How Tennessee Protects Consumers

I was glancing at my AppleCare contract today before I filed it when I noticed this surprising clause:

Tennessee Residents

This Plan shall be extended as follows: (1) the number of days the consumer is deprived of the use of the product because the product is in repair; plus two (2) additional days.

How civilized! Doubtless this is the result of some specific law in Tennessee; but why couldn’t Apple (and other manufacturers and warranty providers) extend this same courtesy to non-Tennessee residents? It seems like the least they could do if we’re losing time due to their faulty products. It would also be a small incentive for them to expedite turn-around and make sure they have an adequate inventory of spare parts.

The Federal Trade Commission appears to have statutory authority to impose similar, though not quite as stringent, requirements on all U.S. providers of warranties and service contracts. However I don’t think they’ve done so.

I’m afraid this is likely a relic of earlier, more democratic state legislatures. I find it hard to imagine the bought-and-paid for legislatures you find today enacting such a sensible and fair provision. Even if one or two did, doubtless the lobby pigs would simply pay the U.S. Congress to preempt stronger state legislation with some nice-sounding bill that promised to protect consumers and in fact did the exact opposite. Still, I’d love to be proved wrong.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 10th, 2006 at 1:19 PM and is filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the Atom feed. You can make a comment, Digg this story, or trackback from your own site.