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by random5634 1883 days ago
You would be lying - and people will call you out on this, because they will find out that you have in fact issued refunds for products with expired warranties.
1 comments

This level of semantics is pointless.

They could write "We generally do not issue refunds for items outside of warranty" and they're back to the statement being just one level more vague, and thus more true.

But in reality, both of those mean the same thing. Writing "We don't issue refunds outside of warranty periods" has an understood "excluding exceptional circumstances". Everyone knows it's there. Only people who are pedantic to the point of uselessness will argue about this, and you'll find out that the courts generally have little sympathy for that.

All human languages so far are inexact. Math is probably the most exact language we've invented for communicating ideas, but languages that the general public knows are all inexact.

If the correct thing is communicated unambiguously, that's already a success, even if a pedantic person can say "I know you mean that you don't 'generally' do it, so the absolute there is a lie", the fact that the pedant can point it out means they absolutely understood what was being conveyed correctly.

This level of semantics is indeed pointless - to clarify, your comment supports both what you wrote and Google's use of the "unable" wording in their response; they are unable to reinstate your account <without introducing liability to lawsuits regarding unfair business practices> <and except in exceptional circumstances>.
The person responding at a big corporation is often unable to, for practical purposes as a result of policies other than in exceptional circumstances.

When you write in and ask them, please steal a million dollars and give it to me, while they might be able to figure out a way to steal and give it to you, for policy and job performance reasons they are unable to. They say - "I'm unable to do that for you". Who cares if they somehow could - we all understand they have chosen not to.

We are unable to reinstate your account = person responding does not have policy authority to reinstate your account and the exceptional circumstance was not identified.