Product warranties are often seen as a scam by many customers. We are used to products breaking as soon as the warranty is up and many have just decided to just not bother, but some people still get them, as they are more afraid that planned obsolescence will catch up to their device sooner rather than later and that they will be left with a useless device that they will have to replace sooner than they would like. But it pays to read the fine print, as many warranties are written in a very convoluted way that do not reflect reality, as two LG customers discovered the hard way.
Two California shoppers have filed a class action suit against LG Electronics because of their product warranties. The lawsuit, filed on May 14 in federal court, claims LG breaks California law by starting its warranties the day people *buy* their products, not the day they actually *get* them, which means that the warranty could be active for months before the product even makes it to the customer. The policy in question is the Song-Beverly Consumer Warranty Act, a California law meant to protect buyers, that states that manufacturers, retailers, and distributors cannot kick off a warranty before the customer actually receives the product.
The complaint from Peter Abrego and Virginia Shamel is simple, they have stated that LG begins its express warranties on the purchase date, which means anyone who waits days or even weeks for delivery ends up with a shorter warranty than they should. “This reduced the usable length of consumers’ warranties and forced consumers to unknowingly pay more for products,” the lawsuit claims.
The also claim in the lawsuit that this is an action done on purpose by LG, as that allows their system to have an easier time keeping track of purchases and warranty dates. As they have expressed, by starting the clock early, LG avoids the hassle and cost of keeping better track of delivery dates and just inputs in the system the date of purchase, which does not change. The delivery date can be pushed back due to inventory issues or delivery mishaps that end with the product not reaching the customer on time.
The lawsuit states that this setup “short-changed the full value of their warranties” for customers, especially those who bought products online and had to wait for them to be shipped. “This reduced the usable length of consumers’ warranties and forced consumers to unknowingly pay more for products,” they explain, pointing out that LG’s policies favor the company while leaving buyers with less than what they paid for.
This is also a violation of California’s Unfair Competition Law.
The class action suit against LG
The class action suit is vying to include Californians who bought at least one LG product after July 1, 2023, and did not receive it right away. Since many purchases are made online nowadays this is a very big number of people that would be interested in joining.
Plaintiffs argue that LG’s practices were intentional, implying LG crafted the policy in a way that knowingly cuts warranty coverage short and that this makes consumers lose out on time that they could have claimed their consumer rights.
Abrego and Shamel are being represented by Ryan McBride from Kazerouni Law Group APC. The case, *Abrego, et al. v. LG Electronics U.S.A., Inc.*, is filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California under case number 2:25-at-00615.
This is not the only lawsuit that LG is facing, back in March another class action suit was filed against them alleging that some of their stoves with front-facing knobs could be turned on too easily causing a dangerous situation for consumers. The lawsuit said a slow recall led to fires, pet deaths, and various other accidents.