Author Topic: RMA's and other peoples experience (Read 4154 times)

jinxedx84 · « **on:** Fri, 22 November 2013, 20:27:34 »

OK so here my story, on august 13 i sent my headset approved for RMA to the steelseries warehouse to be replaced. After 102 days, absolutely horrendous customer service, and three RMA tickets opened (open because no one would answer me) I have finally received a new headset. The head set had a faulty mic in it and would have been 30secs to diagnose. I know companies get busy but the absolute lack of communication will make me never purchase a steelseries product again. Being that this was the first time i have ever RMA'd something, is this how things normally happen? and does anyone have any "good" RMA stories?

kmiller8 · « **Reply #1 on:** Fri, 22 November 2013, 20:29:54 »

I've had 3 RMA's the past month or so

Samsung:
Bought RAM earlier in the year, stick of RAM was causing crashes, RMA'd, brand new stick of RAM ~1 week later

Gigabyte:
Bought used GPU, causing crashes, RMA'd, repaired GPU returned ~2 weeks later

Crucial:
Given SSD from friend, not recognized by BIOS/Windows, RMA'd, refurb SSD ~1 week later.

jinxedx84 · « **Reply #2 on:** Fri, 22 November 2013, 20:31:47 »

so what your telling me is that 102 days to ridiculous.......

worst experience ever!

HPE1000 · « **Reply #3 on:** Fri, 22 November 2013, 20:32:17 »

I have only done an RMA on an asrock motherboard, it was an absolute nightmare and I will never buy another one of their products after they treated me the way they did. (Not just slow, but they accused me of doing things I didn't and they tried to scare me into not RMA'ing again after they send me a faulty product for the 1st RMA)

This took 3 or so months and cost me 40+ in shipping my mobo to them twice.

jinxedx84 · « **Reply #4 on:** Fri, 22 November 2013, 20:34:57 »

have a bad customer service department can really paint a bad picture of your company....

damorgue · « **Reply #5 on:** Fri, 22 November 2013, 20:37:56 »

All of my good customer experiences have been with steam/valve. The number of crappy experiences far outnumber those however.

The worst is probably when I had a motherboard from MSI which had exposed traces They hadn't lacquered the PCB properly and a few of the copper traces had lifted quite far from the PCB and hung free in the air and some were entangled in others. How this passed QC is beyond me. They asked me to plug it in (!) and verify that there was actually something wrong with the board before sending it in. I said that it might be hazardous and likely to short and damage other components. They also denied the entire thing as it was for some reason not their fault. This was also during the whole faulty Intel chipset where they released the B# revisions if you remember that. It would have qualified for the mass recall if it had been working but since it didn't, it couldn't get replaced that way either. I won't be buying MSI again, that is for sure.

There are also several cases of support blatantly lying on questions and when confronted with proof just claim that their answer sheet stated that they should give the answer they gave and that it was thus not their fault.

What I hate most is how far up you have to go to actually get a decent answer from customer support. The first few levels are likely to know far less than you do in my experience.

missalaire · « **Reply #6 on:** Fri, 22 November 2013, 20:38:54 »

I've had to RMA my Corsair ram twice. Everything went through RMA just fine, received the new ram sticks about 2 weeks after Corsair received the faulty ram.

And I've had to RMA my Logitech G9x mouse once, they didn't even need me to send in the mouse, just shipped a brand new one out to me under the remaining warranty left. I received the new one in about 2 weeks and has worked perfectly and still continues to.

jinxedx84 · « **Reply #7 on:** Fri, 22 November 2013, 20:40:57 »

Ive heard the guys at corsair and really good about RMA's. logitech did that? I kinda put them in the same category as steelseries and that they dont care bout their customers. so good to know

Badwrench · « **Reply #8 on:** Fri, 22 November 2013, 21:11:58 »

I have only ever had good luck with my RMAs.
Best company by far was Kingston. They drop shipped a set of RAM, and included a post marked container with the replacement sticks. I was never even down other than to swap the sticks.
Samsung was also great in getting me a replacement Video Camera (they sent 2 batteries first to confirm it wasn't that). Turn around was about 10 days from the day I dropped it in the mail.
Asus was also great. I had a mobo with a corrupt bios (purchased new- wouldn't post). Turn around was 3 days including shipping time.
And contrary to most horror stories, XFX RMA'ed an old GTS250 in roughly a week.
There are others as well, but most of those were the basic 2-3 week turn around. Never had to fight anyone on anything.

dustinhxc · « **Reply #9 on:** Fri, 22 November 2013, 21:16:13 »

Meh, so so .. Newegg. I got a wrist rest with a small pin hole so I asked if I could exchange it. They said we will send a new one and keep that one. So that was great, but after opening 3 RMAs and talking to multiple people I finally got it. Took a month and constant replying but it got worked out..

