Be careful with AMD direct guys and gals

B

brentsg

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Mar 8, 2003
Messages
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They will pack your Ryzen CPU in an oversized box with some wadded paper, then refuse to assist if/when it arrives damaged. Their customer service pushes returns through the warranty department too, which is weird.
 
Did you order a CPU direct from them? Which CPU?

Did you get though to the their warranty department and if so did you get some help? What is the status?

What part of the world do you live in? I hope they help out. Good luck.
 
I'm getting a 5950x on Monday from AMD direct. I'll post back here with my results.
 
My 5950x from amd direct just arrived this morning. It was in a box with wads of paper. Seems undamaged though. It was a lot of paper.
 
Agree that Digital River is a font of steaming bullshit. Unfortunate that they were chosen to fullfill orders. As has been pointed out elswyer in this forum, Amazon is putting Ryzen retail boxes into flimsy padded envelopes. Mine arrived undamaged but many others have not been as lucky.
 
Ocellaris said:
Is the CPU actually damaged or are you trying to do a return for a smooshed retail box you wanted to put on your shelf?
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I don’t know if the pins are damaged or not. The box is mangled and if I open it I’m on my own. They made that clear straight off the bat. Then they decided it can’t be returned because it is damaged. Now they have pivoted and want me to test it.

I’m unclear about putting boxes on shelves though. Just harassment? I am not going to install something sketchy. This is a work box and I don’t have time to fuck with it. At this point I’ve already sourced a replacement elsewhere and it is production. If you want to put your money where your mouth is shoot me $550 and I’ll cover shipping.

One thing is clear though. AMD gives you one response per 24 hours, roughly 4 days per week. They e-mail me at 3AM. So far they have requested the pictures I took 3 times. The experience has been really poor.

SonDa5 said:
Did you order a CPU direct from them? Which CPU?

Did you get though to the their warranty department and if so did you get some help? What is the status?

What part of the world do you live in? I hope they help out. Good luck.
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I ordered a 5900X direct from AMD in the US. They responded after a few days but it has been a steady stream of the same questions being asked repeatedly, along with denials to assist based on a variety of reasons.

-Send pics
-Can’t return that it has been opened (it hasn’t)
-Ok fine upon closer look it isn’t opened but it is damaged so you still can’t return it
-Oh the damage is the reason for the return? Well you haven’t proven it is damaged so you still can’t return it.

So I told them they have a 30 day return policy and I didn’t damage it, so I want to use my 30 day return. That was 3 days ago and just silence.
 
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Sounds typical for AMD. I had to fight with them a couple of years ago because I had a 1500X with the dreaded segfault bug, but they didn't believe me because I supposedly had one of the "fixed" maskings. Took like two weeks of fighting with them to get them to take it back and give me a replacement that didn't have the bug. I first had to prove it was actually faulty with huge logs, and then had to prove I was using it in a setting that required a bug free CPU (ie. running Linux.)

Hope you get your snafu ironed out.
 
Make a continuous video of opening it, including checking the pins in focus on the video. If you can show them a video of breaking the seal and that the pins are bent inside, then you would have proof and they would have to take responsibility if the CPU is broken.
 
evhvis said:
Make a continuous video of opening it, including checking the pins in focus on the video. If you can show them a video of breaking the seal and that the pins are bent inside, then you would have proof and they would have to take responsibility if the CPU is broken.
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CPU almost certainly isn’t broken. OP just mad he has a damaged paper box and AMD customer service is slow.
 
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Maybe get your credit card company/Paypal involved? If you can provide pics of the damaged box, and explain that you can't open it, lest AMD refuse to honor their warranty/return policy, it might help your cause.
 
Ocellaris said:
CPU almost certainly isn’t broken. OP just mad he has a damaged paper box and AMD customer service is slow.
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This is a bullshit response. He's running a work box. Even if my cpu was an Intel with my pins to fuck up, if the box came crushed or significantly damaged, there is no way I'm going to put it into a work box to test it for them. It's on them to replace or refund within the 30 days.

If this was Intel you would be in that thread writing posts will all caps. Relax, fanny.
 
I don't think anyone had a fanboy response. I think people are reacting to their different opinions of "damage" to the box. Without a picture, you can't tell how much damage and whether or not you think the CPU is damaged. A bent corner to the box? Probably not a big deal. A crushed or significantly damaged box? Maybe?
 
kirbyrj said:
I don't think anyone had a fanboy response. I think people are reacting to their different opinions of "damage" to the box. Without a picture, you can't tell how much damage and whether or not you think the CPU is damaged. A bent corner to the box? Probably not a big deal. A crushed or significantly damaged box? Maybe?
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He says "the box in mangled". You wouldn't happily walk into a best buy and pick up a cpu that's mangled and then pay full price for it, would you? Hell, I would just laugh and walk away.
 
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auntjemima said:
He says "the box in mangled". You wouldn't happily walk into a best buy and pick up a cpu that's mangled and then happily pay full price for it, would you? Hell, I would just laugh and walk away.
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Without a picture, there is no way to tell the extent of the damage due to the differences of opinion of how "mangled" the box is.

I mean a mangled box doesn't necessarily mean a damaged CPU. That's not a fanboy response. That's just practical.

