Preempting the iPhone 18 Pro price…adjustments… next month.
Another reason to hate A.I.
I sort of love it.
Of course, I love it because I can use the one at work for free (our team spent 5b tokens last month apparently) because corporate is slow figuring out what to do with it and if they should spend another 2m to buy even bigger servers with which we could sell this to people who don’t want their corporate secrets be mined by a US company…
It’s only going to get worse from here.
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Without asking, they’ve refunded the money I originally paid rather than replacing or repairing the PC.
The specific PC is still available from Digitec but has gone up in price by CHF 550!
If I had known that they were going to only give a credit note, I would never had sent it back but would have just replaced the SSD myself for a lot less than CHF 550.
Not sure whether I can do any thing now but I am quite annoyed about this.
I feel at least they could have either given me a choice, or explicitly said that only a credit note was possible.
Is this even legal? Warranty is a warranty, it’s a binding contract
No idea. Probably.
I explicitly told them in a online helpline chat that I wouldn’t accept a credit note and at that point, I think I should have been told that was what I would get.
At that point, I would not have returned the PC.
I want it back and that is what I will request on Monday.
Searching for other cases online, I have sent them a letter, quoting the relevant sections of Swiss law.
After a few back and forth emails, a bit of escalation on their side and with the help of AI composing my emails, Digitec are now, as a good-will gesture, sending me a brand new replacement PC - the same model I previously ordered for the price I paid originally.
This is over and above their warranty terms and conditions but I think the moral of the story is although a retailer can write what they want in their terms and conditions, in reality some of the clauses may be considered dubious or downright unfair to the consumer.
Oh, and the PC has gone up in price by another CHF 100 so it’s now CHF 648 more than I paid.
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Nice job, Tom! A lot of consumers would just give up.
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Yeah. The did the same to me and I gave up.
could you share a link to their ToC and the controversial points? I’m just curious, because what you say makes all the warranties a BS, only a mere reason for a good-will act on their behalf. If so I guess I’d rather start buying in EU.
I was as sent this as part of the correspondence (with their highlighting)
AI suggested that by honouring the warranty in the fashion that they did, and because of the price increase of the product since purchase, I would be worse off after a warranty claim.
They also said a replacement was impossible anyway as the item was in stock.
It was in stock and I had previously provided a link to the product so I call that a blatant lie rather than an oversight and I’m sure a lawyer would see it the same way.
I wrote this in one of the many emails:
As you actually have this item in stock, under Swiss contract principles, you cannot choose a warranty remedy that disproportionately penalizes a customer in a fluctuating market. Since you identical stock, an exchange is fully possible.
I guess companies can put what the want in warranties but it wouldn’t take a lawyer more than a few minutes to rip them apart.
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I don’t even know if there’s similar 2 years basic consumer warranty obligation in Switzerland, like in EU (driven by the bilateral agreements), but I’m guessing it’s the same, which would make the point illegal/void.
This is very shady business, with that point they try to screw customers by refunding less then the purchase price if the prices fall, but refund only the original price when the prices go up.
Congrats proving that AI is as good as an entry lawyer 
PS. I have already dealt with such obnoxious points in Swiss employment contract. Point bluntly illegal, put there to screw up employees, but in the face of actual law void. Since it was pre-AI bubble, I had to spent ~2k for a lawyer to send a few emails back and forth.
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My experience is that a lot of multinationals ignore Swiss laws.
The problem is that it is expensive to hire a lawyer to fix such issues.
One common issue is companies ignoring the fact that the people allowed to sign contracts on behalf of the company must be listed in the Handelsregister.
This only strikes home when somebody walks away from a contract on the basis it was not correctly signed so was not enforceable.
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