Keysight officially lost the plot - don't buy if you're a hobbyist

[TERRA Operative]

They are playing the same game in Japan.

I needed warranty repair on my 34461A and they wouldn't do anything unless I gave them business registration info.
I sent them photos of my friend/bosses company paperwork (with his blessing) and they happily gave me excellent service.

It seemed much like a mindless 'tick the box in the list of procedures' thing, which is a very Japanese thing, but those procedures seem to be a mostly worldwide decision from what I see.

[xrunner]

I got a reply from the Keysight Ebay store, legalistic as I suspected. So to my question -

Hello,

In your equipment listings it is stated -

"For professional and industrial use only"

There has been some discussion on electronics forums from users who have bought Keysight equipment for home use, that Keysight does not provide technical support to them because they are not a "business" but a home hobby user. Can you clarify whether this is true or false - that home hobbyist users who buy Keysight equipment (new or used) will not receive technical support? Are there any countries you sell to whose buyers would not receive technical support if they were a home or hobbyist user?

Thanks,

I got this back today -

Please see point 4J on our T&Cs:

https://www.keysight.com/us/en/assets/9018-60029/exhibits/9018-60029.pdf

Best regards, Keysight Technologies.

Keysight Technologies
The leader in Electronic Test and Measurement Equipment innovation for more than 75 years.
stores.ebay.com/keysight

Here is point 4 (j) -

4 (j) Products are intended for professional and industrial use only, and
are not suitable for consumer or household use, and Customer
represents and warrants that it is not acquiring Products for such
uses. Consumer or household use, or use outside of the Specification
for the Product, will nullify Sections 2(a), (b) and (e), 4(a) and (b), 5(b)
and 6 of these Terms and void the warranty terms set out, or
incorporated in, Section 3.

Products are not specifi cally designed,
manufactured or intended for sale as parts, components or
assemblies for the planning, construction, maintenance or direct
operation of a nuclear facility. Keysight shall not be liable for any
damages resulting from such use

They don't claim you cannot buy something, but that it will void term and warranties if you are a consumer / household user.

So that pretty much does it for me too. I had toyed with getting a new Keysight scope one day, but that closes them off to me forever. What a shame.

[PKTKS]

This is brain damaged  lawyer excrement...

There is just no possible discrimination of end user as long as
they are selling their products directly to end users..

They hold responsible and that excuse is excrement..
juris shit...  so to speak.

Next time you go for shopping gear..

Tell them to fuck off from all the vendor sites..
If they sell merchandise for end users..

They are required to hold the terms..
not that bull shit

Paul

[RBBVNL9]

4 (j) Products are intended for professional and industrial use only, and are not suitable for consumer or household use, and Customer represents and warrants that it is not acquiring Products for such uses.

So, if in its own marketing material Keysight promotes their instruments to be used by "Engineers working on workbenches set up in garages, basements, home offices, sheds [...]." they must legalistically mean that such places are not part of a household or for consumers ?!? 

[madires]

From where do you reach the conclusion a reseller can't give you good support? In the end that is what you are saying.

I agree that whether you get good service highly depends on who you are buying from but stating that good support can only come from a manufacturer is a false statement.

No, you interpret things into what I've written, not out of. As a consumer in the EU you'll deal with the reseller for two years after the purchase anyway.

[madires]

4 (j) Products are intended for professional and industrial use only, and
are not suitable for consumer or household use, and Customer
represents and warrants that it is not acquiring Products for such
uses. Consumer or household use, or use outside of the Specification
for the Product, will nullify Sections 2(a), (b) and (e), 4(a) and (b), 5(b)
and 6 of these Terms and void the warranty terms set out, or
incorporated in, Section 3.

They don't claim you cannot buy something, but that it will void term and warranties if you are a consumer / household user.

If they sell directly to a consumer that paragraph is void in the EU. The implied warranty can't be denied.

[TwistedTransistor]

4 (j) Products are intended for professional and industrial use only, and are not suitable for consumer or household use, and Customer represents and warrants that it is not acquiring Products for such uses.

So, if in its own marketing material Keysight promotes their instruments to be used by "Engineers working on workbenches set up in garages, basements, home offices, sheds [...]." they must legalistically mean that such places are not part of a household or for consumers ?!?

You could make a good legal argument that a professional/licensed/chartered engineer purchasing an oscilloscope for his own educational, professional developmental use at his home is very much a "professional use case". There is nothing in the policy above that explicitly limits sale to businesses only. And as you point out even their own marketing copy backs this view up.

