Products purchased at Apple Store in India cannot be refunded or exchanged • Hacker News Board

Re: Products purchased at Apple Store in India cannot be refunded or exchanged

#101

Post by robbomacrae » Thu, Apr 15, 2021, 4:20 PM UTC

gkcgautam wrote: post #66

Previously Apple India allowed one to buy extended Apple Care+ within 1 year of buying the device but they changed the duration to 60 days last year. Now I have a Macbook Pro 16" without extended warranty because I had already crossed the 60 day mark when they changed their policy and so they won't let me extend the warranty. This is going to cost me a lot!

Why is it going to cost you a lot? Are you expecting it to break? As long as you take reasonable care and don't drop it into a pool those things are pretty reliable. I've bought 4 macbooks since 2012 and passed them on to family whenever I wanted a new one and they are all still working despite the occasional bump.

Re: Products purchased at Apple Store in India cannot be refunded or exchanged

#102

Post by easton » Thu, Apr 15, 2021, 4:20 PM UTC

truth_ wrote: post #74

jetrink wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would people want to have an iPhone for only a week? That sounds like more of a hassle than it is worth. Just to see what they are like?

I knew of a guy who "bought" Apple Laptops from Amazon and used it as his DJ laptop and worked some gigs where the Apple laptop was a status symbol of how big a deal he is. He used to perform in small town and rural India and organizers paid him ₹3k-30k per night. He returned his laptop after doing 3-4 such gigs in the "marriage season" in India. He did this 7-8 times from different addresses and different accounts.

After 21 gigs (3 gigs * 7 laptops) he would've made around 21k USD (presuming he was making at least 10k rupees per night, which between 3k-30k would've made sense). Seems like at that point you just buy the darn laptop, it's not like you need something more than an Air for DJing, and 1/21th of your revenue to be legal seems like not a bad idea.

Re: Products purchased at Apple Store in India cannot be refunded or exchanged

#103

Post by cpcallen » Thu, Apr 15, 2021, 4:20 PM UTC

gkcgautam wrote: post #66

Previously Apple India allowed one to buy extended Apple Care+ within 1 year of buying the device but they changed the duration to 60 days last year. Now I have a Macbook Pro 16" without extended warranty because I had already crossed the 60 day mark when they changed their policy and so they won't let me extend the warranty. This is going to cost me a lot!

I think this policy change is global—or at any rate, it applies in the UK as well. Disappointing, because previously I would buy second-hand but less-than-year-old Apple products specifically so I could purchase the extended AppleCare warranty on them. A great way to get a recent machine at a decent discount.

Re: Products purchased at Apple Store in India cannot be refunded or exchanged

#104

Post by egeozcan » Thu, Apr 15, 2021, 4:20 PM UTC

DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #86

truth_ wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I knew of a guy who "bought" Apple Laptops from Amazon and used it as his DJ laptop and worked some gigs where the Apple laptop was a status symbol of how big a deal he is. He used to perform in small town and rural India and organizers paid him ₹3k-30k per night. He returned his laptop after doing 3-4 such gigs in the "marriage season" in India. He did this 7-8 times from different addresses and different accounts.

30k/night is about $400 - that’s decent enough money to afford to buy a fully-loaded MacBook Pro after only a handful of gigs.

If you're living gig to gig, spending the earnings from a couple may not be an option. Doesn't justify what's being done, I'm just arguing against this single argument.

Re: Products purchased at Apple Store in India cannot be refunded or exchanged

#105

Post by bootlooped » Thu, Apr 15, 2021, 4:21 PM UTC

sillysaurusx wrote: post #84

segmondy wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, he was abusing it. The refund policy is for if you're really unsatisfied with the product. If you buy a product with the intent to return it for refund, that's abuse.

Again, why? It's tautology to say "That's abuse because it's abuse." The business offers a policy. You're simply using it. We can agree to disagree, but it's not X just because someone says it is.

Your position seems to be that if it's legal and within the technical guidelines, then it's not abuse. If so then what is abuse?

I think the issue is people operating in bad faith. I recall a story about people buying big TVs before the super bowl then returning them the next week. My opinion is that's abusing a company's generous return policy. The people doing that never intended to buy. The company had the policy to give customers more confidence in their purchases, not to run a free TV rental business.

