Mac City does NOT honor Apple Warranty
Since I am not a big fan of Mac City because of their extremely high prices I like picking on them a lot. The other day I posted about how Mac&More honor the warranty on Apple products purchased abroad and I decided to see if Mac City also honored the warranty.
Well I just got off the phone with Mac City and it turns out although they are official resellers in Kuwait they do not honor the Apple warranty unless you purchase the Mac from them. The guy I spoke to told me I should call Dubai and see if they would fix my laptop under warranty or I should send it back to Amazon.
I told him no thanks and closed the phone. One more reason not to deal with Mac City.
Nov 16, 2006
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12 Comments, add your own...
1. Marzouq | November 16th, 2006 at 11:36 am
They are crap!
2. Cajie | November 16th, 2006 at 12:27 pm
It is a general practice worldwide. Official dealers will not honor warranty of grey market products. When you import from Amazon or other outside dealers, it is essentially a grey market product (unless you bought it with a world-wide warranty)
3. Jens | November 16th, 2006 at 1:07 pm
Cajie, you are not 100% correct. Nokia for example told me warranty is valid world wide. Cars (at the ones im dealing with) have worlwide warranty.What dealers here in kuwait are doing is a complete different story. A lot of customers here are not educated enough and they accept this behaviour. Customers have a lot of power, but they need to be aware about and they need a lobby.
Jens
4. Mark | November 16th, 2006 at 1:20 pm
Cajie, if i bought a laptop when i was in the US and I moved to Kuwait why should the international warranty not work here? It should and thats why Mac&More honor the international warranty. Mac City on the other hand is just not being managed right. You can tell from their prices they are not aware of whats going on in the market.
5. EmiratesMac | November 16th, 2006 at 2:42 pm
With Apple warranties there is a difference in portable and stationary equipment. Apple has a world wide warranty on portable equipment (notebooks and ipods) but the warranty on stationary stuff (desktop computers) is regional/local.
So a valid Apple warranty on a notebook, for example, should be honored anywhere in the world, no matter where it was bought.
What places actually do warranty repairs is a different issues. Here in the UAE at least it’s only a couple of places called Apple Service Centers that actually accept the equipment for warranty repairs. Any other place selling the stuff will just send customers to the service centers for repairs.
6. Cajie | November 16th, 2006 at 3:16 pm
Guys,
read my statement. I said the official dealer will not honor “grey” market product for warranty - unless it explicitly has a world-wide warranty.
For example, I work for a car dealer. we will not honor warranty if you have imported the cars through grey channels. However, if you bought your car in a different country and then brought the car here, your warranty holds good.
So Marks assumption should hold good too. However, you did not buy the laptop when you were in US - you bought it from an online site to save money. As long as Apple has no problems with accepting warranties for this, then Mac City should honor the warranty.
Question is: Does Mac City consider the Amazon purchase as “grey” or not? And if they do - are they correct in making this assumption? Only Apple can answer this.
7. Mark | November 16th, 2006 at 3:21 pm
Cajie, it doesnt matter if i bought it online or i bought it when i was there. Its the same thing. The laptop was purchased from an authorized Apple reseller and the laptop comes with international warranty.
Now Mac&More for example honor the international warranty.
Why doesn’t Mac City also honor the warranty?
8. Cajie | November 16th, 2006 at 5:50 pm
This link pretty much answers all your warranty related questions for Apple products.
http://www.apple.com/legal/warranty/hardware.html
I am too lazy to read the fine print, but I noticed that the warranty provider is determined by the country of purchase.
9. Jens | November 16th, 2006 at 6:33 pm
Cajie,
I dont know which brand you are dealing with. Grey imports are a pain in the ass, but they have normally warranty. What we do here in Kuwait is another thing. Get the right customer with a good lawyer and you will see what is possible ;-)
Jens
10. Jafar | November 16th, 2006 at 11:09 pm
Just got back from Milan.I needed a European chrger for my NOKIA.The shop keeper gave me an after-market for Euro 15.I said please give me an original.He said why ? this is the same and costs 3 euros less ! I said because of warranty.He said both have warranty.I said I am leaving to Kuwait & want the warranty there ! He said you will not get it cause Nokia warranty for Europe does not cover Asian countries ! I bought the original anyway.
But basically the local representative avoids warranty cause almost 30% of the cost he does not get back from the manufacturer!usually this is covered through the profit he made on the original sale.If he has not made the sale he does not have that cushin,,,,plus the importer uses the warrany issue as a deterent to curtail “grey Import”.Official importers make a big investmant in technical training and facilities etc in the hope of selling the products.Now how to run the business to avoid “Grey Import ” is a totally different issue a good businessman should know
11. Anonymous | June 27th, 2007 at 12:05 am
MacCity now called iCity are the most idiot people ever. I bought my MacBook from Dubai, a CD got jammed for some reason, I thought that may be I could take it to iCity. The idiot took it in, he smelt like a rat, a week later he called me, I went, he said he opened eveything up, he said he tried everything, I took it home, it wouldnt switch on properly, even with the charger in. Well I managed to get the CD out eventualy, but still there was a problem booting up. I took it back to Dubai, they said the logic board was physically damaged and that there were screws missing inside. Luckily they fixed it under warranty.
Never buy from iCity or never try to get anything fixed there!
12. Sujith | September 29th, 2007 at 2:51 am
TO Cajie : Amazon, like many others are authorised dealers for a vast amount of products. Amazon sells items only if they are the authorised dealer.
People buy from websites like Amazon or from stores like Walmart because they are competative in price and they honor the warrantee. If you have any problem, they take the unit back and throw it at the manufacturer and the manufacturer can’t give BS because Amazon and Wallmart etc.. sell thousands of their products.
Kuwait is one of the worst places to buy anything. They have only one authorized dealer in the whole country and since there is no competetion, they act like they are doing you a favor selling you the product. MOst companys like Dell does not have direct support to Kuwait, because rule says that a Kuwaiti needs to own the company to operate in Kuwait.. which needless to say Dell doesn’t like :-).. So They do not have support centers in Kuwait etc.. You have third pary Kuwaiti companys taking dealership of Dell and selling you their crappy service.
Grey market or not… many dealers in Kuwait will not honor any warrantee… Its just the way that county runs.
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