Sapphire RMA buyer beware

hec4mu

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I recently (last week) sent in two video cards (R9 280x toxic) for Rma both having fan/bearing problems. It would make noise caused by the fan hitting against the side. I received a phone call today saying that my package was damaged due to a puncture in the box and one of the cards will not be replaced and that I would need to contact my shipper (usps) to file an insurance claim. I initially asked him why he was calling me today instead of as soon as he received the package and knew of this supposed incident when the shipping was only supposed to take two days (From California to California priority express). He tells me that they received it earlier but he just now received the package himself. He concludes by saying that he will send pictures of the package so I will be able to make a claim with the shipping provider. The phone call ended there with instructions on how to go about making a claim.

After a few minutes the pictures were emailed to me and the box it self look like it was forcefully pried open with a hammer or crow bar almost as if it was stabbed to death. The box was in horrible condition and it just didn't look like it was accidental handling damage from the shipper. I called the phone number back and got a non English speaking person and was shortly transferred back to the "rma manager." I told him that what he had told me and the condition of the box in the pictures it just didn't look reasonable and he responds with an annoyed tone that "if you had packaged it more efficiently and used foam peanuts, than this might not have happened. He goes on to say that my package was "loose" and the cards moved around a lot. So then I went on to say well I thought this was due to the shipper's handling and pointed out the huge contradiction from his two different explanations. In addition, I told him that my packaging was very secure in bubble bags and padded bubble wrap packages where there would be NO possibility of movement from the cards within the box. I furthermore asked him why it took so long to contact me and he goes on to tell me that his RMA department initially received the packaged and it was then escalated to him, as this is where he introduces himself as the "RMA manager." I went on to ask him if he had initially opened the box himself after the rma dept. received it and he says he had not. It was opened by the rma dept. then sent up to him. So I further asked him how he knew exactly 100% that my packaging was "loose" and not in "efficient" manner when he was not the one that opened the box himself. I asked him if it was a possibility that the person that initially opened it packaged the box EXACTLY the way I did when sending it up to him, the manager. I pointed out his contradictions and told him that he shouldn't blame the customer when he wasn't even the one to initially receive that package.

This is where he starts getting really annoyed and angry after pointing out his faults in his story and starts talking over me and shouting for the next 4-5 mins in which I cannot get another word in. He then concludes by saying "whether it was your fault or ours there is nothing we will do but replace one card and to go file a claim with the shipping company."

Not sure if the "RMA manager" is Tony but the email I received was from [email protected]
I have been a long time supporter of sapphire cards and never had a problem with sapphire cards until now. This is my first time experience sapphire rma and will be my last. I will no longer purchase any sapphire cards as long as Sapphire outsources their RMA work to althon micro.

I should state that the cards when purchased we're about $450 each and in hindsight for my own sake should have purchased $900 worth of insurance. The default insurance is only $100. So losing out $350 really blows but what made it 100x worse is the "customer service" and attitude of the "rma department" of althon micro. Furthermore in hindsight, I should have just replaced the fans on the cards myself. There was nothing wrong with the cards but the fans. Only reason I didn't was because I still had at least a year of warranty and read that messing with a fan voids warranty. I've never had a package damaged and my negligence of not purchasing the sufficient amount of insurance is my fault. I'm not 100% certain that it wasn't a shipping accident and also cannot say that althon micron did/did not sabotage my package/cards but what I can for 100% certainty say is that this rma department is very shady, rude, and unprofessional.

I hope that this story can help other people in their future purchasing decisions.
 
Sorry to hear that mate :( I'm praying that my RMA MSI 780 that's arriving today after being sent across the country the wrong way by MSI's RMA department is not wrecked.

Been waiting 15 days since it was shipped for it to go ONE state east (CA to AZ)

Customer service ain't what it used to be.
 
FU..