Lu_e · « **Reply #10 on:** Sat, 23 November 2013, 00:02:26 »

I've heard a lot of bad things about steelseries

I RMA'd my quickfire rapid and it went pretty well. They even offered to give me a ups label. Only thing about that was they said the UPS label would be in my inbox that night or the next day. So I box up my 5 month old kb and 2 or 3 days later there was still no shipping label. Kinda annoyed not having my kb so... I just said **** and sent it myself, USPS was like ~$10 so I didn't really care. Just wanted a working replacement kb quickly, CM shipped me a replacement pretty quickly after they received it.

Asininity · « **Reply #11 on:** Sat, 23 November 2013, 01:07:36 »

I've RMA'd two items with Corsair (a H60 and a AX1200) and the customer service was phenomenal. I wanted a extra side panel for my 800D and they sent me one for free. I'll always go back to Corsair.

I've also had good luck with Gigabyte. Butchered a motherboard and got a RMA. Quick turn around too.

I RMA'd a Asus motherboard (Crosshair V?) and that was a little rocky. It wasn't bad, but it just wasn't that great.

Puddsy · « **Reply #12 on:** Sat, 23 November 2013, 10:14:09 »

RMA'd my corsair headset after the cable fried, took about 4 days.

Tym · « **Reply #13 on:** Sat, 23 November 2013, 10:55:37 »

Best RMA ever had to be planatronics, recieved a headset which I thought was broken. Had a bit of trouble getting in contact with them because they are a company which usually supplies call centers. But when I did get through they sent me a new pair and asked that I put my old pair in the prepaid box the new pair arrived in.

MJ45 · « **Reply #14 on:** Sat, 23 November 2013, 12:20:56 »

Quote from: jinxedx84 on Fri, 22 November 2013, 20:27:34

OK so here my story, on august 13 i sent my headset approved for RMA to the steelseries warehouse to be replaced. After 102 days, absolutely horrendous customer service, and three RMA tickets opened (open because no one would answer me) I have finally received a new headset. The head set had a faulty mic in it and would have been 30secs to diagnose. I know companies get busy but the absolute lack of communication will make me never purchase a steelseries product again. Being that this was the first time i have ever RMA'd something, is this how things normally happen? and does anyone have any "good" RMA stories?

I have had a similar bad experience with steelseries. My Sensei mouse would not track on dark surfaces like most mouse pads (including steelseries 9HD). After many emails of try this and that they gave me a RMA and it was received by them on 8/22/13. I also got no responses to my emails so I opened new tickets (three more) then finally they sent tracking info for a replacement Sensei mouse, and finally received it on 11/22/13. It took three months to get a replacement for my defective product. I really like the Sensei mouse a lot and was thinking about getting the new Rival mouse but after this ordeal I don't think I will ever buy anything from steelseries again!

noisyturtle · « **Reply #15 on:** Sat, 23 November 2013, 17:50:17 »

Only ever RMA'd one thing, an ASUS monitor that would turn off if the screen displayed too many dark colors at once. Made it impossible to play games or watch movies.

MJ45 · « **Reply #16 on:** Sun, 24 November 2013, 07:47:25 »

Quote from: jinxedx84 on Fri, 22 November 2013, 20:27:34

OK so here my story, on august 13 i sent my headset approved for RMA to the steelseries warehouse to be replaced. After 102 days, absolutely horrendous customer service, and three RMA tickets opened (open because no one would answer me) I have finally received a new headset. The head set had a faulty mic in it and would have been 30secs to diagnose. I know companies get busy but the absolute lack of communication will make me never purchase a steelseries product again. Being that this was the first time i have ever RMA'd something, is this how things normally happen? and does anyone have any "good" RMA stories?

Over the years being a long time computer user-enthusiast I've had mostly great experience's with RMA's until steelseries which totally sucks!

iri · « **Reply #17 on:** Sun, 24 November 2013, 08:32:37 »

rma'd a matias' keyboard. i had horrible experince with the company: my order was delayed several months, the keyboard was ****, i had to send several emails to ask for a rma number.