It seems to me that this is a stupid policy, ill-considered, badly written and randomly enforced. I cannot see how this would be held up in court and it is highly likely that a court would take a dim view of these business practices.

But aside from all the legal stuff, why would anyone want to deal with a company that behaves like this? Whether legal or not, the way they have gone about this is all wrong and leaves them looking like a bunch of assholes. It leaves a sour taste in the mouth and I wonder what stunts they might try to pull in the future. I've got a project coming up at work next year where I will need to purchase a new spectrum analyzer. There's no way I would consider a Keysight after this debacle. Will my refusal to recommend purchase of Keysight products make any difference to their bottom line? Probably not, but that's besides the point. I won't deal with Keysight because they're assholes.

One last point to make is that this seems to, officially anyway, be a worldwide policy and is not limited to UK or Europe as Dave (eevblog) and other have recently claimed. If you're not facing these problems from your local Keysight organisation then lucky you, but you'd be silly to count on that remaining the case given the facts available in this thread.

[Fflint]

Cheap LLC is not an option in EU. Start one and (depending on country) you'll have compulsory health/pension/disability insurance payments of few hundred EUR to make every month. In addition to full business accounting and reporting requirements. I used to have a UK Ltd Company, but after brexit that rapidly became useless outside the UK.

At least here in Poland we have this law that allows anyone to run a miniature business (under 216EUR revenue a month) without any kind of registration. Any person can say they are running "an unregistered business" and no one has a right to treat them any differently. This is a fairly new law that came into effect in 2019or 2020 so not many people know it. Also, as Poland is a member of EU said person running "an unregistered businesses" lawfully has to be treated as any other legitimate business in any EU country.

This, however has its disadvantages too. The EU laws protect non-business customers more than business users. For example shops selling to non-business customers are forced to provide 2 years of warranty (vs 1 year for businesses). They have to accept no questions asked returns in 14 days for remote sales etc. Also there is sellers obligation for "the item sold to be fit for purpose" in accordance with its description or implied customer expectation.

It is much better to make your hobby purchases in personal capacity because of that.

With regards to customer service the seller is required to provide that if not providing it would cause that you can't obtain full use of the device. So if you are in Europe and you need Keisight customer service to obtain some software, bug fixes, or manuals I would contact the seller to obtain it (unless the seller is also a private person).

If the seller is a private person perhaps he or she can supply you with original purchase information and you can get in touch with the original seller. No doubt you'll need proof of purchase.

Another curiosity is that they are asking for a VAT id. In EU you may have a business that is not VAT registered. Most businesses are, but you are only required to be VAT registered above a certain (rather low) annual revenue threshold (something like few 10k EUR I believe ).

So not only they are declining customer service to individuals. They also declining it to any small businesses that is not VAT registered. Bonkers.

[rsjsouza]

This kind of plays into my theory that golden age of e-commerce is dead.

I wouldn't go that far, even if you had appended your sentence with the B2B word there. Not only Keysight is a drop in the ocean (#1305 in Forbes 2000) but, looking at the record profits seen by the e-commerce industry in the past two years, it is growing stronger than ever (one of the largest wealth transfers in history, some say). What I agree is that the golden era of direct manufacturing selling/supporting hobbyists might be coming to an end, but IIRC this was only running for the past 10~12 years window.

The internet opened up a lot of industrial stuff to the public, and now they're all probably remembering why they didn't do that historically. If you ignore how it pisses off some people who do put in big orders, as shown in this thread, i.e. typical corporate shortsightedness, it's probably not terribly profitable to deal with the public between the volume and privileges granted to consumers under law that a certain percentage are sure to abuse.

I agree with that - historically the dealers/traders were responsible for all this hassle and this direct sales model from the manufacturer might dry up. If anything, we can keep buying products from Keysight but via Farnell, Mouser, Digikey, etc., and they would keep handling warranties, RMAs, RMRs, etc.

Going forward a cheap LLC is probably the best solution, small customers aren't going to convince giant corporations to do anything, so you have to play by their asinine rules.

That is indeed the sound strategy, although the rules vary greatly from country to country - in US is not terribly hard, but in Brasil it can become quite cumbersome...

[hpw]

Have a 7k US gear, purchased by Batronix, as they deal with issues & warranty, but they prefer simple even not to answer to questions.

So one day I am about of a 20G/s scope... hard to tell about good gear, as Siglent even issues (Sigelnt engineer even told to send back while it is not working as on data sheet) on several gear as FW & simple promised data sheet functions to wait for month, Rigol same ... in other words as soon you payed, you will see only the nice back..

