Tamper Proofing Stickers Can’t Void Your Warranty

So you buy that brand new piece of technology, its working great. A few months later and you notice that it’s getting a little hot, you figure it might just be a little bit of dust clogging up the fans and decide that you’ll just go in and carefully brush off the dust and dirt. As you turn the device over you see it, a tamper-resistant sticker with the standard warning, “remove this and lose your warranty”. Is it worth removing the sticker on a device that set you back hundreds? Given tamper-resistant stickers are illegal, the decisions already been made for you.

The stickers are in breach of the Magnuson-Moss warranty act (1975), but still, companies are using the stickers as a way of quickly voiding perfectly valid warranties. The latest company to be seen using these is Microsoft with the stickers being present on the Xbox One S. The sticker is placed over the clip holding the case together, meaning that if you ever wanted to open the case you would be “voiding” the warranty. Unfortunately, this only applies in the US, but it’s a start.

The Magnuson-Moss act states that nothing should block a user from modifying a device, as long as it doesn’t affect the functioning of the device. Want to repair your device? You’re allowed. Want a new case? You’re allowed to put it on yourself. While Microsoft is clear that any attempts to “open, modify, or tamper with” their devices by anyone other than Microsoft will result in a voided warranty, you are allowed to gain access to and modify the console as long as it doesn’t affect how it works.

What does this mean? Well, it means that if you want to upgrade your hard drive to store a few more games and movies on your console, you’ll still have your warranty. This realisation will come as a relief to many who don’t want to fork out money to send off their consoles to get bigger hard drives installed, or pay that little extra for an external hard drive just for their Xbox.

When did you last see this sticker on one of your devices? Has it ever put you off opening your device or does it do nothing but slow you down?