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This must be nonsense. No huge company with competent legal experts are going to allow a policy of blatant personal property theft.
They're evil but they're not stupid.
A youtube with an utterly idiotic grin on the front slide doesn't make it any less illegal.
Of course, in some jurisdictions their repair contract might hold water in a court. In most it won't, for example over here in Germany plenty of our law automatically invalidates lots of stuff a company might put in their EULAs or TOS. They are allowed to write it in there, but even if you explicitly click accept, it's invalid and has no legal bearing, as if it were simply not in there.
But I had something similar happen before actually, where the item was "lost" basically. Net result was getting a replacement and a free upgrade for personal use (that is, I got the same phone back which was my work phone, and the better model explicitly to use personally as an apology).
But that's the thing, they know it's cheaper to give 1 in 50000 people a free item and/or money in return for saving 1.2% on their personel cost and training cost for service centres. That's why they do this. They institutionalized the incompetence resulting from their lack of training and staffing.
You say you’re in Germany; that is all the difference. The U.S. and its legal system, government and lawmakers have all been bought and paid for. Big businesses do what they want here.
Exactly. Here in America, things being illegal doesn't stop people from breaking the law, and the biggest law breakers are giant corporations.
I give it maybe two more republican presidencies before the corporations start rewriting the constitution.
You didn't read the article, did you? It's in their repair contract that you must agree to before sending things in for repair.
From a legal perspective, they didn't steal it...
...you gave it to them.
Depends. Where I live even signed contracts can be deemed illegal in parts if a clause is still seen as unexpected or surprising for the customer.
If Google included a clause that states the customer loses a kidney to them, wouldn't make it legal just because it's written there.
It's legal in the United States where consumer protection laws aren't as strong as in some other places.
You could be a serial killer making contracts with your victims, it would still be illegal.
This one isn't though. There's no law against it in the United States, thus it is legal.
Murder contracts specifically are illegal because they contract for an illegal activity. Giving your phone to Google isn't an illegal activity. Yes, it sounds and feels like theft, but it doesn't meet the legal definition of theft.
When is this shit pulled by Samsung and now Google considered stealing?
It is actualy legally considered stealing. There might be countries where their service centre TOS are allowed to overwrite common law, but that would be outliers. In virtually all countries it's just theft.
When you live in a sane country. I can't imagine this applying anywhere in Europe for example.
Why don't they just replace the non-OEM parts and make the repair bill larger? Keeping the device is just theft.
If you send in a phone with non-OEM parts it's safe to assume that it's a bit on the older side. You're probably sending it in instead of buying a new phone because you can't find a repair shop that will work on your device because sourcing parts can be difficult for older devices. If you're suddenly hit with a bill that costs more than the value of a new phone, or at least a replacement, suddenly paying becomes questionable. But yeah, you're right. It feels like theft.
Okay but there is a thing called Estimate and either the customer agrees with the bill or they need to give the item back.
Customer: my phone doesn't charge
Estimate:
$100 USB charge board
$50 labor
$10 shipping
$160 total
Actual price:
$120 Screen (OEM replacement)
$75 fingerprint reader+assembly (OEM replacement)
$40 speaker (OEM replacement)
$100 USB charge board
$120 labor
$10 shipping
$465 total
I think most people would swallow the loss and use it as an excuse to upgrade. Use that same money for a new phone instead of a fixed phone
Nothing a good class action lawsuit can't handle.