Be Forewarned: Asus RMA is atrocious and getting worse.

I'm sure those of you whom have been paying close attention are already aware of the steep decline in ASUS RMA/Warranty coverage. My story will only further re-enforce that negative image ASUS has worked so hard to maintain. Anyone thinking of buying there boards understand this, ASUS if possible will use any dirty, low ball tactic to try and deny RMA and make you pay for a used repaired board.

Below is a post I created Yesterday over at Overclock describing my story with ASUS RMA department:

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I just want to say before I even begin to explain my situation which is relatively straight forward, that I was becoming aware due to many posts here on Overclock in the past year or so of all the problems people were having with asus RMA and customer support. While I was beginning to become weary or shall I say cautious of purchasing my future upgrade from them, I was not entirely swayed from discontinuing being a loyal customer of there's. My story will only further re-enforce what many have been saying here about the decline of ASUS's RMA service.

Well low and behold, 4 days ago My beloved P8P67 Pro died on me while I was in the middle of browsing the internet. I immediately troubled shot my PC and determined rather quickly that it was my Mobo that had died. When I plugged in the 6 pin, the board would not turn on. I can only assume that maybe the power regulator or vrm's to the cpu must have malfunctioned. My system has been running mostly 24/7 since I purchased it. Anyhow, no problem I think, I'll just take it out of my case and drive over to Asus RMA centre here in Toronto, Canada and drop it off for RMA. I dropped the board off on Thursday and today I get an email from ASUS explaining to me that my mobo has died due to customer fault. They are claiming I scratched a trace on the board. Here is the except below.



Now here's the problem with Asus's cliam. My P8p67Pro was purchased 2 1/2 years installed in my system, and was never touched or removed. The only thing I ever did was change the graphics card 3-4 weeks ago and once that was done the board was never touched again. How then could it have been scratched and yet fully functional only then for it to die suddenly in the middle of use.

I am extremely angry here. I feel cheated by them, as if they are trying to wiggle there way out of replacing my EOL(End of Line) board. I don't even know where to find a sandybride P68 or Z68 board if push comes to shove. What is the purpose of a company offering a warranty if when it becomes inconvenient for them to replace it to then just decided to stop offering it by trying to pin the blame on the customer, rather then on there cost saving manufacturing decisions . Gotta love the old tried, tested and true "The Customer Scratched the Board" tactic. The Board was not Scratched when it was in my system functioning and was not the cause of it's fault. Motherboard's don't just get up and scratch themselves.
To add further insult, they have the gull to try and charge me $120 plus + and additional $20 shipping fee(which is supposed to be free BTW) for a RMA replacement board. Like Hell I'd do that.

I swear to GOD if they try to screw me over, I will never touch ASUS again and will not recommend them any more to my friends and colleges. I feel like a schmuck here. I can already see the writing on the wall here. Even if hypothetically I am able to managed and work this issue out with these guys it will me months before I even see a replacement. I am purely basing this off the experiences of others whom have had the unfortunately opportunity of being denied RMA under bogus claims by the manufacturer.

I hope Asus is happy to lose another long time loyal customer of there's. I was a huge fan of there mobo's. Sadly I am now going to have to start looking at ASROCK and Gigabyte, maybe even MSI as alternatives.

Fellow members, based on your own experiences having conflicts with RMA, especially with ASUS, How would you recommend I go about dealing with this issue. What recourse of action do I have?

---------------------------------------------------------------------------UPDATE /01/14/14------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Well it appears that ASUS has really gone down the gutter. Cause they just responded back to me today after I contested the claim of CID( Customer Induced Damage) as the reason for failure.

Here was my response to the above message I posted in the screen shot above

I am having an extremely hard time excepting the claim that motherboard failure is a result of CID and for good reason. The board in question was installed 2 years ago and remained encased in the computer ever since. Furthermore the motherboard died on me while I was surfing the net. Therefore how can a CID scratch be the result. Since if that were the case the system would not have shut off in the middle of over 5 hours continues use. I personally dropped the motherboard off at the RMA department in Markham and before I did, I thoroughly checked the board for any signs of burnt components or any physical damage and I could not see of any. I would kindly ask that you have your repair re-examined my board and be certain that failure is not the result of another cause. Simply put, scratch on trace appears to be dubious at best. It just does not add up or make any logical sense based on the circumstances prior to failure. Also if you can please make certain and double check that the board I handed over is the correct one that is being claimed to have been physically damaged. I would also like to request that pictures of the claimed damage be taken and email to me so that I may have the opportunity to see them myself.