In other words, service gets an other meaning 

Hp

[m k]

They don't claim you cannot buy something, but that it will void term and warranties if you are a consumer / household user.

This is not going to hold in EU.
It's a single sided and even if it's signed by a buyer it still can't void the law.

Only possiblity from their side is to make it unavailable to general public.
They can make things very difficult but they can't deny their responsibilities.

USA has class actions, no idea how it is in the EU, here locally it's not real, on paper yes but not real.

[xrunner]

They don't claim you cannot buy something, but that it will void term and warranties if you are a consumer / household user.

This is not going to hold in EU.
It's a single sided and even if it's signed by a buyer it still can't void the law.

Only possiblity from their side is to make it unavailable to general public.
They can make things very difficult but they can't deny their responsibilities.

USA has class actions, no idea how it is in the EU, here locally it's not real, on paper yes but not real.

It'll be interesting to watch how this plays out in the coming years. There's gonna be some mighty pissed-off customers out there and some of them won't be afraid to use legal action. I mean I could just waltz on over to the Keysight store right now, put anything in the cart, and buy it if I wanted to charge it and I wouldn't have any idea about that policy in that document. The need to be WAY more up-front about it than they are at the moment. 

4 (j) Products are intended for professional and industrial use only, and are not suitable for consumer or household use, and Customer represents and warrants that it is not acquiring Products for such uses.

So, if in its own marketing material Keysight promotes their instruments to be used by "Engineers working on workbenches set up in garages, basements, home offices, sheds [...]." they must legalistically mean that such places are not part of a household or for consumers ?!?

I thought about writing them back about that, but I worked in a large company before retiring. I know how it goes. There would be no point in wasting my time, because they have no power over it, and wouldn't agree with me in writing even if they did see the irony of that bench challenge and their equipment.

No, it's their policy now and there is nothing we can do about it. The head honcho was convinced that it was a keen way to go forward. So it is written, so shall it be done. I just feel sorry for any hobbyist that buys their new equipment and finds out after spending thousands of dollars that the thing won't be supported after the purchase. Meh, it won't affect me because I get the older good stuff that doesn't have warranties anyway. 

[RBBVNL9]

To me, Keysights’ strategy looks rather short-sighted. Ok, they may save some money by refusing warranty and providing support. May lose some of that savings again, as their strategy is likely illegal in quite some world regions.

But the bigger picture is that with this attitude, they alienate themselves from engineers. The people that use their instruments on a daily basis. That specify it, so their company procures it. Who are real engineers, not only at their work but also in their free time. Who are creative, challenged, solution-seeking. For all those for who professionalism and enthusiasm do not stop when they close the office door behind them. Moreover, Keysights alienate themselves from the new generation of young engineers growing up right now.

The damage that this current attitude brings may be way beyond any possible savings of refusing warranty or support requests.

[kcbrown]

I hope you see you already answered your own question here.  BTW, car dealerships get paid by the manufacturers to deal with manufacturer warranty & recalls even for cars that are not bought from that particular dealership.

I didn't realize it before, but Keysight explicitly disclaims all warranties on equipment sold to individuals.  See above.  I just went over their terms of sale (https://www.keysight.com/us/en/assets/9018-60029/exhibits/9018-60029.pdf) and the implications of the wording of paragraph 7(j) is clear: resellers must ensure that they sell only to entities that will use the equipment for professional or industrial use, because if they don't do so then they can't warrant that the intended use is for that only, and such use nullifies the warranty terms.  This means resellers can and almost certainly will refuse warranty service to individuals! And the reason is clear: they can't get reimbursement for a warranty claim if it's from an individual.

That means that resellers are not contractually obligated to honor any warranty claims by individuals.

You were saying something some time back about A-brand support being superior ... ?

It's interesting how things change, isn't it?   

Even if A-brand quality is better, that doesn't help you if your newly purchased gear breaks and has no warranty.

[alanapar]

Thanks, Keysight. Although I do have a somewhat defunct business (I'm retired), that attitude helped make up my mind, just as I was beginning to study your offerings.

I just ordered a Siglent SDS2104X Plus.

Thru year end, Siglent have a promo which adds the AWG and MSO licenses plus MSO hardware for $219. I figure that even if I could add the licenses on the QT (which I would be rather nervous about attempting), that's still a useful discount on the logic probe hardware.

[mikeselectricstuff]

I didn't realize it before, but Keysight explicitly disclaims all warranties on equipment sold to individuals.

In the Uk at least, that would almost certainly not stand up, due to legislation on unfair terms in consumer contracts.
Probably EU as well.

