This may be because the company is located in the US legally, but the manufacturing takes place in Taiwan, so the computers also ship from there. They also have distribution centers in multiple countries to make logistics easier. None of that changes that they are a US company.
I’m not sure what information you are going off of for this claim. Going to the “contact us” page, the company is very clearly headquartered in California, and I cannot say that I have ever seen any implications that they are a regional shop.
It makes a lot of things equal and there’s plenty of EU directives (that all EU members must transpose as local laws) setting minimums for things like warranties.
In any case if Framework is shipping from China, the invoice comes from the US, there’s no Framework staff in the EU, etc, this seems rather moot. “Supported country” in this context seems to mean “locale specific keyboard, WiFi settings, power supply, we’ll ship to an address there”…
This requires more definition. Selling from as in where the company is HQ, or where the website is hosted, or where the DNS of the website’s domain name is registered…etc? What does the EU regulation say exactly?
i.e. There’s a distinction of selling to vs from. …and what’s considered as “from”.
Update:
Base on this page and this page, Framework is both the trader and manufacturer…based outside of the EU. As such, logistics / shipping cost for warranty repair doesn’t fall onto Framework base on this 2-year legal guarantee. The EU has no say / weight on how a trader outside of the EU is to operate, as the USA isn’t a Member State (obviously).
i.e. Just because a website has locale, currency support, free shipping for initial purchase for various regions…it doesn’t necessarily mean the company is based in that region.
Is this a legal requirement?
Is it hidden, or an omission?
The warranty page seems very clear to me:
3rd paragraph’s hyperlink…“What countries and regions do you ship to?”
Put it this way, is there anything in particular that lead you to assume Framework is based in the EU?
Question: If a buyer came to the US and purchased the product, then traveled home to the EU is that buyer entitled to any warranties by the US entity under EU law? (especially since the device was exported?
Aye, if you cannot prove within reason that it’s just your personal device or regular business device, you gotta pay the ol’ taxman his due. Even unboxed you cant just go waltzing by with 3-4 laptops.
This Warranty applies to Framework-branded products purchased from Framework or an authorized reseller, and applies only in countries to which Framework ships and supports.
So if you return to an EU country that Framework supports, you can still get all the benefits of the 1-year warranty given to US customers, but if you return to a country that is not supported, you void the warranty that you agreed to.
As far as I can find in my limited research, the EU has no requirements for US businesses as far as warranties go (at least not on products bought in the US, from US businesses). Which makes sense to me, as I would assume US laws would apply here, even to EU residents.
Disclaimer: I am no legal expert, and none of this should be taken as legal advice, I am simply a random American with an internet connection and some google-fu skills.
I am almost sure that there are ways to design UX in such a way that you will get a clear consent from user that you are waiving responsibility for any problem with customs in unsupported countries.
I have imported Framework into my country (Armenia in this case) successfully. I want you to pull the safeguards, and let me just do the same with replacement parts.
I think it’s only fair that if a part (cooling fan, in my case) is broken in one year warranty period, that I can get a replacement shipped for no charge. Even if that warranty technically doesn’t apply to my country. Even if it’s a freight forwarding address.
Your community are quite resilient and stubborn folk. There are communities around hostile laptop manufacturers like Lenovo or Dell, and many of those people turned to you not because they can’t repair their 7 year old laptop (still easier to source Thinkpad parts from China), but seeing that you are not impartial to them, and seeing this as a better way in a long term.
I hope that you will come through on this. After all, I just want to repair my laptop.
But how would that work? There is no insurance which will cover the cost to ship to an unsupported country. If for example the mainboard breaks during the transport of a replacement piece Framework would have to pay the full price out of their own pockets.
I don’t ask to ship directly — only to a forwarder in a supported country (US). Forwarder does a package inspection. And Framework is only liable for the damage incurred during shipping to forwarder — rest of insurance is paid by me to FF, and is an overhead I am willing to take.
That doesn’t answer my questions, if only create a weird sensation that Framework doesn’t think much of their customers and avoids discussing hard issues.
Here’s a fact: Framework will never be officially present in all countries. And here’s a thought: It community may as well be worldwide, why not empower it to support itself?
I’ve verified with support that the part is broken, I can send an unboxing video from almost a year ago where no shipping damage is present, and I don’t ask for anything more than a regular shipment of a fan to a US address. What is so hard in that?
I doubt that Framework are a bunch of control freaks (thanks for HDMI rework directions, it really means a lot!), so it’s really weirding me out.
I think the confusion might be from missing or underestimating part of the issue for Framework. If they allow shipping to countries that they don’t have the legal authority to sell in, either officially or though their actions by allowing known freight forwarding, then they potentially open themselves up to legal issues. Framework is, at this time, a small company trying to get established with basically a disruptive product. In a market filled with massive established players. Lawsuits or regulatory fines can kill a small company. It sucks, but it’s better that they not take the risk at this point. Bigger companies might have the ability to take such a risk. Some have whole legal teams on staff at all times.
This is what I am interested in — they never raise this point in Discussion of Freight Forwarding is Prohibited, so I doubt this is the reason.
If it is, then it’s totally understandable — and should be made clear to the community so not to raise such questions as mine.
To be fair, the community will always come up with new ideas and reasons how to make this happen, because people really want to get their Framework laptops.
I’ve been part of this community for around 6 months now and I’ve seen so many ways and tries trying to make Freight Forwarding happening, I am quite tired of reading the same type of discussions over and over again.
In fact, I don’t even know why we are still talking about it here, as the only one with actual knowledge whether or not this is doable is by Framework itself which has made it clear that at this point there will be no Freight Forwarding possible.
It sucks, but maybe you can send them an email with your suggestion? I am not sure if you legally waive your rights, at least here in the EU there are laws which protect the consumer from accidentally doing so, I am pretty sure such a thing is not possible.
Fines and lawsuits are the consequences in general for ignoring (violating) laws and / or regulations. Also, I imagine it would make it more difficult to get approved to officially sell in a country where one has been flouting the laws.
I won’t agree on that without an official confirmation — I presume they mean the hurdles of an official presence in a country. Many smaller companies send to freight forwarders without reprecautions, and a quick search didn’t find any lawsuits regarding liability of a company for sending goods to a forwarder (though there are quite a few regarding freight forwarders themselves).