BFG Completely Liquidating, no more RMAs accepted. Project Manager blames Fermi

Godmachine said:
While its understandable that BFG was screwed by Nvidia in terms of allocation BFG is using this as a scape goat for its overall failure business wise. Its also kinda rotten that they told current card holders that they will continue to honor warranties when they knew that wasn't going to be possible with big retail chains dropping the sale of there brand. That part of it pisses me off more than anything , up front lying to the customer and putting up the good PR face.

I have to give BFG credit on having the best warranty support in the biz though , they were pros when it came to that. However they should have branched out to ATI/AMD cards instead of putting all there chips into Nvidia's long delayed basket. I wouldn't be surprised if other vendors are now strongly considering selling both brands instead of completely putting there chips into one brand with BFG as an example of what not to do.
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No offense, but can you please share with us the complete timeline and inside information from BFG and Nvidia that you seem to have? Oh wait, you don't... :rolleyes: I've yet to see concrete 100% proof that BFG was lying to their customers when they said they would continue honoring the warranties.

If anyone can conjure up some kind of timeline of events over this, would certainly help understand things a lot better, maybe shed some light over whether or not BFG did BF their customers or not.
 
Looks like their PSUs were junk and that's why all the returns to begin with. Its not Fermi that killed you but your junky power supplies. :D
 
Edit:

I think I was wrong. My rebate still shows up as approved. I might be okay after all. :D
 
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ir0nw0lf said:
No offense, but can you please share with us the complete timeline and inside information from BFG and Nvidia that you seem to have? Oh wait, you don't... :rolleyes: I've yet to see concrete 100% proof that BFG was lying to their customers when they said they would continue honoring the warranties.

If anyone can conjure up some kind of timeline of events over this, would certainly help understand things a lot better, maybe shed some light over whether or not BFG did BF their customers or not.
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When BFG stopped selling video cards, its CEO told Kyle that the company has cards and money set aside to provide full RMA support. He lied.

Notleh said:
...Of course our biggest concern is that our readers that have purchased BFG video cards are taken care of. Speaking this morning with then BFGTech CEO, Scott Herkelman, he assured me that BFG has taken measures to make sure full RMA and support will continue. Eight full time employees and the full group of tech support will remain in place as well as warehouse labor. That means continued 24/7 phone, email, and full RMA support for registered cards. As of today, BFG has a full reserve of cards and monies set aside to sure proper support occurs.

http://www.hardocp.com/news/2010/05/18/bfgtech_exits_graphics
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Yikes2000 said:
When BFG stopped selling video cards, its CEO told Kyle that the company has cards and money set aside to provide full RMA support. He lied.
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Money doesn't mean shit when your only supplier (nVidia) won't sell to you. At this point, for all we know, they had been buying new cards from eVGA to replace their RMAs, and that burned through their cash in next to no time. Initially, BFG expected to still mantain PSU sales, but Best Buys dropped them (jonnyguru mentioned BB outsold NewEgg 10x, in terms of BFG PSU; desptite higher return rate, volume still mattered). once they got wind of BFG no having GPU to sell.

So BFG has next to no revenue to support... well... anything, really. Zap on OCN and Jeff in [H] were dropped from their jobs a few months back, and it's likely many more were booted, too. They are the ones who should be mad, not us. At worst, we only lost about 500usd worth of GPU. They lost their jobs.
 
Yikes2000 said:
When BFG stopped selling video cards, its CEO told Kyle that the company has cards and money set aside to provide full RMA support. He lied.
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How did he lie? That was said three months ago. There were cards and money set aside to provide full RMA support. Who are you to say there wasn't? For the past three months since that announcement, people were getting their cards replaced. But if your suppliers stop supporting you, for whatever reason, how long can you actually support your customers?
 
jonnyGURU said:
How did he lie? That was said three months ago. There were cards and money set aside to provide full RMA support. Who are you to say there wasn't? For the past three months since that announcement, people were getting their cards replaced. But if your suppliers stop supporting you, for whatever reason, how long can you actually support your customers?
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Any chance that announcement started something akin to a bank run? I'm curious, you don't have to answer. Thank you!
 
jeremyshaw said:
Any chance that announcement started something akin to a bank run? I'm curious, you don't have to answer. Thank you!
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it motivated me to get the 9800gx2 that I had been sitting on for a month or so RMAd quickly
 
Blue Falcon said:
This would be a fine opportunity for another board partner (EVGA perhaps?) to step up and offer some sort of discount or special program for those people who got shafted by what's left of BFG when it comes to the warranty.

It really sucks that a company can just up and vanish and suddenly no one is responsible for the warranty anymore. Something needs to be put in place in the law books that provides more severe penalties for the individuals behind a company that 'goes out of business' or whatever you want to call it. Yes, I realize that you can't squeeze blood out of a turnip but it all boils down to individuals or a group of individuals - and you can be sure that said people are not hurting and have probably moved onto other business ventures.

I find the whole thing rather sad and unfortunate, not only because I really liked BFG as a company but because all these people with BFG branded Nvidia cards (and most of these are reference cards, BFG didn't do any custom PCB reworks) are basically SOL.
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That would be nice of EVGA to do, But I doubt they will do so, Me I have a worthless BFG GTX295 dual pcb card, It has problems like screen corruption, lock ups, throwing up cuda errors. It only has one place to go and that is the Trash technically, But I'll hold on to My $450 paper weight for a bit longer. I do have a later generation GTX295 that replaced the BFG, But It's an EVGA, It runs as cool as a cucumber(53C), The BFG ran about 20C hotter.
 
