[Cody Dawg]

As some of you may know, people who live in Florida are not allowed to buy or use the AppleCare extended warranty UNLESS you are able to connect it through a tax ID to a professional and legal business. They ask you for the federal tax ID number when you try to buy it and when you register it they ask for that federal tax ID again.

Now, this purportedly has to do with the fact that Florida has a law about bogus warranties that have been offered here. This law was put in place because Florida is a state that attracts a lot of crooks and transients and these people would go door-to-door and would sell a person a "warranty" on a roof or something else then they would abscond with the funds and never provide the warranty.

So, if you want AppleCare extended warranty and you are in Florida you cannot buy it.



That much said, we have AppleCare and love it. It's attached to our business, that's all.

So, this leads me to my next question.

I went out and I bought a Sony Vaio for our son yesterday. I am going to wait a little while and see what Apple does with the PowerBooks and hope for an upgrade, but I bought him the Vaio.

I came home and called Sony (and got someone in America within 2 minutes - ) and they sold me a 3-year extended warranty that includes accidental damage for $249.

Why is it that HP/Compaq, Sony, and Dell can all sell this extended warranty without a problem...but Apple cannot?

MacNStein, SimeyTheLimey, Xeo, someone...can you answer the $1 million dollar question?

[turtle777]

Hmm, maybe they can't, and you basically paid them money for a warranty that you can't enforce because it was illegal to sell in the first place.

You should make sure you would really get the warranty coverage, in case something happens.

-t

[Cody Dawg]

Well, I took your advice and got in touch with the HP/Compaq legal division in Houston and spoke to their legal rep and they said that the HP/Compaq extended warranty is 100% legal - that have millions of extended warranties in place in Florida.

So, I don't get what the REAL scoop is with Florida?



There aren't many people weighing in here...so it remains a mystery.

[ReggieX]

Wasn't this link posted here already? http://www.sptimes.com/2005/04/04/Te...s__Apple.shtml

You also can't get AppleCare in Wyoming and Washington State.

[tooki]

There was a discussion of this someplace, not too long ago. It's that under FL law, extended warranties are considered a type of insurance, and as such, the warrantor must comply with all the insurance regulations in the state. Many companies choose to become compliant and then sell in FL; others decide it's not worth the effort and just refuse to sell.

tooki

[IceEnclosure]

I have my receipt around here somewhere showing my G4 purchase and Applecare. Purchased in Florida.

It was about 4 years ago, dunno if the law changed since then.

I can put you in contact with the company if you like.

[Cody Dawg]

So, in other words, Apple doesn't care enough about Florida consumers/customers to make things right and easy for us here so that we can buy an extended warranty without going through an ordeal...or they do not care if we have the warranty or not.

That's what it sounds like.

[Cody Dawg]

IceEnclosure: Thanks. We have it on our systems. We used our business tax ID and everything was fine. But I think the entire thing is crappy for other people who cannot extend their warranties. When you talk to Apple they make it sound like it's something the state of Florida did.

What Tooki said makes sense: Apple does not want to cooperate and make it possible for Florida consumers to have the same type of warranty as the rest of the country and/or world.

Other companies do: Sony, HP/Compaq, Dell. But not Apple.

[Link]

Well basically, Apple's warranty is bogus maybe you can get safeware insurance or something?

[Superchicken]

You bought a Viao? Sigh... I thought you knew better than that!

[Cody Dawg]

I bought a Vaio, yes. He wants to use some design software that will not work on Virtual PC (and VPC is horrible anyway) or on a Mac so he needed a PC.