How NOT to treat customers...XFX

uniten said:
Lately I have been using ATI and I wish eVGA made ATI cards :/..only ones with lifetime warranty is XFX and VisionTek..anyone know how good visionTek is?
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you know what dude, i had a visiontek 4870x2, it shit the bed. I never registered it or anything... well, as soon as it died i ordered an XFX 6970 almost immediately, figuring I wouldn't get anywhere with visiontek. well, i had nothing to lose by trying an RMA on the 4870x2 so I got ahold of them, explained the scenario, and they told me to mail it in and they would evaluate the card and come to a conclusion about my approval or denial of my claim. I mailed it in, and about 8 to 10 business days later, there's a FedEx box on my doorstep, which I figured was my dead 4870x2 and I had gotten declined... well, I opened it up, and sure enough there's a brand new (if not refurbished) 5870 there.

Knowing what I know now about Visiontek, I would have dealt with the RMA with them initially and had a 5870 for free instead of an almost 400 dollars 6970 (that died from an XFX Bios flash... they wouldn't cover it, but I called newegg and told them what had happened, and got covered.)
 
rdz5008 said:
wow that fucker is hosed.
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This was his greatest fear when he asked me to help in the RMA process. He specifically begged them not to send somebody's else possibly overclocked and damaged card.
It'll be interesting on Monday morning when he calls them.
I'm eagerly looking forward to seeing how they handle this incident.
I personally stopped buying or recommending Visiontek cards a few years back for a similar infraction. What XFX does will determine if I do the same going forward.
 
I had a 8600 gt from xfx the card ended up artifacting. I read up on it and it was a common issue with this card the capacitors were cheap and ended up exploding(Google 8600 gt capacitor many results). I tried to rma it but the reps I spoke to were no help at all. Now I only buy from evga.
 
OmegaSupreme said:
^ this. Warranties are losses for companies so a lot of them will give you the run around to try and dissuade you from following through, be cause people are lazy and forgetful, and wont back it up.
You have to be persistent. Read their policies and if they do not get back to within a reasonable time frame call them. If no one in tech support will talk to you, bother someone else, someone higher in the food chain. Piss them off (about having to deal with you)and you'll get what you want. :p
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Agreed. I feel like every company out there has their batch of issues when RMA is concerned. For every crappy case you hear, there will be just as many that are good. I personally have had good RMAs with a couple companies and bad with those same companies (XFX, Viewsonic, Gigabyte, Asus, PNY - all of them, I had good and bad RMA cases). I think it is wrong to group an entire company as "shit company" based on those bad cases.

I remember the one RMA case I had with Viewsonic.. I sent my dead monitor that was in its last year warranty. They told me that it was damaged in the shipping so they won't handle the RMA. I talked with UPS since I had shipping insurance - they said that there was no damage to the box and wouldn't pay insurance money without seeing the damage. UPS even tried (supposedly anyways - I am guessing UPS was trying to cover their own asses) to send one of their people there to look at the damage to the box, but there was some BS RMA issues where Viewsonic was telling UPS the monitor was misplaced or didn't arrive or something bs.

While that was going on, Viewsonic was telling me that I have to pay for shipping the "damaged" monitor back to my home since warranty doesn't cover a monitor physically damaged, whether it is by me or shipping company. Just absolute run-around and NOBODY was willing to take the initiative. 2 weeks I spent doing the run-around before I finally just gave up on the RMA. No way I was going to spend $30-40 more to ship the monitor back after spending $30-40 to ship monitor to Viewsonic on a monitor worth like $150-160. That's almost half the monitor's value. HAH!

RMAs are a headache all-around no matter how you look at it. I have had another absolute skullbash of a situation with Gigabyte once on a dead motherboard - I forget what the outcome was, but I was juggled around person to person just to get in touch with somebody competent. If I remember correctly, they ended up replacing my motherboard with a brand new one after I spent HOURS AND HOURS going up the chain explaining my case over and OVER AND OVER!! lol

As for videocards, I actually had a real good outcome with PNY. I had a 8800GT that was getting artifacts due to defective stock fan not working properly. They ended up replacing it with a brand new 8800GT on my first phone-call (replaced one is the one I still have working very good). XFX - I had a good RMA (replaced it with an old used one, but I didn't complain). I know couple people that had bad RMAs but one of them is still a XFX-fanatic. I guess it is a relative to case-by-case situation.

