Wow. I feel like you are just trying to pick a fight.
Let me try to be clear...
Onkyo is loosing me as a customer because of their failed board issue.
Onkyo treats their customers just like most other A/V companies that have "authorized resellers" and if you don't buy from one of those authorized resellers or aren't the original owner, then the warranty doesn't apply to you. Yes it sucks, but it isn't like Onkyo is the only one doing this. You should be upset with this whole practice in the A/V industry with almost all of those companies.... I know that I am. (That also makes me mad at Onkyo for them being a part of this practice.)
My point: Be mad at them for the product issue, but be mad at the whole A/V industry, not just Onkyo, because a purchase was made from a known non-authorized reseller and they followed their company policy of not accepting the product under warranty.
Heck, I just had to have a multi-thousand dollar furnace installed today. When they left, I was told that the warranty is X,Y,Z, but it is not transferable so if you sell the house, the warranty is void. OK. So no transfer of warranty. If I bought my Onkyo receiver, and then before even opening it turned around and sold it on eBay, that buyer could fill out the warranty card, but without a proof of purchase from where *I* got it from, the warranty wouldn't be valid. That would be like trying to "transfer" the warranty since I was technically the original owner.
Or, just go to their website, and they clearly state it:
Onkyo Warranty That link states:
ONKYO USA Corporation Limited Consumer Warranty
PLEASE RETAIN YOUR ORIGINAL BILL OF SALE AS YOU WILL NEED TO PRESENT IT SHOULD YOU REQUIRE SERVICE UNDER THIS WARRANTY.
Onkyo USA Corporation (hereinafter referred to as Onkyo) hereby warrants all Onkyo products PURCHASED DIRECTLY FROM ONKYO OR AN ONKYO AUTHORIZED DEALER, in accordance with the following terms and conditions:
WARNING: IF YOU PURCHASE AN ONKYO PRODUCT FROM AN UNAUTHORIZED INTERNET DEALER, YOUR ONKYO WARRANTY WILL NOT BE VALID. Click here to view a list of UNAUTHORIZED RESELLERS.Again, it TOTALLY sucks. I bought a DVD player back when DVD players were first coming out. I paid something like $300 for it, but that was $50 less than anywhere else. It was Pioneer branded, brand new, unopened, but I knew that it wasn't from an authorized reseller. I rolled the dice knowing that I wouldn't have a warranty, and about 9 months into ownership of the DVD player, it just quit for no reason. I didn't do anything to the player, never had a power surge or outage, the player stayed connected and in place without moving. It simply just stopped working for no reason what-so-ever. I knew that I was screwed, but I tried to get it repaired/replaced under warranty. No luck. No receipt from an authorized reseller, so I was out of luck. I ended up replacing it with a different DVD player that cost me about $200 that had a better picture options, and a valid warranty.
I learned my lesson and just don't roll the dice on non-authorized stuff any more. It just isn't worth the risk.
Now I know that my example isn't the same necessarily since Onkyo has had this board soldering problem blow up in their face for a long time. And I agree that this should be treated more like a recall on a car. The car manufacturers don't say "sorry, you didn't buy your car from a dealership" or anything like that, they just pay to have the recalled item fixed, regardless of how you bought the vehicle. I think that is how all good business should be run, but that isn't the world we live in.
So be mad that Onkyo went cheap at some point and had bad soldering on their products, and be mad that the whole A/V industry seems to have this "if you didn't buy it from an authorized-reseller, whom we can control their selling price and control our market value" approach. That last part isn't just an Onkyo issue, but it is a lot bigger than that.