Man, I'm sorry to hear this story, but I always go with insurance to cover my pc parts when shipping. Having moved back and forth from the USVI, I've learned that spending money for the insurance is really important. First time shipping 3 PCs down, I had, miraculously, only a broken Enermax 500W PSU. Another time, shipping to an eBay buyer, he received a broken HD5870. Shipping my brother's PC down to him -- he ended up w/a bent side panel on his case, but said it was okay to just skip going through the hassle. In all of these cases, I spent a good bit of money and/or time on packaging these items properly with newspaper, bubble wrap, open cell styrofoam, double boxed, etc...

I'm really sorry that you are going through this PITA hassle and I hope this company gets enough outrage to come around and give you some kind of break.
 
this is why I can't come around to buying AMD. I've spoiled by EVGA and there isn't any AMD manufacturer that can offer the same level of service as EVGA. I've had multiple EVGA RMAs over the years and they have always been polite and helpful
 
hec4mu, that does suck. Any chance to see the picture of the damage here? I'm really curious about seeing what you described. If not no biggie. This is where the consumer is screwed. You get a company, a manager no less, to say 'Sorry, we are not going to help you. You are screwed.' Not a lot you can do if they ignore the complaining you do at them. Most bad customer service departments know if they ignore you long enough the customer will go away. They really dont care about their rep I guess.
 
this is why I can't come around to buying AMD. I've spoiled by EVGA and there isn't any AMD manufacturer that can offer the same level of service as EVGA. I've had multiple EVGA RMAs over the years and they have always been polite and helpful

Spoiled by EVGA! They sent my friend 4 defective video cards in a row! They were my favorite vendor up until that fiasco, what a colossal.waste of time for him. Now I won't even buy from them.
 
this is why I can't come around to buying AMD. I've spoiled by EVGA and there isn't any AMD manufacturer that can offer the same level of service as EVGA. I've had multiple EVGA RMAs over the years and they have always been polite and helpful
XFX is damn close. Not sure how good they are about their "lifetime" warranty but it's better than EVGA's 3 years.
Also there's an XFX rep on these forums and I don't see any EVGA reps in sight. I suppose there's some kind of bad blood between HardOCP and EVGA.

I think I'm done with the Asian manufacturers for all my future cards. I've never had any of my cards fail on me but it's better to be safe than sorry.
 
The Gigabyte replacement card he bought had no issues with the exact same hardware. EVGA was still having RMA problems with their ACX coolers earlier this year.

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1801784

Unknown-One should have a serious bad luck problem.. same with the H55 vibrating issues with the new and the RMA'd units... how much people can pass through 3 h55 units and still have problems? will you blame corsair for that and you will never buy a corsair product for that?.
 
I was litecoin mining with,

4 sapphire 7850's

4 MSI 7970's

4 XFX 7970's last year.

All sapphires broke within a week. (the fans)
All XFX's died within 2 weeks (artifacts and dead boards)

and all but of the 1 MSI's had been mining for a full year without issue, with only about 20 mins break a day. The MSI's in UK have a 36 month guarantee for a good reason, from my experience MSI cards are built to last.

I will only by MSI now.
 
Sorry to hear you're having such a terrible RMA experience. When I first read about the company Sapphire uses intentionally breaking stuff I thought no way but I'm starting to believe it's a real possibility.

Really glad I went with XFX when I joined the red team, my RMA/CS experience with them has been top notch.
 
I was litecoin mining with,


All XFX's died within 2 weeks (artifacts and dead boards)


I will only by MSI now.

Have you contacted us to RMA these? the warranty should still be intact.

As far as OP's experience, I totally understand your frustration. Piercing damage is a very conclusive cause and a directed claim at the shipping company. Without insurance, you're not going to get very far.

Situations like these are bad for everyone and if Sapphire is anything like us, the guy having to contact you to report the issue would much rather just FAIL/REPLACE it and move on to the next RMA. Sorry for your loss.
 
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Still no pics? I don't totally doubt the OP, however I've worked incoming RMAs and the number of people that think they know they can package an item safely far exceeds the number of people that actually do.
 
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Have you contacted us to RMA these? the warranty should still be intact.

They were replaced without issue. thanks

In defense of the XFX cards, they were the quietest of the bunch and im sure they would have worked fine for games. They were still a fair bit better than the sapphires.

