In December of last year, Apple was fined €900.000 for not properly informing its customers about their rights regarding the warranty for products purchased from their own stores. Apple was telling customers that it had a 1-year warranty for products and that to extend it you needed to purchase an AppleCare, but customers had a 2-year warranty, and Apple didn't tell them that in order to sell their own optional warranty that costs 100 $/€.
We have had a lot of reports from customers saying the phenomenon of miss-selling warranty protection was continuing, even after the action of the Antitrust Authority and the TAR ruling. Apple products are excellent and I use them myself. It's just a shame the quality of the marketing is not as good as the products themselves.
Despite the fine taken then and despite some threats to suspend the activity for 30 days, Apple did as it wanted, and now a new trial was filed against the company. Federconsumatori and The Center for the Protection of Consumers and Users (CTCU) are the two entities that called Apple to court, claiming that Apple continues to not comply with the law in Italy, demanding compensation from the company for past and present violations of consumer rights Italians. Both the fine taken by Apple last winter and a letter from the Commissioner for Justice, Viviane Reding, letter in which she states that all EU member states must protect consumer rights against companies like Apple.
Considering that Apple has been found guilty in the past for violating Italian and Community legislation, there are good chances that this process will be successful, but it remains to be seen how much the company will actually be forced to pay to consumers.