There's a saying "this is why we can't have nice things". If people constantly push leniency or generosity to the limits, they get taken away, and it's a net loss to everybody else.

Re: Products purchased at Apple Store in India cannot be refunded or exchanged

#106

Post by juancb » Thu, Apr 15, 2021, 4:21 PM UTC

sillysaurusx wrote: post #82

cblackthornekc wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes? That is abusing the policy. Sounds like he was trying to start a business and wanted to do QA. Then you need to pay for that. This is clearly unethical, but maybe not illegal.

He often did pay for that. That's the point of the 10% restocking fee.

The 10% restocking fee is a compromise between offerring a permissive return policy that gets abused and none at all. I have always understood it to be a deterrent and not the exact amount that must be recouped in order to make returns net zero loss events.

Re: Products purchased at Apple Store in India cannot be refunded or exchanged

#107

Post by NopeNotToday » Thu, Apr 15, 2021, 4:22 PM UTC

sillysaurusx wrote: post #61

sss111 wrote: post #31

Apple had a lot of trouble with the Indian market back the early 2010s. They had to pull AppleCare+ out of the country because people were abusing it a lot. [†] Same goes for the country's biggest online retailers, both Amazon and Flipkart also switched to a replacement-only policy in India. "Most analysts agree that many many buyers were abusing the company's refund policy. With many buying latest smartphones, and r…

I disagree with categorizing this as abuse. The company was offering a refund policy. The customers were using it. My friend Kevin used to test out different GPUs when he was writing a game engine. He'd buy one, install it on his computer, run the engine, then return it a few days later. They often had a 10% restocking fee. Was he abusing policy? It's the same sort of logic banks use to justify "identity theft." Ah y…

A return policy is not a rental program. Yes, this is abuse.

Re: Products purchased at Apple Store in India cannot be refunded or exchanged

#108

Post by DaiPlusPlus » Thu, Apr 15, 2021, 4:22 PM UTC

sans-serif wrote: post #19

In my experience Americans sort of take for granted the breadth and depth of consumer protection you enjoy. I'd wager that in an insignificant portion of countries Apple expanded to, they have had to significantly cut back on refunds/warrantees they offer to combat fraud and abuse.

> In my experience Americans sort of take for granted the breadth and depth of consumer protection you enjoy.

As a european, it's amusing to hear you say that as the majority of European countries have far, far more stringent consumer-protection regs than the US, such as mandatory 2 year warranties, distance-selling laws, legal rights to a refund or replacement, and so on. Apple's 90 day warranty is a joke when you can buy the same product, for almost the same price after factoring-in VAT, with a 2 year warranty only a 5 hour flight away...

Re: Products purchased at Apple Store in India cannot be refunded or exchanged

#109

Post by gambiting » Thu, Apr 15, 2021, 4:22 PM UTC

AppleIsWeaknes wrote: post #96

oblio wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Random guess? Low/very low income folks, wanting a status symbol they can't afford.

They are regarded as a veblen good everywhere. Getting a lower quality product at a high price is by definition veblen good. You pay for Apple products because it's impractical and hard to use. It shows the world you are part of the group.

I always wonder how extremely dedicated someone has to be to bashing a product/group to make a whole username dedicated to it.

>>You pay for Apple products because it's impractical and hard to use

Exactly, that's why developers who charge big money for their time use them - because they are impractical and hard to use. You cracked it mate.

Re: Products purchased at Apple Store in India cannot be refunded or exchanged

#110

Post by devenblake » Thu, Apr 15, 2021, 4:22 PM UTC

DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #86

truth_ wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I knew of a guy who "bought" Apple Laptops from Amazon and used it as his DJ laptop and worked some gigs where the Apple laptop was a status symbol of how big a deal he is. He used to perform in small town and rural India and organizers paid him ₹3k-30k per night. He returned his laptop after doing 3-4 such gigs in the "marriage season" in India. He did this 7-8 times from different addresses and different accounts.

30k/night is about $400 - that’s decent enough money to afford to buy a fully-loaded MacBook Pro after only a handful of gigs.

Not if you have bills to pay.