Click to expand...

Asus's response below"



Here is the picture they took after I requested proof.




here you have it folks!!!

ASUS--->The damage may not be the reason the board defective. But our policy is we cannot take back any damaged board to replace under warranty.

They don't care what the actual reason for the boards actual failure was, if they see any cosmetic damage no matter how slight or even if it's not related to the cause of failure they then have grounds to dismiss your RMA and make the claim of no longer being held liable to honour the warranty.

Never-mind the fact that the minor scratch shown in the picture was not present on the board before I handed it over to them. Asus is clearly using any sneaky loop hole tactics they can think off to avoid honouring warranty coverage to there customer's. This is despicable.

Not sure where to go from here now.

Escalation Mailbox http://www.service.asus.com/#!escalation-mailbox/c1scx

Ask to speak to higher tier?

Also we all know how this is going to play out. They will continue to jerk me around for weeks on end. I am still out of a computer and will shortly be forced to end up buying a different mobo to replace my P8P67 Pro since I can't wait months to force these crooks to abide by there warranty.

=====================================================================================

Asus IN SEARCH OF INCREDIBLE BULLSHIT

I'd ask to speak to someone higher up the chain. That is pretty low of 'em.

I know a lot of people have been having issues with Newegg as of late, but when ASUS screwed me over on an RMA (sent me a physically damaged board as a replacement - edge of board was scratched badly AND a surface mount capacitor was missing - the board lasted a whole week before it completely died), Newegg had me send them the link to the support ticket in which ASUS basically told me to pound sand by putting "Close!" in the ticket and then closed it.

Newegg then refunded me the original price of my board that I had purchased from them close to 2 years before that.

So, if in fact your board was not scratched before you handed it to them, there may be other courses of action you can take.

I will never buy another ASUS product again. I also make it a point to make sure to warn other people about ASUS.

P67
http://3btech.net/msip6bso11wi.html

These have a good reputation,

Subscribed.

Did you ship your board to Jeffersonville, Indiana initially?

There is an entire thread on here about how bad ASUS customer support is so this isn't surprising heh.

I understand what they are saying I really do as they should not have to replace something that has had physical damage to it on their dime as they sent it in pristine condition, but hey all it takes is for them to put a scratch on it and they paid a tech what 2 seconds at $15/hr to put that scratch and in aspect walked away profitable $100+ for something they should be replacing.

For this, if they are saying more or less in plain English, the scratch probably has nothing to do with the failure, well then, replace the mofo board or why have a premium price for a product that you have no intention of supporting.

Sad really. I feel for you. I highly recommend MSI myself, I have done RMA to Asus and MSI both, and in my case, MSI was easily the better of the 2 for speed and profficency in communication and when the product went from me to them and back., do yourself a favor though, if you are think Asrock, you think you have issues with Asus LOL that's all I am saying and am sure many others would support this, Asrock, Powercolor, Visiontek, Gigabyte(unless its a high end model) I wouldn`t touch with a 10 foot pole, Sapphire and XFX are both hit and miss, EVGA apparently is the best to deal with for RMA type things out of all tech related companies, I have to say Silverstone and Corsair as well.

Yeh price might be right but only 90 day warranty, I am quite positive the "new" full 2 year full 3 year parts is not much more.

Sucks about your issue with Asus. One of my MSI boards was damaged (not exactly sure how, probably during shipping, corner was semi-crushed in), but MSI only charged me $30 to repair a crushed in PCB.

Any Z77 board should work with your SB CPU.

I think everyone on here already knows that Asus rma is a fuckin nightmare.

Decent company with decent products but better known for its fuckup of an rma system.

Edit,

I stopped using Asus a couple years ago due to its dumass rma, email correspondence was terrible, sent emails to uk support and got replies in fucking chinese, in the end I had to contact asus notebook support in the netherlands just to get a replacement desktop mobo fan, after three fan failures I decided I was no longer gunna play the asus rma lotto anymore.

Started using gigabyte and havent looked back since.

I'm having a very positive experience so far with my first MSI motherboard RMA. Asus can suck my ass.

Here I am, the lone guy here that has had incredible RMA service with them. They got it back to me in like 7 days and gave me a brand new Rampage IV Extreme.

