With textiles this is usually a hole punch or something with the tag. With hardware we had the serial number recorded.
But consumers don’t care. If they buy something from a vendor they think is selling them something as new and the vendor tells them to go the manufacturer, the customer doesn’t care that you marked it as not eligible for warranty. They just want that coverage
We even had customers write ragebait Reddit posts claiming we were unfairly denying warranties, people sending stories to popular newsletters and journalists, and other attempts to make us look bad for not honoring warranties on products they bought through gray market channels.
Maybe this is the problem. Retailers should cover the statutory warranty on any product they sell.
A major store sold me an expensive item that didn't work, and the store's return policy didn't cover it, so the store said file a warranty claim with the manufacturer. I just did a credit card charge back instead, because the store has to sell me something that works.
If for whatever reason the credit card charge back didn't work, I could use the store in (small claims) court and win.
AI: "The implied warranty of merchantability is a legal guarantee that a product will function as expected for its ordinary purpose, such as a toaster toasting bread. It is automatically applied to most consumer goods sold by merchants and does not need to be in writing."
I swore I fixed that earlier.
In the EU (or maybe just my country of origin?) there is certainly statutory warranty. Length and coverage varies per product category.
On the author hand, Amazon has made it difficult to avoid fraudulent sellers, but they also don'e even sort items by price when that option is selected, so I avoid buying through their site.
These days this is often the only recourse you have, because going the legal route you get stonewalled unless you are willing to spend serious money on pursuing a case. And it'll cost you gobs of time. An example is my mother buying new pants for 220 bucks from a reputable seller, the stitching starts to disintegrate after 7 months, and both the retailer and the manufacturer tell my mother to go pound sand.
So please do not portray customers trying to get their due as "ragebaiters".
I mean the "ididnthaveeggs" subreddit exists purely to make light of people who post reviews on recipe sites where they overtly use the wrong ingredients and then downvote the recipe as a result.