Litecoin mining stressed the cards more than anything else. I had an XFX 5850 and a 8800GT they were both rock solid, I guess there's a balancing act between, noise and cooling.

I have had many XFX's over the years. Maybe in the future i will go back but for now im sticking to msi.
 
I sent in a dead 7950 to Althon Micro on 12/5/2013 and its replacement was shipped out exactly a week later on 12/12/2013. No complaints whatsoever. I did not purchase insurance on the package.


How do you know that the shipper didn't damage the box in that way?
 
I had a Sapphire dual gpu that I sent in to their rma department. They then denied mine, saying I didn't even get a rma for it. when clearly I go one and showed it to them. After all the BS and Lying these people did. they had the nerve to ask me to pay to ship the gpu back to me. I told them to keep the worthless pos. They wouldn't never have to worry about me or anyone else I know buying anything else Sapphire .

It seems Sapphire never learns and I hope the sorry company goes out of business. worthless companies like this stay but other companies have to close down. It is a shame indeed. I know my post wasn't about a damaged box. But they where still shitty to him as they where to me. So that is enough to tell me they will not change.

Good luck on getting this settled. As you can clearly see Sapphire isn't going to do anything. him yelling in the phone wouldn't have went well with me. You can't fix STUPID. And there seems to be a large number of STUPID PEOPLE, working at Sapphire and Athlon RMA.

* Would like to see some pictures of the said damage.*
 
If you didn't pad the box with peanuts or bubble wrap, you deserve your RMA to be denied, period.

I just had some ass return a motherboard to me in a box that could fit ~3 of the motherboard boxes with zero padding. The motherboard box had moved around in the shipping box so much that it the shipping box had lots of creasing and a medium sized hole in it. He's lucky I was even willing to retest it and give him his money back, because he certainly didn't deserve it. He also left the CPU socket cover out (I had him send it to me separately before I refunded him)... I took a restocking fee but I still lost money on his stupidity. I did a one-take video of me opening the shipping box to provide proof that the board was bad when I received it, but somehow the board survived despite the guy's several attempts to kill it.

Some people are just complete idiots when it comes to packing and shipping things. Nobody should ever have to pay for the mistakes these people cause except these people themselves.
 
Wow sorry to hear you issue with Sapphire. The 2 times I had to RMA a video card to them (6990 and 7950), were painless with no issues.

I do question though why it took them this long to get ahold of you, but at the same time did you package it properly? I mean you can say you did in this forum, but without before (shipping) and after (shipping) photo's it will be your word against his.

This is why when I RMA a package I make sure its as secure as possible and ALWAYS get shipping insurance. I also ALWAYS use UPS over USPS because of horror stories of packages getting beat up with USPS

Sorry about the issues, but I am not sure if its Sapphire RMA you should have a problem with, but USPS.
 
This is why when I RMA a package I make sure its as secure as possible and ALWAYS get shipping insurance. I also ALWAYS use UPS over USPS because of horror stories of packages getting beat up with USPS

Sorry about the issues, but I am not sure if its Sapphire RMA you should have a problem with, but USPS.

Maybe he should take an issue up with USPS if he did insure it, but a properly packed package will not be susceptible to shipping damage. A properly packed package will survive ANYTHING they do to it short of accidentally dropping it off the truck and then running it over.

Packages I receive are packed properly < 5% of the time. I can understand that somewhat with a company like Amazon that needs to cut costs and can accept a certain amount of product being damaged (as they will have plenty of inventory to replace it) but for an individual shipping a package, you must pack it well or be prepared to eat a loss.

OP could be in the right here and may have packed it properly, but I highly doubt it. He certainly didn't spend a whole lot of time telling us how he packed it well in his original post, so it sounds to me like he's trying to avoid mentioning his horrible packing job to get his way with Sapphire. I could be wrong though.
 
Maybe he should take an issue up with USPS if he did insure it, but a properly packed package will not be susceptible to shipping damage. A properly packed package will survive ANYTHING they do to it short of accidentally dropping it off the truck and then running it over.

