# About Otterbox's "lifetime" phone case warranty...



## Prime2515102 (Oct 16, 2020)

I generally don't go around 'outing' companies like this, but I think this is something people are probably not aware of (I had no idea) and it's some underhanded BS.

When they say "lifetime warranty" it turns out they're talking about the lifetime of the product, which they say is five years for a cell phone case.

In what universe does "lifetime warranty" apply to the lifetime of the product and not the person that bought it? No universe I have ever lived in. I think that has to be illegal. It's like a bait-and-switch kind of a con.

I know most people don't keep a phone that long so it doesn't really matter, but I do: I'm still using my Galaxy Note 3 which is six and a half years old (it runs Android 10 just fine too [LineageOS 17.1]).

Anyway, it broke and they refused to replace it. I just thought people should be aware of this because I bought it because it said lifetime warranty on it and it turns out it's a complete lie.


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## xman2007 (Oct 16, 2020)

Same with a lot of things. Ram included I believe.


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## Prime2515102 (Oct 16, 2020)

xman2007 said:


> Same with a lot of things. Ram included I believe.


I have never in my life seen a warranty like that on anything. Hell, I just had a surge protector shipped from Tripp-Lite that's replacing one that's 24 years old.


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## rtwjunkie (Oct 16, 2020)

Every universe. It’s always been the typical lifetime for the product in questiontion.


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## thesmokingman (Oct 16, 2020)

rtwjunkie said:


> Every universe. It’s always been the typical lifetime for the product in questiontion.



And when a product easily lasts decades? My overpriced kohler faucet was clogging, the internal diverter was going bad 15 years later. I call up Kohler, they do not even ask for any proof they just send a new unit. That is support that stands behind their advertised word. This shit with Otterbox... that's not stand up.


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## rtwjunkie (Oct 16, 2020)

thesmokingman said:


> And when a product easily lasts decades? My overpriced kohler faucet was clogging, the internal diverter was going bad 15 years later. I call up Kohler, they do not even ask for any proof they just send a new unit. That is support that stands behind their advertised word. This shit with Otterbox... that's not stand up.


I didn’t say their response wasn’t shit. What I said was “typical lifetime for the product in question.” That means it will vary based on different products. Perhaps your case was not only good customer service  but also perhaps within the lifetime of the faucet. 

Nearly no company warranties a product for YOUR lifetime. They would never have any repeat business.  Also a warranty is marketing. It merely tells a customer “I believe in my product.”  Most will never make use of one, so it is a safe bet.  Products lasting decades is abnormal, and likely is outside what the manufacturer feels is the product lifetime.


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## thesmokingman (Oct 16, 2020)

rtwjunkie said:


> I didn’t say their response wasn’t shit. What I said was “typical lifetime for the product in question.” That means it will vary based on different products. Perhaps your case was not only good customer service  but also perhaps within the lifetime of the faucet.  Nearly no company warranties a product for YOUR lifetime. They would never have any repeat business.



Some companies do what they say. Some lie. You should look up the companies that do warranty their products for life and are still in business. Like Nordstrom's no limits return/exchange policy pre-pandemic. Yea...


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## rtwjunkie (Oct 16, 2020)

thesmokingman said:


> Some companies do what they say. Some lie. You should look up the companies that do warranty their products for life and are still in business. Like Nordstrom's no limits return/exchange policy pre-pandemic. Yea...


You are arguing with me as if I make the rules. I’m just talking reality. Also, in your haste to respond and put words to screen, you missed the rest of what I was writing.


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## Devon68 (Oct 16, 2020)

I learned something new today, thanks.


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## xtreemchaos (Oct 16, 2020)

snapon replaced a 20 year old ratchet for me a while ago. but theres not a lot of companys like that nowa days its all smoke n mirrors with some.


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## xman2007 (Oct 16, 2020)

thesmokingman said:


> Some companies do what they say. Some lie. You should look up the companies that do warranty their products for life and are still in business. Like Nordstrom's no limits return/exchange policy pre-pandemic. Yea...





> We will do our best to take care of customers and deal with them fairly; we ask that our customers treat us fairly as well. From time to time we may not accept a return. There are no time limits for returns or exchanges.



Thats not a lifetime warrant no questions asked. And rightly so. 

Usually it is until the item is discontinued ie: EOL - end of life = no warranty. 

Honestly 5 year warranty is more than you could expect from most phone case companies, there's probably only a few such as otterbox spigen etc who offer such a long (imo) warranty on what is a rather low cost item. The rest of them are a dime a dozen manufactured cheap plastic crap made in China, with probably 0 warranty.


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## sneekypeet (Oct 16, 2020)

In the US they show limited lifetime as well as lifetime, but for mobile cases, it states 5 years in print.


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## xman2007 (Oct 16, 2020)

xtreemchaos said:


> snapon replaced a 20 year old ratchet for me a while ago. but theres not a lot of companys like that nowa days its all smoke n mirrors with some.


Some high quality tools will have 25 years+ guarantee, totally different products and manufacrturing process though


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## Prime2515102 (Oct 16, 2020)

rtwjunkie said:


> Every universe. It’s always been the typical lifetime for the product in questiontion.


Well it turns out that's sort of right. It's until it is no longer manufactured.

It's still BS though. They put lifetime warranty right on the package even though it's a five year warranty. Knowing ahead of time when they're going to stop making something and then putting lifetime on it is just wrong.

