iRiver Europe refusing full warranty service, citing damage caused by Rockbox

[Mikerman]

This was posted over at Misticriver.net (link below), and I thought it pertinent to re-post here.

In brief, an iRiver H320 user's player, still under warranty, went belly-up.  The user returned it to iRiver Europe for warranty service, and ultimately received this reply.

Thank you for returning your defective iriver H300 series player for repair.

Our engineers have keenly checked and tested your player. The Motherboard as well as the HDD (hard disc) within the device are damaged and need to be replaced.

Please understand that your iriver player has been modified with „Rockbox- Software“. The device was damaged because of the software modification ***

This is clear modification and can not be handled as a warranty case. Therefore we normally would have to charge a total price of 200,- Euro for the repair.

In this special case we have decided to offer you a discount price of 150,- Euro (including the shipping costs)

Humorously (in a dark sort of way, given the circumstances), the user also reports:

I'm calling bullsh1t on this one. Mainly because I have never actually put Rockbox on it!! Hah!

And he is going back to iRiver demanding the warranty service.

The event is interesting (and sad) on many fronts.  iRiver recognizes Rockbox as a presence.  And one could have predicted that this likely would have happened at some point.  But also, sadly, assuming the above facts are correct and Rockbox was not involved with the player, iRiver is using Rockbox as an excuse for the player's hardware failure.  In fact, in the legal world, iRiver's statements could have legal ramifications, and it would not be uncommon for a letter to be sent to someone making wrongful statements of that type (assuming, again, that the above facts are correct) to desist from them immediately.  (Of course, a change in the facts as reported could change all of this, although there still would be a question as to iRiver Europe's statement that Rockbox caused the harm.)

I'm not sure where I'm going with this, but thought this notable enough to report here to the Rockbox community.

http://misticriver.net/showthread.php?t=45936

[ryran]

Geeze. Sounds like something some big evil company would do....

/me waits for Paul to barge in screaming bloody murder.. "THIS IS NOT ABOUT ROCKBOX!@$!!!#@#!" hehe.. jk Llorean. ;P

[Mikerman]

Futher info. on the refusal, from the user:

there's the korean firmware v2.7 (or something similar - I forget) on there, but it's been skinned. So it's not Rockbox, but it's not exactly the basic firmware either. I've only edited the graphics within a firmware...

I guess that to the iRiver Europe individual handling the warranty claim, any firmware change is "Rockbox."

[SilleeString]

They probably have some general idea of what rockbox is but apparently not enough to know that it wasn't rockbox on the iriver at all.  It's kinda the same way an american (and maybe senile?) parent thinks any anime is Pokemon or something, they just assume any modification is -instantly- this "rockbox."  Either way, their logic is highly flawed if the failure of the HDD should be attributed so greatly to such modification.  A sad case indeed, as my ipod is well within the warranty yet and I don't think I'd like to put up with any corporate garbage if I needed to exercise that warranty.

[Llorean]

Ah, but most warranties explicitly cover user-modifications and void in that case. So, if that's the case with this one, there's not much to be done.

You make a choice when you modify the firmware on a device, because almost any competently written warranty will be voided by it. There's nobody twisting your arm to make you change the firmware, and if you read the warranty in advance (as you should've) you know whether your warranty covers such actions or not, so you really don't end up with an excuse if they refuse you service and can point out where it was in the warranty you received.

In all honesty, I have very little sympathy for someone who's complaining about their warranty not being honored if they've used third party software to modify their player's firmware. If he hadn't done anything, I'd feel sympathy, but at this point it's a case of it being his fault. Whether the software caused the problem or not (very most likely not), his warranty was voided the instant he used it, independent of what problems his player may or may not have had after that date.

[Febs]

Llorean, while I agree with everything that you say, I think that it is a discredit to iriver that it blames a hardware failure on a software modification.

[SilleeString]

Basically I'm saying what Febs is saying.  Llorean, you're completely in the right and I've already known that, but to credit hardware failure to a software modification is to me, a cop-out.  If I pried open the ipod itself and tried to put in a bigger HD and ended up bricking it, then obviously your warranty wouldn't be honored, but iriver in this instance is making a weak argument.

[Llorean]

It's definitely a cop-out. I'm not happy with iRiver at all in this case.

But in my mind all they had to say in this situation was "Your firmware has been modified and the player is no longer under warranty" and not even blame it, and they'd be in the right. I'm really irritated that they blamed the firmware (and don't really understand why, considering they had no need to actually place the BLAME on it, just state that the change had occurred.)

[Mikerman]

I'm actually bothered by (1) the conclusion that the software/firmware "did it" (I just don't know enough to know if that could be the case), and (2) the conclusion that it was Rockbox--if that is not, in fact, the case, that is a form of defamation as to Rockbox.  In the commercial world, a company would not lightly tolerate that.

As to the modding of the firmware, that's always been a safety valve of sorts with Rockbox--it can be eliminated from the players, with not a trace left.