*shrugs*

I had a good experience with Asus RMA as well. I had an M4A87TD-EVO that crapped out. Got a new one in a week.

Sucks. You are getting the full bent over in the butt Asus treatment. I don't buy Asus anymore. Keep us updated.

The only real experience I had with an RMA for them was when I had a brand new 6870 at the time, I killed my motherboard by accident and very much explained what happened to them, the email took a few days to get back to me but the repair guy said "no problems, you explained what happened even though it could be considered your fault the gpu might have gotten cooked, if we test it and it is the gpu that died, we will replace it for a tested unit and ship it back to you no problem, you have to pay to ship to us but we will take care of you after that"

I never did ship the card back to them as when I got my new motherboard (another Asus) it worked fine, and still does to this day ~5 years now (well 5 years on the motherboard and 3 months after release for 6870, swapped cooler on it, my brother now uses it and works as good as it did when I bought it)

Either way, keep us updated, myself I am using MSI for my Radeons now, as they seem to have better reviews for the card cooling and overclocking then competing Asus cards AND tend to be last costly with much faster response time even if it costs a bit more to ship it to them.

Yeah this is normal, ASUS reject warranties for everything.

There is a long thread on this forum about ASUS rejecting a warranty replacement because the card had a known design defect.

And then the ASUS rep told the guy to stop posting or else.

ASUS products come with no warranty.

Utterly shit customer service and support.

dragonstongue said:

I understand what they are saying I really do as they should not have to replace something that has had physical damage to it on their dime as they sent it in pristine condition, but hey all it takes is for them to put a scratch on it and they paid a tech what 2 seconds at $15/hr to put that scratch and in aspect walked away profitable $100+ for something they should be replacing.

For this, if they are saying more or less in plain English, the scratch probably has nothing to do with the failure, well then, replace the mofo board or why have a premium price for a product that you have no intention of supporting.

Sad really. I feel for you. I highly recommend MSI myself, I have done RMA to Asus and MSI both, and in my case, MSI was easily the better of the 2 for speed and profficency in communication and when the product went from me to them and back., do yourself a favor though, if you are think Asrock, you think you have issues with Asus LOL that's all I am saying and am sure many others would support this, Asrock, Powercolor, Visiontek, Gigabyte(unless its a high end model) I wouldn`t touch with a 10 foot pole, Sapphire and XFX are both hit and miss, EVGA apparently is the best to deal with for RMA type things out of all tech related companies, I have to say Silverstone and Corsair as well.

Click to expand...

Visiontek has awesome RMA service. I bought a couple refurb 4870x2 card quite a while ago on Tiger Direct. One of them ended up being defective. Visiontek had me send in both 4870x2 cards and they replaced them with 6870s. Turn around was super quick as well.

I'm going to attempt to speak with someone higher up. However I doubt this is going to do any good. I will definitely be asking for my board back. Cause I guarantee you if I leave with them, they will repair the faulty portion, which is most likely to do with he VRM's or cpu power section and use it as a refurb to some unsuspecting customer. I'll be damn if they try to use my so called unrepairable board to for them to profit from.

Spazturtle said:

Yeah this is normal, ASUS reject warranties for everything.

There is a long thread on this forum about ASUS rejecting a warranty replacement because the card had a known design defect.

And then the ASUS rep told the guy to stop posting or else.

ASUS products come with no warranty.

Utterly shit customer service and support.

Click to expand...

CID is at the discretion of the tech who gets the board for diagnosing/repair.

so visiontek got you to send 2 4870x2(four 4870s) for 2 6870 and that's a good deal? I guess if your happy that's what counts purely on spec 6870 will handle higher res somewhat easier and be able to use AA better well provided it isn't Frostbite based AA but beyond this 4870x2 are definitely more powerful as 6870 is a "tweaked" but also lesser performing 5870 and a 5870 just had an edge on 4870x2 really.

anyways
quote
There is a long thread on this forum about ASUS rejecting a warranty replacement because the card had a known design defect.

If asus is pulling this crap then folks need to stop supporting them for motherboards and gpu at minimum they are suing their position to ensure higher numbers and when you ship 10s of millions on units and only 10000 or so people get frustrated then no loss to them, Gigabyte did the same not many years back now as did XFX apparently change their ways in this regard but seriously.