Never dealt with eVGA in a rma situation though. All I hear is good stuff about them. I guess we will see how my used eVGA GTX285 goes if I ever have to RMA it through original buyer (no jinx!!)
 
Warranties at the manufacturer are largely useless with most companies, so what you really need is a product that works to start with. This is about the least likely with Asus and Sapphire, so those are really the companies to avoid. If you get a faulty card in the US, it's tough luck really, often you'll just need to buy another - at least in the UK you get a 12 month retail warranty period you can usually use. Why the US does not have such a law is beyond me.
 
Lets face it folks.

Industrial civilization has peaked and is now entering a period of terminal decline.

From here on out more and more shit will be delivered broken and companies will be more and more interested in the next fiscal quarter's return than building long term customer base, as if they are not already.

Opportunities exist in this environment for enterprising upstarts that can actually deliver the goods. They will, however, face serious challenges sourcing component parts that are not themselves garbage.

Just get used to it and organize your life accordingly.
 
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jojo69 said:
Lets face it folks.

Industrial civilization has peaked and is now entering a period of terminal decline.

From here on out more ans more shit will be delivered broken and companies will be more and more interested in the next fiscal quarter's return than building long term customer base, as if they are not already.

Opportunities exist in this environment for enterprising upstarts that can actually deliver the goods. They will, however, face serious challenges sourcing component parts that are not themselves garbage.

Just get used to it and organize your life accordingly.
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You can tell all that from someone's XFX warranty experience?
 
no, not at all

it manifests in almost every aspect of my sourcing endeavors at this point

everything is garbage and nobody cares
 
jojo69 said:
no, not at all

it manifests in almost every aspect of my sourcing endeavors at this point

everything is garbage and nobody cares
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pretty much.. no longer is it the days that they build shit to last 10+ years. all they care is it works long enough to get the next updated product out. i mean hell my 7 year old athlon XP-M 2400+ laptop is still kicking and refuses to die, yet i've gone through 5 other laptops in the last 3 years.
 
jojo69 said:
no, not at all

it manifests in almost every aspect of my sourcing endeavors at this point

everything is garbage and nobody cares
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It scares me how pessimistic you are.. because you mirror me exactly.
 
Saabjock said:
images
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Clearly user error. :D

I had to RMA my 6950 because it was getting these vertical lines when running almost anything 3D, it took about 2 weeks total and I ended up getting a slight upgrade(6950 from XFX with the better cooler). I even got the initial response with 10 minutes. It seems to just sort of be luck with whichever employee you end up dealing with...
 
uniten said:
Lately I have been using ATI and I wish eVGA made ATI cards :/..only ones with lifetime warranty is XFX and VisionTek..anyone know how good visionTek is?
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I bought 2 of the VisionTek 4870x2 refurb cards that TD was selling a little while ago. One turned out to be faulty and then completely died while I was testing it. I RMA'd it and the sent me a 6870.

They then let me RMA the second card to get another 6870 so I could still run CFX.

Total turn around for the first card was about 2 weeks including shipping due to only emailing back and forth to work out the details of the replacement. Turn around for the second card was right about 1 week for the second card including shipping.

Both of the replacement cards were in like new shape.
 
Z06 said:
This is why i Only buy EVGA. Even if it means being stuck with Nvidia product's. I have peace of Mind with EVGA and there Customer Service. I have never had a negative experience with them.
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While EVGA does have good customer service I have had to warranty every, single item I have ever bought from them - Socket939 mobo, and two different 7900GTs. One of the cards I had to RMA twice.

But I will hand it to them, they made each RMA a fairly easy process.
 
Hostile said:
While EVGA does have good customer service I have had to warranty every, single item I have ever bought from them - Socket939 mobo, and two different 7900GTs. One of the cards I had to RMA twice.

But I will hand it to them, they made each RMA a fairly easy process.
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I have extensive RMA experience with EVGA. I also have had to RMA almost every item I have gotten from them, but each RMA was always simple and straightforward. That is why I kept going back for a long time. However, the old customer service manager left the company because they changed their customer service policies. At that point I pretty much stopped buying from them.
 
 
xfx is really not that bad, the only problem I have with them is there techs are a bit on the lessor side. The seem to do things about the same as all the other companies. The only guys that I have ever really had a hard time with was sapphire and thats more because I felt they were belittling me.