Wildcard · « **Reply #18 on:** Sun, 24 November 2013, 08:33:48 »

Just RMA'd a speck laptop case. Smooth experience. They sent in my damaged case and I got the new one back in 2 days.

tp4tissue · « **Reply #19 on:** Sun, 24 November 2013, 08:50:36 »

Quote from: noisyturtle on Sat, 23 November 2013, 17:50:17

Only ever RMA'd one thing, an ASUS monitor that would turn off if the screen displayed too many dark colors at once. Made it impossible to play games or watch movies.

Asus monitors have horrendous Quality Control.. LOL, but all the gaming monitors come pretty much from the same place... so it's been bad all-around...

ComradeSniper · « **Reply #20 on:** Sun, 24 November 2013, 12:44:21 »

I RMA'd a Razer Lycosa (this was before I discovered mech keyboards) and a Razer Imperator. Within a week or two I had replacements. Razer's customer support is surprisingly good, it's a shame that their products aren't.

quickcrx702 · « **Reply #21 on:** Sun, 24 November 2013, 12:49:53 »

I've managed many corporate networks and have RMA'd many parts. RMAing(if thats a word LOL) stuff for a business is super easy, usually they overnight ship an advanced replacement, along with a prepaid UPS box with padding designed for your part. In my personal life however... it takes FOREVER and you constantly have to follow up, so your experience doesn't seem strange(sadly) to me.

Leslieann · « **Reply #22 on:** Sun, 24 November 2013, 17:37:00 »

If you can avoid it, forget RMA'ing anything.
Never buy refurb or open box either, companies do very little testing on them.

The dotcom I worked at, as an exclusive importer of some items we had to deal with RMA's on some items.
It was told to customers it could take 2 weeks, to 6 months to RMA a DVD rom. At the time, because prices on them were falling so fast, you could spend $200 on a dvd rom, and by the time you got it back, it could be only worth $50. You were also not guaranteed a new replacement.

My last RMA with Asus was also a nightmare (still like them, but jeez!). The Maximus Gene board I bought open box worked fine out of the box but about 2 months later the PCI-E port failed. I sent it in, sat on a shelf for 2 days, then 2 days diagnostic, then they sent another to me express or 2 day. Overall, not bad, until I got it open and found that the memory slots were all bad and the board wouldn't even boot because of it. Absolutely zero QA was done. When the survey came regarding support, I trashed them for it.

One customers refurbed $2000 Sony laptop had a bad network port. Sony is a whole bag of worms anyhow... Great laptops, terrible support. I have yet to see a good Sony refurb.

Another customer... Every 6 months she was sending it in for a drive replacement. Always fast, and always wiped. After 2 years and the third or 4th drive, she finally replaced the system. While hers wasn't one, like Sony, every HP refurb I have seen has had problems. HP is always good for support when you do have issues though, it just stinks you need them so much.

Good ones to deal with...
Apple Refurbs I have heard good things from them, and never a complaint.
XFX, spent a long time with me in email diagnosing my video card, and offering to run a full diagnostic if I sent it in and offerred some alternative options as well. In the end, it wasn't the card that was faulty and I still use it.
Western Digital, I only had dealings with them many years ago, but every time, the drive was replaced with newer and bigger, and very, very fast with no questions. I don't deal with them anymore after having so many go bad though, because not having to RMA, is better than any RMA experience.

RabRhee · « **Reply #23 on:** Sun, 24 November 2013, 17:38:03 »

Only two things I had to RMA recently, one was a kindle that was 3 weeks under a year old. It was a little bit of messing around because of the battery (apparently) so I had to take it to a drop point. But they sent me what looked like a refurbed kindle, but it worked ok and was pretty clean.

The other item was an AOC 24 inch monitor, wouldn't power up. It was just out of retail warranty (13 months old) so I had to contact AOC directly. Took 3 tries to get their website to actually register the RMA, and a phone call which was even more baffling. Then heard nothing for over a month, followed by a tracking email saying my parcel from Germany to Britain was incoming. Turns out it was a brand new upgraded version of what I had before, silver case instead of black but the upgrade made up for that.

And now my 6 month old dremel just died (or was killed by me), so I have that to look forward to...

RabRhee · « **Reply #24 on:** Sun, 24 November 2013, 17:40:37 »

Quote from: Leslieann on Sun, 24 November 2013, 17:37:00

Western Digital, I only had dealings with them many years ago, but every time, the drive was replaced with newer and bigger, and very, very fast with no questions. I don't deal with them anymore after having so many go bad though, because not having to RMA, is better than any RMA experience.

