Fry’s Electronics Class Action: Phony Warranty Placed on Open-Box Items

Fry’s Electronics has been failing to honor its own warranty on graphics cards, according to a California man.

Plaintiff Aaron Ramos says the warranty that Fry’s Electronics offers on purchases of open-box products is illusory.

Fry’s offers these products for sale after their original packaging has been opened, whether because the product was sold and returned or whether it was used as a display model.

Fry’s Electronics tags these open-box products with a notice promising customers that the retailer will honor the manufacturer’s original warranty. But according to Ramos, Fry’s has no intention of honoring that warranty. He accuses the retailer of making a false promise to induce shoppers to buy products they would not have purchased otherwise.

According to his Fry’s Electronics class action lawsuit, Ramos purchased an open-box PNY GeForce GTX graphics card from Fry’s sometime in late 2013.

The previously opened packaging for the card featured an advertisement added by Fry’s saying that Fry’s would honor the same warranty offered by the product’s original manufacturer. PNY, the manufacturer of this particular graphics card, offered a lifetime warranty, Ramos claims.

Ramos says he purchased that graphics card in reliance on Fry’s promise of a lifetime warranty, and that he would not have purchased the card had he known Fry’s did not intend to honor that warranty. He would rather have purchased a new graphics card or would have bought from a different retailer.

After a few years of use, Ramos claims the card began to malfunction. Ramos asked Fry’s to honor the lifetime warranty by replacing the graphics card or by refunding him the purchase price. Fry’s refused to offer either remedy, allegedly because Ramos never registered the product with PNY.

Ramos says Fry’s made it impossible for him to register his graphics card due to the way Fry’s handles purchases of open-box products. Registering the product with the manufacturer would have required paperwork that Fry’s only provides with new sales of products, he claims.

He also states that Fry’s simply never told him that he would have to register the product to activate the warranty.

Ramos seeks to represent a plaintiff Class that would include all persons who, within the applicable statutory limitations period, purchased used graphics cards from Fry’s that were labeled with an assurance that Fry’s would honor the manufacturer’s warranty.

He is asking the court to order Fry’s to notify Class Members about the allegedly unlawful and deceptive conduct described here and to conduct a corrective advertising campaign. He seeks an award of actual, punitive and statutory damages, court costs and attorneys’ fees, and any other relief the court sees fit to grant.

Ramos is represented by attorneys Todd M. Friedman, Adrian R. Bacon, Meghan E. George and Thomas E. Wheeler of Law Offices of Todd M. Friedman PC.

The Fry’s Open-Box Products False Warranty Offer Class Action Lawsuit is Ramos v. Fry’s Electronics Inc., Case No. 3:17-cv-02320, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California.