The CPU mangled vs. the box mangled are two different things. If the box is mangled, and I can't find the CPU anywhere else, I might pay full price at BB, especially if I can return it if it doesn't work, although I guess to your point, I wouldn't be happy about it. And I would never say to start bending pins back in place on a brand new, never installed CPU.
 
auntjemima said:
He says "the box in mangled". You wouldn't happily walk into a best buy and pick up a cpu that's mangled and then pay full price for it, would you? Hell, I would just laugh and walk away.
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Let's be real here. A lot of people this board overreact over the most minor thing. Without pictures all we know one corner is dented.
 
auntjemima said:
It's not the point. You wouldn't buy a new part from a store that was visibly damaged, so why are we so accepting of damage in shipping?
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Depends. If it just minor damage idc. If the entire box was crushed sure I wouldn't buy it. We really don't know the extent of the damage here. He has yet to posted pictures of it.
 
vegeta535 said:
Depends. If it just minor damage idc. If the entire box was crushed sure I wouldn't buy it. We really don't know the extent of the damage here. He has yet to posted pictures of it.
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Lots of "devils advocate" posts in here. Take the usual definition of mangled and take a mental picture. We should assume mangled and not "bent corner" or "minor damage" from that. He didn't say the box is creased lol
 
auntjemima said:
Lots of "devils advocate" posts in here. Take the usual definition of mangled and take a mental picture. We should assume mangled and not "bent corner" or "minor damage" from that. He didn't say the box is creased lol
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Let's face it. The internet is full of hyperbole. "Mangled" could mean anything... I just find it hard to believe that a box inside of a shipping box with even some paper gets "mangled." I can see one of the Amazon bubble envelopes getting "mangled." Like I said, I have mine coming today, so I'm interested to see what I get.

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My 5800x from AMD shipping box and CPU box was undamaged. Via warranty with AMD, took about a week, they replaced a faulty 3960x. From my experience they are good.
 
Distributors will do this too for pc parts, just get an invoice and the part you ordered.
 
Just got my 5950x:

Pretty big 14x12x3.25" box

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Good amount of paper

BsIX6u8QArrygegGegm_pnVoA=w869-h1158-no?authuser=0.jpg

No problems. Box was fine. In my case, there is no possible way the box could have been "mangled" during shipment. Maybe less paper in the OPs box?
 
This thread reminds me of my issue encountered with my 2700x purchase, which arrived damaged.

Amazon packed the retail box into a larger box well, with plenty of those airpaks all around. Retail CPU box was fine. Completely unblemished with seals intact.

CPU had 7 bent pins. No way the damage occurred anywhere other than at AMD's facility where the CPUs are boxed...

I fixed the bent pins but ding'd AMD a star on my Amazon review for not handling the CPU properly.

Fanbois went wild accusing me of manufacturing the whole thing, even though I video'd the whole reception/unboxing process...

At least OP isn't having to deal with fanbois on top of the current issue :)
 
Most of our packages from distributors we get at work don't even have any packaging material the stuff just gets tossed into an empty box with an invoice. I'm honestly surprised a lot makes it in one piece sometimes lol.
 
Yeah can only say post pics OP. My order from AMD / Digital River was packed really well. If it's so bad that you had to make a post surely you've taken pics. Post them here so we can see how badly they treated you...
 
I dont think he cares what we think or he would have responded by now. Hes obviously already taken pictures of it to show the rep he spoke to...we shall see. Or wont.
 
I visit the AMD subreddit sometimes and there are a lot of bad stories/experiences about AMD Direct during the week. Lots of bad experiences it seems like.

AMD Direct is distributed and shipped by another company called Digital River that has a bad rep.

FWIW Amazon also ships CPUs very very poorly - unless you buy something bigger along with the CPU, such as a motherboard - then they ship it together in a cardboard box and its more secure. But CPU alone? Good luck! My 5600x sold and shipped by Amazon arrived in just a bubble envelope... was very lucky the box was fully intact and nothing was damaged.
 
Furious Nerd said:
I visit the AMD subreddit sometimes and there are a lot of bad stories/experiences about AMD Direct during the week. Lots of bad experiences it seems like.

AMD Direct is distributed and shipped by another company called Digital River that has a bad rep.

FWIW Amazon also ships CPUs very very poorly - unless you buy something bigger along with the CPU, such as a motherboard - then they ship it together in a cardboard box and its more secure. But CPU alone? Good luck! My 5600x sold and shipped by Amazon arrived in just a bubble envelope... was very lucky the box was fully intact and nothing was damaged.
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I have handled several RMAs through Digital River over the years and they have always taken very good care of me in a timely manner.

To damage a CPU in its retail packaging, the box would have to have been damn near run over by a truck. You can take those retail boxes and play hockey with them, even with a pinned CPU.

We are not getting the full story here.
 
FrgMstr said:
I have handled several RMAs through Digital River over the years and they have always taken very good care of me in a timely manner.

To damage a CPU in its retail packaging, the box would have to have been damn near run over by a truck. You can take those retail boxes and play hockey with them, even with a pinned CPU.

We are not getting the full story here.
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They have a 30 day return policy so what does it matter? How can you invalidate a 30 day return policy due to damage during transit? They don't deny that the damage occurred before I received it.

It's a catch 22 but I agree that it's likely ok. But given the need for a quick turnaround it was easier to be 100% certain by grabbing a CPU elsewhere. I had a work need and a motherboard via 3rd party so I needed to get moving to make sure that was ok.

I'll repeat myself though. You can't return this because it's damaged but you should open and test it to make sure. But if you open it then you also can't return it because then you opened it. (I could actually get the CPU out easily without breaking the seal because the retail box was smashed flat and torn.)

The logic of having past success with Digital River is flawed. Clearly not everyone has this experience. I've also have 2 past success stories with DR via Nvidia. I think the difference here is that it's AMD's warranty group but I can't tell who it goes through. Every single response has been in the middle of the night. When I called AMD during the day they instructed me to soldier on with the night crew. Regardless, I convinced them to escalate and several days later I now have an RMA in process.

Anyways I regret posting here so believe my story, don't, whatever. It does not matter.
 
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