I'll be sure to read my warranties more carefully in the future. I've made lifetime warranty claims many times in the past and I've never run into this even with discontinued products - they'll usually just send something equivalent to replace it (obviously that can't be done with a phone case).


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## Splinterdog (Oct 16, 2020)

It's a question of semantics and clever marketing, really.
When we see 'Lifetime Warranty' it gives us a sense of reassurance that it will probably never break, but if it does, we're covered.
It's slick marketing alright, but the definition of lifetime is probably somewhere in the terms and conditions, that we never read anyway, especially when we've chucked the box in the bin.


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## John Naylor (Oct 16, 2020)

Prime2515102 said:


> When they say "lifetime warranty" it turns out they're talking about the lifetime of the product, which they say is five years for a cell phone case.



Lifetime on wear parts is the expected lifetime ,,, So a case for an i-phone 10 would be expected to last for the "lifetime of an iPhone 10.  One notable exception is LL Bean, when my wife ordered me a half dozen pairs of pants, she said "just repeat the last order ... he didn't get any fatter".  The customer service said, OK I found it was 6 years ago ... we will ship them out today."   When my wife asked "Don't you want a credit card "?  The woman asked why I was repacing them and wife said .... "the material has started to sho lot of "pils" (is that a word ? ... little fuzzy bumps on surface of fabric ).  And the rep said ""no, sinc ehe is not satusfied with the produce, we will replace them:.   Haooened another time when we tried to buy replacement tent poles that the kids broke.


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## Caring1 (Oct 18, 2020)

Surely you can't expect a company to keep parts for a person's average lifespan, especially if the product has long been superceded.


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## TheLostSwede (Oct 18, 2020)

Caring1 said:


> Surely you can't expect a company to keep parts for a person's average lifespan, especially if the product has long been superceded.


Normally it's replaced by a similar product if they no longer have the same item when it's a product with long term warranty. There's usually a get out clause in the warranty that allows them to do this, alternatively offer a refund of the used value of the product.

I don't generally claim a lot of things on warranty, but had a Sandisk USB drive die on me recently, for no apparent reason and it wasn't even a year old and not used much. Can't find the receipt, so the lifetime warranty is null and void   I have two older Sandisk drives that have been going strong for years, but it seems like their made in China products aren't worth buying.


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## Frick (Oct 18, 2020)

Sometimes (or often) it is assumed the consumer just won't bother. In the 90s a local store in a medium sized Swedish town started to sell TVs and their hook was that if you bought a new TV you'd in five years or whatever it was you'd be able to trade it in for a new model, for free. They made a killing, and they assumed people just wouldn't bother. But they did, and the went out of business shortly after five years had passed. TVs were a too big a purchse for people not to bother..


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## micropage7 (Oct 18, 2020)

it looks what they mean is as long as they produce it

actually i don't pay attention too much especially on warranty, the last time i claimed that it took 1 month just to replace dead DVDRW, since then i prefer buying another one than waiting for just warranty


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## Vya Domus (Oct 18, 2020)

I mean it's a piece of plastic and rubber, right ? Can't really go bad unless it's torn or something of the sort and then the warranty is void like for any other kind of product.


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## AsRock (Oct 18, 2020)

rtwjunkie said:


> I didn’t say their response wasn’t shit. What I said was “typical lifetime for the product in question.” That means it will vary based on different products. Perhaps your case was not only good customer service  but also perhaps within the lifetime of the faucet.
> 
> Nearly no company warranties a product for YOUR lifetime. They would never have any repeat business.  Also a warranty is marketing. It merely tells a customer “I believe in my product.”  Most will never make use of one, so it is a safe bet.  Products lasting decades is abnormal, and likely is outside what the manufacturer feels is the product lifetime.



XFX used to be. they stopped on the 90X series sadly. but yeah it's not wise even more so these days although i do wish XFX was a little longer than others hehe.

Flash drives come to mind to, just have to go to their site and read more in depth on what they mean by lifetime or even e-mail them and save it if they claim it's your lifetime.


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## bonehead123 (Oct 18, 2020)

Well, even with warranties that are specifically stated for a specific time, most companies will at least try to work with people towards a satisfactory resolution of a claim...

Case in point #1:  My so-called 85k mile tires that only lasted about 62k miles.... I went to the dealer where I bought them and all he did was look up my records of rotations/balances/alignments, and said "no problem, we'll take care of this with the mfgr", and then gave me a prorated/partial credit towards a new set... saved me about $300 

Case #2:  My last water heater came with a 8 yr warranty but one of the inlets ports corroded out after about 5 yrs.  I went to the place where I bought it, and they sent a guy the next day to check to see if it could be repaired, which it could not, so he replaced it with the one he brought with him just in case, which saved me about $250 and at least a day of being without hot water 

Granted, different products/situations, but the end results were exactly what they should have been, so I am happy


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## WhiteNoise (Nov 6, 2020)

In my experience, the lifetime warranty is not MY life time but the life time of the product combined with me being the original owner. 

So if I buy a part for my car that has a lifetime warranty, I expect that warranty to always be available while I own the product. I year from now or twenty. 

Many of the older companies would provide that level of service when offering a lifetime warranty. Some companies nowadays do not understand what customer service is and find ways to get out of supporting their product. Otterbox is being shady here.


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