Korg Forums

Just to pass on what I learned with my recent Kronos repair reported in other threads. A service center may claim they're entitled to consider your warranty void if you've opened your Kronos. But, depending on your location, their claim may have no force regardless of any printed warranty information you accepted along with your Kronos. The idea is that an illegal clause in a contract has no force, even when the rest of the contract is valid.

In my location, for example, if opening the device didn't cause the damage you want serviced under the warranty, then they're not entitled to refuse you warranty service. A government agency notified the merchant and me that if the service center was adamant about refusing warranty service then the procedure would be to pay them and then sue, and that I'd have a very good case for a small claim. In my experience, when a company receives a written notification from a neutral authority as to their actual position, it moves them to do the reasonable thing. After that, though, a summons is quite effective if they've already been advised their position is incorrect.

Clearly, it's much easier on the company to simply void the entire warranty when you open the device rather than spend more labor time determining who's at fault. And it's smart to discourage the average user from mucking around inside their devices rather than leaving it up to their experts. But even if it's justified in a large number of cases, they're not entitled (where I live) to go directly from "you opened it" to "not our fault."

The law in England implies the same

The customer does not have a legal right to a refund, repair or replacement as a result of the damage their repair attempt has caused to the item. But, they may still have a right to a remedy because of the original fault with the item, such as a price reduction or a partial refund. Or, if appropriate, the customer may request a repair of the original fault if this makes the item usable despite the damage they have caused

This is true, for the same reason that car maker's can't force you to visit a service centre every time you want to top up the oil and fuel. Could you imagine if they forced you to visit an authorised service centre to refuel, or risk voiding your warranty?

What they can do is claim that any unauthorised repairs caused the fault you're seeking to have repaired under warranty.

Of course it offers from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.

This is a little off topic but this thread reminded me of something.

As an Organ Technician I often go on service calls for moving damage. I would be called by a moving company to inspect and determine if any damage was caused by the move and to repair it if it was.

I went out on a Wurlitzer organ that had a pedal not working. She said it was working before the move. I inspected it and determined it wasn't a moving related problem because it was an electrical fault. I offered to repair it while I was there but for a charge. She didn't want to have it repaired.

The moving company paid me for the trip. I felt really bad about that service call. After much thought, it occurred to me, I could have fixed it well within the service call time limit, it would have cost the moving company the same, and we would have a happy customer.

From that day on, I changed my policy that I would be happy to do anything I could to make an organ work correctly whether or not it had moving damage as long as it was within the "prepaid" service call time limit. It was better for the moving company to have a happy customer, better for me and especially for the customer.

Live and learn!

Geo

Geo, thank you for that story. I've bookmarked this page just so I must read this again. One of the best "off-topic" posts I've seen yet.