I forget the motherboard maker who is totally sealing their board in a coating to prevent liquid and dust contamination but they should all do this this way here they are 100% ensuring it is in proper shape leaving factory AND make sure customer signs off when they receive it to ensure their resellers are not giving them a bad name AND if their tech support are being dickheads they need to be reprimanded harshly as after all the vast majority of these tech based products are not throw away disposable cutlery.

Spazturtle said:

ASUS products come with no warranty.

Utterly shit customer service and support.

Click to expand...

True words. When buying asus, you're essentially buying something without a warranty, sadly.

The Asus board I have now I got used and will be my last (it was the only thing that fit my needs on the market at the time). I still have a P8P67 Pro in the closet that up and died one day like yours, I didn't bother sending it in though. I learned my lesson with my $360 P9X79 Pro board, the on-board audio died and I sent it in extremely well packed after seeing some threads on here about them claiming damage in shipping, took pictures and everything with a timestamp. They had it for 4-6 weeks and then I get an email saying it is on its way back. I thought everything was good, but no. It showed up in an inside-out motherboard box, loose with a fist full of packing peanuts thrown at it. It had damaged edges and the audio still didn't work, plus the service paperwork that was crumpled up inside was completely blank. They didn't do anything at all, just threw it in a shitty box and sent it back after a month and a half.

old news

I was an ASUS fan...see sig

will not be risking it again

To the OP - I have sent you a PM with email addresses of the CLM team. Send your details on to them with RMA case numbers and a full description.

-Raja

The damage may not be the reason the board defective. But our policy is we cannot take back any damaged board to replace under warranty.

Click to expand...

Reading between the lines... "Asus will only do warranty replacements as long as the product is in perfect working condition and looks unused, or basically brand new. So that Asus can resell it to rip others off in return again." Or something like... "Asus will only give you a warranty replacement if the board is unused."

Respond with this: "Hi Asus, I've also used the standard PC screws to hold down the motherboard on the computer, but I bet when screwing down the board small scratches could also occur at the mounting hole. Could you please charge me another $120 for each micro scratch you can find on the mounting holes ? Also when I insert a video card, it may have also scratched the PCIe slots in the inside, could you please charge me that too ? I've also mounted the standard processor cooling which could highly likely bend the motherboard slightly due to mounting pressure, please charge me more for that please ? Kind regards, a very happy and loyal Asus customer"

I've learned when dealing with ASUS is you clean the board properly, make a picture of every square inch of the board and write a note "Dear Asus support, don't fek me over this. I know your shitty RMA and technician reputation, and I have everything in evidence that there are no visible damages or bent pins, unless your crappy technicians caused it.", then include a copy of the pictures. So far all of the board I've sent for RMA with them has gone through with success everytime I do this.

tonyftw said:

True words. When buying asus, you're essentially buying something without a warranty, sadly.

Click to expand...

I'm very confused. How is this even remotely true?

Just a few months ago, I was overclocking my Rampage IV Extreme when something failed in the VRMs. The board would no longer post. I filled out an RMA, they sent me the shipping info, I sent it in. In about 7 days I had a brand new board. The process was smooth and seamless.

How can there be SUCH a discrepency on what people "claim" on here vs. my actual experience???

To me, Asus did a fantastic job. I've been using their motherboards for 15+ years without a single issue.

Regardless of what everyone feels about ASUS, there's a lesson to be learned.

When you go to send in an RMA, photograph your item from all angles, make sure there is a time stamp on the photos.

The OP has an argument, but has no way to dispute the findings that ASUS is using to dismiss his claim.

We've all seen ASUS use this excuse before, it's pretty worn out by now.

But I think it's pretty clear at this point, there are dozens of threads just like this one.
ASUS favorite excuse for rejecting an RMA is CID, which is essentially bullschizzle when dealing with enthusiasts who take exceptional care of their equipment.

Sprayingmango said:

I'm very confused. How is this even remotely true?

Just a few months ago, I was overclocking my Rampage IV Extreme when something failed in the VRMs. The board would no longer post. I filled out an RMA, they sent me the shipping info, I sent it in. In about 7 days I had a brand new board. The process was smooth and seamless.

How can there be SUCH a discrepency on what people "claim" on here vs. my actual experience???

To me, Asus did a fantastic job. I've been using their motherboards for 15+ years without a single issue.

Click to expand...

Same experience here. Asus was easy to deal with the only time I have had to rma something to them.

