Microsoft refuses to honor warranty

I have Microsoft Laptop 4 and a warranty case

"a hard foreign particle may cause a hairline fracture in the glass that may seem to appear unexpectedly or without visible cause."

I sent the laptop for repair, and it came back as it was.

I opened another ticket and was told that that there is "liquid damage" on the laptop so they will not replace the laptop free of charge.

They refuse to say what exactly is damaged.

There is no visible or functional liquid damage to the laptop, everything works perfectly.

It is the 2nd time when I have this problem with the screen, 1st time they replaced the laptop, and, I guess, 2 times is too many.

What can I do about it? I have legal insurance, may it help?

inside laptops they typically place moisture detection stickers which if showing moisture is used as an excuse to avoid a free fix.

I'm confused. You say "everything works perfectly." so what is it that you want repaired?

"We have investigated claims of screen cracking on Surface Laptop 3 and have determined that, in a very small percentage of cases, a hard foreign particle may cause a hairline fracture in the glass that may seem to appear unexpectedly or without visible cause. "

May appear. Does your device have a crack?

It would make sense if the damage could be theoretically caused by moisture.

For me it looks like an excuse to avoid a replacement.

Yes, and it is an approved warranty case, and they asked to send it for replacement.

And this is the only thing that is wrong with the laptop.

Be persistent with them until they honor the warranty. A couple of months ago my new-ish HP Envy developed a crack in the hinge and then the screen cracked in the same corner. I done some research online and it seemed that it was a known issue with that model. I contacted HP who initially agreed to repair it under warranty. They collected my laptop and called me back after 2 weeks to tell me that their experts had determined the damage was caused by me not looking after the device and they wanted to charge me nearly £400 GBP to repair it. I got quite angry and sent them a complaint in writing. They didn’t reply, but I received my laptop back fully repaired under warranty. They even tried to gaslight me by saying they waived the costs as a goodwill gesture...

A few years ago I purchased a Surface Pro 4 when it was just released with a long warranty. Less than a year after the warranty expired, the screen failed. This was a known defect and Microsoft rectified the fault for United States customers to head off class action from consumers. No such honor for European customers. I now advise everyone to steer clear of Microsoft Surface devices.

My future approach: avoid Microsoft and HP laptops. Avoid paying for warranties from manufacturers or retailers and instead purchase personal possessions insurance that includes full cover for accidental damage.

If this "foreign object" is a manufacturing defect, then the seller must fix the display.

Did you purchase the notebook from Microsoft? Are you still within the 2 year warranty period?

Yes, purchased from Microsoft. The warranty just expired, but I claimed it before.

I assume the liquid sensor is activated.

I recall something like having a few water drops on the keyboard, it since no damage was done, I forgot about it.

Now the question is, can Microsoft use the sensor excuse and refuse to fix manufacture defect?

only if the damage is caused by the water. but you will have to argue hard as they will try to avoid paying for the fix. IIRC, there were past cases where warranty was refused due to the 'void if broken' stickers were cut but the damage had nothing to do with it (upgrade ram).

Sounds logical, and I found it is the case for USA "Under federal law, the merchant must prove that a defect was caused by the alteration in order to void a written warranty."

But I was not able to find something like this in Swiss law.

Not just Microsoft. Does anyone remeber the rotten fruit BSitting everyone that all is fine with the new USB-C only macbooks? Something like two years leater they finally addmitted (being overwhelmed by the volume of the complaints) that the sudden crashes/reboots were a hardware fault. They blamed Intel for the Thunderbolt 3 chips or spects, but finally accepted RMA.

PS. I would never buy a Microsoft hardware. They don't do hardware, it's all a "find the cheapest hardware manufacturer". Seriously I'm getting so much crashes form Microsoft labeled devices that we don't even take it seriously, it's just a "well it's MS sh*"

The end of the story.

I got my legal insurance involved.

They believe Microsoft can be forced to replace the screen, but it is cheaper for them to pay for the replacement instead of going with a Schlichtungsgesuch.

Microsoft knows that going to court does not pay out in Switzerland for such amounts.

It's annoying that Microsoft is getting away with this systematic illegal behaviour, but at least consumers have good protection with legal insurance. It always amazes me how cheap legal insurance is here, compared to what you're getting for it.

i don't understand. did you mean that it's cheaper for your insurance to pay you and so your legal insurance will pay for it?!

what was worse was the graphics card failures. apple refused to fix it. one guy even took apple to court and there it was discovered that apple didn’t even have to stump up the costs for the fix: it would have been paid for by the graphics card supplier. apple just wanted to f their users as a principle.

https://www.macrumors.com/2012/04/19…-gpu-failures/

The legal insurance pays for it. They have the right

to pay you out the amount you want right away. They say it is cheaper for them, 750.-.

I did not know that till this case.

This legal insurance Dextra was really helpful all those years and costs under 200.-/y, unbelievable.

Must have for someone who always fights for justice.

If Microsoft doesn't provide specific information about the supposed liquid damage, insist on detailed documents or pictures. Push your case higher up in the customer service chain. Additionally, you might want to get in touch with your legal insurance company for advice. I also have bad experiences with Microsoft and after that, I haven't bought any Microsoft things.

I already did all of that. Microsoft just says "no", because of "liquid damage", that is their final position. My legal insurance company has chosen to pay for the laptop replacement instead of going the legal way.