Packages I receive are packed properly < 5% of the time. I can understand that somewhat with a company like Amazon that needs to cut costs and can accept a certain amount of product being damaged (as they will have plenty of inventory to replace it) but for an individual shipping a package, you must pack it well or be prepared to eat a loss.

Exactly, why blame Sapphire for the poor shipping if it's USPS to blame.
If you have insurance do an insurance claim.

Blaming Sapphire was wrong if shipping was to blame.
 
I'd rather get insurance money for a broken card then whatever shitty RMA Sapphire was going to send you.
That's assuming you can actually get insurance to cover it.
 
Maybe he should take an issue up with USPS if he did insure it, but a properly packed package will not be susceptible to shipping damage. A properly packed package will survive ANYTHING they do to it short of accidentally dropping it off the truck and then running it over.

He said the package was pierced by some object, and that the pics looked like the box had been pried open with a crowbar or hammer. Good luck boxing something up in cardboard, peanuts, and bubble wrap to head that off.
 
He said the package was pierced by some object, and that the pics looked like the box had been pried open with a crowbar or hammer. Good luck boxing something up in cardboard, peanuts, and bubble wrap to head that off.

And I said that the box that the guy that just shipped my motherboard back in was pierced only from the inner box slamming into it repeatedly. Just because the OP thinks the box was opened that way doesn't make him right... In fact it's absolutely ridiculous and you should not even entertain the thought. And yes, bubble wrap will prevent damage, period.

OP seems to be clueless and blaming everyone else for a problem he probably caused. Again I am not saying definitely, but that's sure what it seems like to me.
 
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Just got a 7979 dual x back. worked fine.
The whole thing took less than 3 weeks.
Athlon micro..good job.
 
And yes, bubble wrap will prevent damage, period.
tumblr_lvl0id1xl51qfdneyo1_400_zps4aa2d88e.gif~original
 
Spoiled by EVGA! They sent my friend 4 defective video cards in a row! They were my favorite vendor up until that fiasco, what a colossal.waste of time for him. Now I won't even buy from them.

No company is perfect (even EVGA) but I highly doubt someone was sent 4 defective cards in a row from EVGA. Sounds very fishy.

Here is my worst experience with EVGA... Last year I had 1 GTX 580 video card break and EVGA replacement card was also defective. It was DOA out of the box. I called them immediately and they shipped me a replacement 2 day. The tech person apologized and spoke perfect English. That replacement worked perfectly. I sold several months later on eBay and never heard a complaint.

I have probably RMA'd at least 4 items from EVGA since 2006 or so and every other transaction was handled perfectly.
 
I sent in my 290 to althon micro RMA. it was delivered on Friday. I will update later on and let you guys know what my experience was like. sometimes you hear too much negativity online; though, what we read may also be common issues.
 
i would never send out anything without the valued insurance...no way.....not there fault if it was busted in shipping...when i send out fore/sale forums i always use the value or more on everything i ship out...cause you never know when that kid making min wage drops a pallet
 
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Not the same thing, obviously, but I just RMAd a card via Newegg. They received my broken card on Wednesday morning. They tested it and approved the replacement that day, and I received the new card today (Friday). That's pretty awesome service.
 
No company is perfect (even EVGA) but I highly doubt someone was sent 4 defective cards in a row from EVGA. Sounds very fishy.

Here is my worst experience with EVGA... Last year I had 1 GTX 580 video card break and EVGA replacement card was also defective. It was DOA out of the box. I called them immediately and they shipped me a replacement 2 day. The tech person apologized and spoke perfect English. That replacement worked perfectly. I sold several months later on eBay and never heard a complaint.

I have probably RMA'd at least 4 items from EVGA since 2006 or so and every other transaction was handled perfectly.


Nothing fishy about it, it's my best friend so I trust what he said to be true.
It was back in 2010 so I hoped they now check that cards they send out as replacements actually work. After reading about the RMA problems with the ACX cooler I still don't trust them.