I have owned give or take 800-1000 computers from over the last 8 years and have pretty much had to deal with every company out there. For the most part anything under 150 bucks current value is not really worth RMA'ing, its normally easier to throw it out then to deal with shipping charges and the wait. Really I think warranties for the average guy is pretty over rated. People here like them because they all have 2-3 desktops/laptops kicking around so they don't really mind that much if one goes down for 2-3 weeks. but for the normal guy when there computer dies they are sol, so they normally just buy a replacement part or a whole new system.
 
Hostile said:
While EVGA does have good customer service I have had to warranty every, single item I have ever bought from them - Socket939 mobo, and two different 7900GTs. One of the cards I had to RMA twice.

But I will hand it to them, they made each RMA a fairly easy process.
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The only video card that I've ever had major headaches with is my EVGA GTX 280, which has been warrantied 4 times in a 10 month span. The 4th time it went out, EVGA replaced it with a GTX 470. Each RMA process was very easy and hassle free. Whenever Kepler comes out, EVGA will be my brand of choice.
 
jorojr said:
The only video card that I've ever had major headaches with is my EVGA GTX 280, which has been warrantied 4 times in a 10 month span. The 4th time it went out, EVGA replaced it with a GTX 470. Each RMA process was very easy and hassle free. Whenever Kepler comes out, EVGA will be my brand of choice.
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And you think 4 times in 10 months is a good thing?
 
4 times in 10 months is a horrible thing. It didn't bother me as much as it was only a PC in my guest bedroom. My point is EVGA's customer service has been better than most companies I've dealt with.
 
Met-AL said:
Makes me think of the PC it was repeatedly put back into as the culprit.
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That's what I thought initially. I switched it from a system with a Q6600/X38 to P45 board to an I5/P55 system and the results were always the same. The power supplies were the PCP&C 750, Antec 650. I never OC'ed the card, but after a few months the cards would always start to artifact like the OP's friend.

Edit: I also thought I was getting "dirty power" so I bought a UPS, and stil no luck. Just bad luck with the card.
 
Yeah, I stay away from XFX anyways. Just the capital X, and the F, and the X... Grrr there's just something about it!
 
Yeah they are on my no-buy list after my xfx 4870 would only work underclocked(black screen system lockups in all games). I have a feeling it's cheaper/bottom bin memory on the cards as I found many XFX owners of various models suffering the same. Their cards are always on special and the lowest price versions of most models where I shop, and I guess that's a hint at the quality you get.
 
The hardware quality of XFX cards is actually a lot higher than a few other brands like Asus and Sapphire (clue: look at all the components on the card, not just the memory chips). XFX don't employ a full quality control check, so obviously a fair few DOAs slip through the net. They still, as far as I know, test a higher percentage of cards manufactured than some other brands though.
 
idk about XFX, never dealt with them. But, I know ASUS is awesome to deal with and MSI is a close 2nd in my exp.
 
I was always a little wary of Asus support from how poorly their website was run. I know websites aren't everything, but running dialup speed driver servers isn't really a great start. MSI seems to perform better, but both of those companies have a horrendous corporate attitude, as do pretty much all technology hardware companies. You can never say any of them are 'great to deal with' because the reality is they're all very poor.
 
I have to disagree sam. I have had multiple RMA's with ASUS, MSi, and Corsair, and have yet to have a problem! Heck, with ASUS I get my replacement before I even send the defective GPU or mobo. I love the cross-ship option ASUS has on the higher end components :)
 
samuelmorris said:
I was always a little wary of Asus support from how poorly their website was run. I know websites aren't everything, but running dialup speed driver servers isn't really a great start.
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LOL, no kidding. ASUS has the worst website.
 
SpeedwayNative said:
I have to disagree sam. I have had multiple RMA's with ASUS, MSi, and Corsair, and have yet to have a problem! Heck, with ASUS I get my replacement before I even send the defective GPU or mobo. I love the cross-ship option ASUS has on the higher end components :)
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Fortunately since in the UK we get a 12 month retail warranty we often don't have to deal with the manufacturer warranty, since the 6-9 month shelf life of Asus products doesn't stretch beyond the period within which we can just use a retail warranty and deal with it at the shop we bought the product from. Even if the replacement process was easy though, I'd much sooner not have to replace my motherboard every few months, so I stopped using Asus.
 