Just a question, if you damage the cpu socket pins, is it fixable by sending back to warranty service? I have a z77 with about 20 bent pins.

jhatfie said:

Same experience here. Asus was easy to deal with the only time I have had to rma something to them.

Click to expand...

Maybe that 3 year warranty they put on their stuff is really only good for 1? I don't know how old his board is, but if replacements are few they might be more prone to ducking their commitment to support it.

Twingo said:

Just a question, if you damage the cpu socket pins, is it fixable by sending back to warranty service? I have a z77 with about 20 bent pins.

Click to expand...

Most likely yes, they will inspect it and let you know how much it will cost for repairs.

Twingo said:

Just a question, if you damage the cpu socket pins, is it fixable by sending back to warranty service? I have a z77 with about 20 bent pins.

Click to expand...

If you damaged the pins or not.....that would be customer-induced-damage.....not covered under warranty.
They might fix it, but you would have to pay for it. All of it.

Switched to MSI and Gigabyte quite some time ago, ASUS rma isn't worth the hassle..its always the same BS... physical damage... we want money

Raja@ASUS said:

To the OP - I have sent you a PM with email addresses of the CLM team. Send your details on to them with RMA case numbers and a full description.

-Raja

Click to expand...

Raja, I appreciate your effort in helping me get in touch with the right people. I will try to pursue this avenue.

Asus has been garbage ever since the ROG and Maximus boards debuted. I even have them the benefit of doubt and ordered their matrix plat 280x which arrived doa.

Aside from their monitors, I wouldn't consider them for anything else.

Photos of every inch of the board, when this crap comes up, show them the photo you have of the section in question, with the date post marked in the corner as well, they can't argue against a photo prior to shipping, and you could take it to consumer mediation if they continue to BS you.

well unfortunately it may go to an "asus" authorized repair place, but that does not 100% mean it is seen by professionals everytime, could be a kid that missed with screw driver or some such thing, they cover it, fire him, then lay blame on customer.

But yes that is the very best solution, pictures pictures pictures at least there is legal recourse if such things occur anyways be it vs the shipping company or against the repair place in question, they should coat the board in something that will change color if gouged hard to argue with then and if the pictures do not show this coloring then obviously blame would not lie with shipping customer as only they would know the coloring agent

As for bent pins, had buddies do this and apparently is a hell of a pita for the "new" sockets Intel uses due to the massive amount of pins at an odd angle in different directions, they have had success in using a pencil erase(on the back end of the actual pencil) and taking their sweet ass time to unbend, now if you did bend the pins would it be cheaper to send it to them this way or attempt to unbend said pins yourself especially if you have a "cheap" cpu to test it with? I really think the new sockets are cool but honestly all it would take is a slight manufacturer defect and pins slightly off to short the board then it guaranteed would be a blame game "DUDE it came this way" "it is CID it shipped from the factory fine" problem is how can a customer prove it, and how much good faith should companies use? Cause let's face it, people can be real douches in admitting if they have done wrong, honesty is an extremely rare commodity as is common sense

Hopefully Raja can help you get this sorted out, I do not see him post much, but I have seen him post here occasionally as well as places like newegg and such.

magoo said:

Regardless of what everyone feels about ASUS, there's a lesson to be learned.

When you go to send in an RMA, photograph your item from all angles, make sure there is a time stamp on the photos.

The OP has an argument, but has no way to dispute the findings that ASUS is using to dismiss his claim.

We've all seen ASUS use this excuse before, it's pretty worn out by now.

But I think it's pretty clear at this point, there are dozens of threads just like this one.
ASUS favorite excuse for rejecting an RMA is CID, which is essentially bullschizzle when dealing with enthusiasts who take exceptional care of their equipment.

Click to expand...

THIS. Any shipment, to anyone, gets photographed in high-def from a bunch of angles. It takes an extra 5 minutes, but it gives me assurance that any shipping or recieving issues can be resolved to my benefit. I toss the image files into a dedicated folder on one of my machines and flush it every month or so.

Print out the photos, put them in the box with the RMA along with a note that says "I'M WATCHING YOU".
This thread has taught me that if any of my ASUS products fail, apparently I need to go public with it in order to get any help from ASUS.

Raja@ASUS said:

To the OP - I have sent you a PM with email addresses of the CLM team. Send your details on to them with RMA case numbers and a full description.

-Raja

Click to expand...

I'm sorry you have to absorb all this Raja, you have always been cool, but the situation is pretty out of hand...there is a real reason people are pissed.