His original card was artifacting in games.
He had a nice quiet dual slot card and they sent him a noisy single slot card with a bent shroud and burn marks on it. This lasted for 2 hours use then started constantly artifacting.

The next replacement card lasted about a week then started giving a BSOD after about 15 minutes of gaming.

The next replacement card had no signal from either DVI port. Tech support was asking him go into the BIOS with the defective card plugged in, they couldn't understand that you can't read a BIOS screen if the card doesn't display anything.

I believe he had another card that was artifacting while gaming returned but I'm not 100% sure on that.

He bought a Gigabye 5770 and gave the last 8800 GT replacement card to a co-worker but never heard anything about it after that.

My theory was they weren't load testing the cards but that doesn't explain the card with no display.

I can understand the occasional mistake but when a person has 2 defective replacement cards the supervisors should step in and make sure the third card is perfect. The bad publicity has cost the company thousands of dollars in sales as my friends and clan members won't buy from them.


He had a problem with his XFX 6950 intermittently timing out with black screens when gaming with triple screens. They tested the card, found memory parity errors and sent him a 7870, which is a bit faster then the 6950 and still works fine.
 
Nothing fishy about it, it's my best friend so I trust what he said to be true.
It was back in 2010 so I hoped they now check that cards they send out as replacements actually work. After reading about the RMA problems with the ACX cooler I still don't trust them.

His original card was artifacting in games.
He had a nice quiet dual slot card and they sent him a noisy single slot card with a bent shroud and burn marks on it. This lasted for 2 hours use then started constantly artifacting.

The next replacement card lasted about a week then started giving a BSOD after about 15 minutes of gaming.

The next replacement card had no signal from either DVI port. Tech support was asking him go into the BIOS with the defective card plugged in, they couldn't understand that you can't read a BIOS screen if the card doesn't display anything.

I believe he had another card that was artifacting while gaming returned but I'm not 100% sure on that.

He bought a Gigabye 5770 and gave the last 8800 GT replacement card to a co-worker but never heard anything about it after that.

My theory was they weren't load testing the cards but that doesn't explain the card with no display.

I can understand the occasional mistake but when a person has 2 defective replacement cards the supervisors should step in and make sure the third card is perfect. The bad publicity has cost the company thousands of dollars in sales as my friends and clan members won't buy from them.


He had a problem with his XFX 6950 intermittently timing out with black screens when gaming with triple screens. They tested the card, found memory parity errors and sent him a 7870, which is a bit faster then the 6950 and still works fine.

I meant fishy as in maybe the power supply or mobo was bad, not that your friend was lying. I'm honestly surprised that they didn't give him an upgraded product for his trouble.

I bought a p67 mobo from Evga (the last mobo I've bought from Evga) and the primary PCI express slot was dead. I got them to waive all fees. At first they tried to stick me with a minor restock fee but I asked for, an received, a full refund.

So I've had multiple bad Evga products but since they've always taken care of me I've been OK with it. When I've had problems with other companies it's been a major hassle (except for Corsair, they were also great to me).
 
this is why I can't come around to buying AMD. I've spoiled by EVGA and there isn't any AMD manufacturer that can offer the same level of service as EVGA. I've had multiple EVGA RMAs over the years and they have always been polite and helpful

Asus and xfx.

That said the op story sounds all too familiar to me. Sounds like a shitty job packaging. An I reading it correctly that he put the bare card in a box with air bags?

I can completely understand the rma being annoyed. They get packages daily packed by down syndrome monkeys abd then get to spend the day explaining why the rma us being denied.
 
I got my RMA 290 back a few days ago.
It took one week from the day it was received by althon micro (sapphire) to the day it was shipped by them. Shipping took some time, as its UPS ground from CA to NY.

They replaced my reference 290 with a 290 Tri-X OC version.

The only negative is that I received a card that had a 290x bios flashed on it...might make some people happy, but I run two 290's in crossfire, so it serves me no point in keeping it flashed as a 290x, so I re-flashed it back to a 290.
 
XFX has been good to me, they send me an RMA number to return my card on the same day I created a ticket and got back a brand new card 6 days later.
 
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