Belgian consumer group to sue Apple over warranty marketing

Apple’s practice of selling AppleCare extended warranties by advertising that it covers for “an additional two years” has got the company in trouble in Belgium, where the law automatically extends warranties to two years, reports MacNN News. A lawsuit has been filed against Apple, mirroring a case the Californian giant lost in Italy. Apple was fined and changed its policy in Italy as a result, but hasn’t changed its practices in all EU countries. Consumer group Test-Aankoop/Test-Achats filed suit against Apple in the Commercial Court of Brussels, saying the company is misleading customers by implying that AppleCare is the only way to get more than a standard one-year warranty. While Apple has been seen as wanting to make the warranty uniform across all countries to avoid consumer confusion, the EU has a policy on electronics that automatically extends warranties to two years. As in Italy, the lawsuit implies that Apple deliberately withholds this information to help sell the extended warranties, which might seem to be less valuable if it was generally known that customers only gain another year of coverage. In the Italian case, Apple was forced to pay a fine of €900,000 along with a later fine of €200,000 for continued misleading marketing. In response, Apple stopped selling AppleCare through its retail branches in Italy but does offer the product to Italians online, and changed the language on the site to make clear that AppleCare extends the automatic two-year warranty EU customers receive by default. Test-Aankoop/Test-Achats had previously demanded that Apple Belgium bring its own policies into line with EU requirements, but Apple has apparently not complied thus far. Should the action go to trial, the Belgian case is likely to be ruled the same way, since the Italian ruling can be cited as precedent.