I RMA'd two 730mb drives to them many years ago, and same deal, got two brand new 850s back. Nice to know they still have the same deal, shame about the fail rate though if its that bad, been lucky with them so far.

noisyturtle · « **Reply #25 on:** Mon, 25 November 2013, 01:03:53 »

Oh gosh, I almost forgot to mention my 360 if that counts as an RMA. It red ringed 3 times in the period of the first 6 months I got it, and Microsoft refused to just replace it with a new working one. Finally the third time they replaced some of the internals with parts from a testing unit and I've never had any issues with it since, aside from it being as loud as a turbine engine. It's nice that they send you prepaid boxes for shipping, and I get bragging rights for having a working 1st gen 360.

Leslieann · « **Reply #26 on:** Tue, 26 November 2013, 00:02:06 »

Quote from: RabRhee on Sun, 24 November 2013, 17:40:37

Quote from: Leslieann on Sun, 24 November 2013, 17:37:00
Western Digital, I only had dealings with them many years ago, but every time, the drive was replaced with newer and bigger, and very, very fast with no questions. I don't deal with them anymore after having so many go bad though, because not having to RMA, is better than any RMA experience.

I RMA'd two 730mb drives to them many years ago, and same deal, got two brand new 850s back. Nice to know they still have the same deal, shame about the fail rate though if its that bad, been lucky with them so far.

My last time with them was actually about the same vintage.
Some people swear by them and them alone, so apparently some people still buy them.

Whenever a customer has a system with a bad drive... There's about a 95% chance it has a WD or Samsung (which I don't buy as well). I shrug when I see a 5 or 6 year old Seagate, but I'm shocked when I see a problem free 5 or 6 year old Sammy or WD.

Elrick · « **Reply #27 on:** Tue, 26 November 2013, 03:02:29 »

Quote from: Asininity on Sat, 23 November 2013, 01:07:36

I've RMA'd two items with Corsair (a H60 and a AX1200) and the customer service was phenomenal. I wanted a extra side panel for my 800D and they sent me one for free. I'll always go back to Corsair.

Yep, I choose to buy Corsair because of their EXCELLENT - RMA service which is just superb, even out of Convict Town

.

RMA'd easily 2133 and 2400 spec memories and got newer Revision Specs sent to me, now working brilliantly.

RMA'd an old HX620 and got a brand new HX-650 V2 sent to me, this company is unbelievable when it comes to satisfying their customers. That is why I will keep on buying their Power Supplies till the day I die.

I think when it comes to doing RMA's they have set the standard of what is perfection. Pity they are the ONLY ones that handle RMA's so decently and quickly, compared to any other Corporation in the World today. Long live Corsair... just in case you didn't notice it, I'm a true fanatic for their products

.

Fire Brand · « **Reply #28 on:** Thu, 28 November 2013, 10:59:26 »

As of yet thankfully I have never had a problem sending anything off for an RMA with that said Corsair was the best So far very helpful people on the phone and understanding (Had a H80 that the pump rattled) sent it off and got the replacement about a week after very well boxed, also had a OCZ SSD that went sent it off and within 2 days got a brand new replacement and that was a newer model sata 6GB/s compaired to sata 3GB/s overall I have been very lucky

BucklingSpring · « **Reply #29 on:** Sun, 01 December 2013, 10:49:56 »

For every RMA situations that went well, we always remember the one that went terribly wrong.
Among the worst, my experience with Cooler Master via a reseller is one the best.

I recently came across another non sense - Western Digital offers a cross ship option for defective disks. In order to proceed, you have to provide a credit card number. If the defective disk is not returned to WD within 30 days of receiving the replacement, they charge you the price of the disk +- 30% for whatever reason. Which is fair.

But here's the catch, if you are international, they ask you to send the disk to the most local WD facility. Once there, WD will wait until they have enough drives to make it worth shipping to the main WD warehouse. WD does not register your disk when it arrives at the local facility. They only do it at the final WD destination. It could take a while and you can end up getting charge because their internal process took too long. So if you use WD's cross ship option, 1) make sure you have a tracking number and 2) Watch your credit card bills. Because it is a pain in the a$$ to get a refund once they charge you.

damorgue · « **Reply #30 on:** Sun, 01 December 2013, 15:06:42 »

Quote from: Elrick on Tue, 26 November 2013, 03:02:29

RMA'd easily 2133 and 2400 spec memories and got newer Revision Specs sent to me, now working brilliantly.

Did you send all of them in or just the faulty one? A friend was asked to only send in the broken one, one of four matched dimms, and it allowed for cheaper shipping so he did. They then sent only one dimm. Not only was his dimms not matched any longer, they weren't even the same spec.

News:

Author Topic: RMA's and other peoples experience (Read 4154 times)