations that took place over the past two years. Failure to comply with the new policy could result in a massive class-action lawsuit against Apple.
The review of previous claims will take approximately three months, and each case found to be in violation of the law will result in proper legal restitution to the affected customer. Part of this process will require Apple to place a message on its Australian website notifying customers of the change and inviting them to alert Apple of any instances in which they declined a warranty claim due to Apple’s misleading information.
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Apple is probably the only quality electronics brand I know that continues to offer a feeble one year warranty on it’s products. That’s really not good enough given their premium pricing. They should be offering a standard 2 or 3 year warranty on all their products included in the price. I always buy my Apple kit from distributors and never from Apple direct simply to get a longer warranty as standard and save a fair amount of money in the process.