[rescue] Slightly OT: Bad Cap Saga

[Geoffrey S. Mendelson]

On Sun, Aug 17, 2008 at 03:37:52PM -0400, Phil Stracchino wrote:
> all of whom bought them unmarked from Lien Yan and put their own brands
> on them before reselling them to electronics and computer manufacturers.

Assuming that they have a working life of around 6 months, then there is
little or no reason for the vendors to recall them. Computer motherboards
where they first appeared usually have a one year or greater warranty,
so it's worth getting them out of production quickly, but things like
DVD players, cheap MP3's, etc are sold with no warranty by the manufacturer,
and a 90 day warranty by the importer/dealer.

So there was no reason to stop selling what they had, or even fix the
problem immeditely, in fact some manufacturers would gladly sell you a
cheap DVD player today and another in 6 months. 

I remember someone I worked with telling me about a $1 toy that was part
of a $10 set. The importer knew that they would fail after 3-6 months of
use, so they sold them with a one year warranty and a $2.50 replacement 
fee. 

We had planned to sell the ill-fated "gizmo" with a one year no-questions-asked
warranty. Just return enough of the unit that we could recreate the serial
number (for DRM'ed games) and $75 plus postage and we send you a replacement.
It just so happened that $75 was the cost of a replacement unit. :-)

Geoff.

-- 
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel gsm at mendelson.com  N3OWJ/4X1GM