Will the affected companies leave the existing warranty protocols in place, or will they tweak things further, like forensically analyzing photographs of purportedly faulty/broken equipment serial numbers?
Either way, the honest customer will suffer as there will now be extra hoops to jump through, as well as those who sit with the equipment whose serial numbers was used in this sort of scam...
Most probably you will be required to send in the faulty piece of kit/hardware in first for them to assess before they will send you out a replacement, causing long downtime issues.