That means that resellers are not contractually obligated to honor any warranty claims by individuals.

As soon as a reseller makes a sale to a consumer, they are liable under consumer laws, which in many countries impose minimum warranty periods. The case would be against the reseller rather than Keysight.

[madires]

I didn't realize it before, but Keysight explicitly disclaims all warranties on equipment sold to individuals.  See above.  I just went over their terms of sale (https://www.keysight.com/us/en/assets/9018-60029/exhibits/9018-60029.pdf) and the implications of the wording of paragraph 7(j) is clear: resellers must ensure that they sell only to entities that will use the equipment for professional or industrial use, because if they don't do so then they can't warrant that the intended use is for that only, and such use nullifies the warranty terms.  This means resellers can and almost certainly will refuse warranty service to individuals! And the reason is clear: they can't get reimbursement for a warranty claim if it's from an individual.

It's not just about warranty, it basically forces resellers to sell Keysight products only to companies and to ignore consumers (hobbyists/makers/students).

[kcbrown]

I didn't realize it before, but Keysight explicitly disclaims all warranties on equipment sold to individuals.

In the Uk at least, that would almost certainly not stand up, due to legislation on unfair terms in consumer contracts.
Probably EU as well.

That means that resellers are not contractually obligated to honor any warranty claims by individuals.

As soon as a reseller makes a sale to a consumer, they are liable under consumer laws, which in many countries impose minimum warranty periods. The case would be against the reseller rather than Keysight.

The reseller may be liable, but now they won't be able to get any reimbursement from the manufacturer, which leaves only getting the manufacturer to do a cost-free repair.   It may be that the laws will demand that.

But if not, then the reseller has plenty of disincentives to sell to individuals, and no real incentives to do so.   It should be clear what to expect, given that.


In the US, contracts generally reign supreme.  The laws in the U.S. do not demand that a manufacturer provide an individual with a warranty when the product is sold for resale or for commercial purposes.  See https://www.findlaw.com/consumer/consumer-transactions/warranty-laws-and-the-magnuson-moss-warranty-act-.html

[tautech]

..............
I just ordered a Siglent SDS2104X Plus.

Thru year end, Siglent have a promo which adds the AWG and MSO licenses plus MSO hardware for $219. I figure that even if I could add the licenses on the QT (which I would be rather nervous about attempting), that's still a useful discount on the logic probe hardware.

Welcome to the forum.

Yep, it's a hot deal when you consider just a 20 pack of quality grabbers will set you back ~$100 on their own !
FYI the MSO promo also includes permanent licensing for FG, the internal 50 MHz AWG.

No need to go poking the scope for license codes with Linux or Telnet when the online scripts can generate all the licenses to enter in the normal way within the Options UI.
Enjoy this scope, it's been very popular.

[EE-digger]

With the various Covid dick-tates that have caused a surge in "working from home", Keysight better rethink this quickly or they may have written themselves out of 30% of their own future business     

There really shouldn't be much problem with their new wording though.  My reasoning ...

Since when is a VNA a consumer product?

Since when is a 6.5 digit bench DMM a consumer product?

Since when is a spectrum analyzer a consumer product?

etc. etc.

After re-reading some of the posts, I have to make a comment in Keysight's defense.  If they were forced to follow consumer protection laws, they would probably lose money on every darned sale in legal fees.  Not to mention societal demands, like planting a tree for every DMM sold, etc.

[Fungus]

They don't claim you cannot buy something, but that it will void term and warranties if you are a consumer / household user.

If they sell directly to a consumer that paragraph is void in the EU. The implied warranty can't be denied.

Yep. It could arrive DOA, they can't deny warranty on that. 

[gnavigator1007]

Since when is a VNA a consumer product?

Since when is a 6.5 digit bench DMM a consumer product?

Since when is a spectrum analyzer a consumer product?

Since they've been marketing and selling directly to them.

[kcbrown]

Since when is a VNA a consumer product?

Since when is a 6.5 digit bench DMM a consumer product?

Since when is a spectrum analyzer a consumer product?

Define a "consumer product".  Careful.  You may wind up defining it such that things you would expect to be included would be excluded, or things you'd expect to be excluded are included, or both.

[EE-digger]

gnavigator1007: True but you can't slice, dice, juice or cook with any of them.

[tautech]

Since when is a VNA a consumer product?

Since when is a 6.5 digit bench DMM a consumer product?

Since when is a spectrum analyzer a consumer product?

Define a "consumer product". 

You can't.
Even one man bands are operating at professional levels these days such is the affordability of modern products.