Met-AL said:
LOL, no kidding. ASUS has the worst website.
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We should offer to host Asus website on a FIOS connection, cause agreed, whatever its on in Taiwan, makes me cry.

+1 for XFX, 2 cards in sig + 4890 I sold a few months back. 0 issues, 0 problems. RMA with anyone is an agonizing
bag of fail. I RMA'd a 750GB WD Black drive from a RAID0, they send me back...1GB WD Blue. I felt shafted.
 
I used to bounce around on hardware vendors to test the waters, I had a few decent RMA experiences, and a few terrible ones, and two outstanding ones. One being Amazon (Kindle) and the other being EVGA, since then I've bought nothing but EVGA mobos/vid cards, and I haven't had a complaint since.
 
Any company can have an off-day on customer service. I don't judge them solely on one experience.
Electronic parts can and do fail from time to time...even when new. I get that. While this represents an inconvenience to the buyer, it's how the company responds afterward that's the deciding factor as to whether I do business with them again.

XFX clearly dropped the ball on this occasion. They should have been ashamed to send the card that went out to him. I couldn't believe it when I saw it.The HD5870-6 he sent them was pristine...having been used very little.

It was horrible to tell him they'd send him a new card, then send a used "dud" after all the time and hassle he went through to finalize the RMA.
That's as bad as it gets.
 
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The saga continues. Here's their response to his calling them out for sending a "defective" used HD6950;

12/1/2011 6:10:31 PM] The 5870 you sent us worked perfectly here, but we replaced the card for you anyway. We even replaced it with a completely different model. If you`re still having issues at this point it isn`t the card. Graphical issues can be caused by motherboard and/or power supply.
[ 12/3/2011 7:11:08 PM] The replacement HD6950 is defective.It exhibited artifacting right at installation. It has now been replaced with two known working cards fron both camps Nvidia as well as AMD)...neither of which exhibited the vertical lines and artifacting. As to the original HD5870-6...that card would only have an issue after two+ hours of heavy graphics testing. I can supply you with images of the test...including fan static readings under load. I can also supply you with screenshots of the initial boot screens on inserting the HD6950.Thank you.
 
You sent back a working card that only had issues after you overheated it for two hours? I would have just installed a copy of MSI Afterburner or Speedfan and turned up the fan. Sounds like they don't test them for two hours to see if the card is broke, but in their defense they did send you a new one back even so.

Too bad it was shot when you got it.

No dice on getting the card fixed yet?
 
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xyeLz said:
Yeah, I stay away from XFX anyways. Just the capital X, and the F, and the X... Grrr there's just something about it!
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Does my username incite you to anger?

I've been TKed in games right at the beginning of the round completely unprovoked just because of my name. People have this huge bias against 'xNamex' handles. Makes the kills I get all the more sweet.
 
Met-AL said:
You sent back a working card that only had issues after you overheated it for two hours? I would have just installed a copy of MSI Afterburner or Speedfan and turned up the fan. Sounds like they don't test them for two hours to see if the card is broke, but in their defense they did send you a new one back even so.

Too bad it was shot when you got it.

No dice on getting the card fixed yet?
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Not sure I like the use of the words "you overheated". That somehow suggest he did something wrong....which he did not. The card belongs to a friend of mine and no, he has not got it resolved months in.
 
Steps to get great customer service:

KEEP A WRITTEN RECORD OF YOUR EFFORTS FROM DAY 1.

1) Start with the low-life that answers the phone. Get their name and direct number if available. Be polite but FIRM, letting them know that you will not accept any mickey-mouse bullshit excuses or delays. The second they act like they dont want to really help you, ask for a supervisor. Get their name & number also.

2) Once you have supervisor on the line, repeat the above. Give them a firm but reasonable deadline (NOT 8 or 12 weeks! ) for resolving your issue and dont back off from it once established. Continue ESCALATING upwards through the food chain until you reach a real manager/exec that actually has the authority to make decisions & get something done. Be polite but FIRM.

3) If your issue is not resolved by this time, contact your Attorney General's office, the local Consumer Affairs agency, the BBB and any other advocate agencies you have in your state to file formal complaints. Inform the last person you speak to that you have taken these actions, and fax or email them your record of your attempts to resolve this issue, and that your next step is to turn the whole thing over to your Lawyer within 48 hours.

This approach has worked for me repeatedly for over 20 years (most recently on 11/28) no exceptions :D
 
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