I just wonder if the Lifetime Warranty costs were a factor in their shutting down. I see the day coming that the Lifetime Warranty on any video cards will cease to be.
 
It's really an extravagant warranty that will allow you to run something out of spec, break it and still return it. That will have to come to a stop - the bean counters will eventually win that fight. And really if you think about it it is totally unfair to the company that they cover you for your screwups.
 
Its sad to see BFG go... My BFG 9800 GTX OC2 has served me well and continues to serve me faithfully despite being agressively OC'd over the stock OC for the past 2 years... They will be missed....
 
Godmachine said:
While its understandable that BFG was screwed by Nvidia in terms of allocation BFG is using this as a scape goat for its overall failure business wise. Its also kinda rotten that they told current card holders that they will continue to honor warranties when they knew that wasn't going to be possible with big retail chains dropping the sale of there brand. That part of it pisses me off more than anything , up front lying to the customer and putting up the good PR face.

I have to give BFG credit on having the best warranty support in the biz though , they were pros when it came to that. However they should have branched out to ATI/AMD cards instead of putting all there chips into Nvidia's long delayed basket. I wouldn't be surprised if other vendors are now strongly considering selling both brands instead of completely putting there chips into one brand with BFG as an example of what not to do.
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Unfortunately, I have not seen a company live up to the promises when they stop selling product. Many times I believe they state this to sell the product left on the shelves, or will be on the shelves due to the liquidation.
Example Abit said the same thing (will fullfill all waranty obligations) but there were reports, within a few months of the announcement, of them offering only low end substitutions for warranty as they were no longer carrying inventory. Shortly after that they were gone and no RMAs were answered.
Having bought a Voodoo 5500 with 3dfx, Epox Motherboards, and Abit motherboards shortly before they made similiar announcements (but to late to return them) I know what it's like as a consumer.

qdemn7 said:
I just wonder if the Lifetime Warranty costs were a factor in their shutting down. I see the day coming that the Lifetime Warranty on any video cards will cease to be.
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Especially when "What will I get" type questions have became a common question in the forums. Consumers are expecting an upgrade for older products, and for the vendor to stock old warranty is not a good combination.
 
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Very sad to see them go (owned plenty of BFGs since the GF4 days), and this really sucks for people who recently bought BFG cards...
 
BFG might want to take the website down - heh. It's still up touting all the support and products :)
 
Blue Falcon said:
This would be a fine opportunity for another board partner (EVGA perhaps?) to step up and offer some sort of discount or special program for those people who got shafted by what's left of BFG when it comes to the warranty.

It really sucks that a company can just up and vanish and suddenly no one is responsible for the warranty anymore. Something needs to be put in place in the law books that provides more severe penalties for the individuals behind a company that 'goes out of business' or whatever you want to call it. Yes, I realize that you can't squeeze blood out of a turnip but it all boils down to individuals or a group of individuals - and you can be sure that said people are not hurting and have probably moved onto other business ventures.

I find the whole thing rather sad and unfortunate, not only because I really liked BFG as a company but because all these people with BFG branded Nvidia cards (and most of these are reference cards, BFG didn't do any custom PCB reworks) are basically SOL.
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This is a lot to ask from a person who has a GTX 280 with a current value below $200.

If GM dies, you think the government should hold Ford accountable for your warranty?

Look, if you force everyone to keep enough cash and stock in hand to cover the vent that everything they've sold is and forever shall be covered under warranty regardless of what happens to the business...

You're going to have the same reaction banks had back in late 2008...

They completely stopped loaning money...

No one's going to want to sell you a video card...

I'd rather buy a GTX 280 for ~$200 or less with some risk in life than have government get involved and have ATi and Nvidia both tell me to fuck off when I want a new video card...

Warranties have always only been as good as the company (singular) behind them. Company failed? Game over...

Sorry, but I don't ever want my taxes to help fund your getting a damn video card... If your CC company can't help, BB won't accept a return, eat it and save up another $200...

Shit happens...

(That said, perhaps exclusive contracts shouldn't be allowed to be... so exclusive?)
 
I'm most disappointed by the fact that my several month old 1000W PS has zero warranty support now. I bought it just before the announcement about the video cards, wish I hadn't. The three BFG cards I bought in the past year will all end up being sold or given away to friends soon enough, but I expect a PS to last 3-5 years. That I'm not happy about at all.
 
jonnyGURU said:
That's 5.4 years since the HardForum originally crashed, lost most of the registrations and I bothered to come back and register again. ;)

It's quite entertaining, really. :D Everyone has little tidbits of information as to what's happening/happened with BFG and they're building a lot of interesting little stories. None of it true... but interesting none the less. :D This is going to be a fun week for me to sit back and watch from my Android as I stand in the unemployment line. ;)
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I never realized you were a BFG employee until recentely, although I had always trusted your PSU reviews. I apologize if I have quoted you out of context, I was just taking what was said on that first website with your quote.

Unless guys like you and Jeff decide that you'd like to clear up some of the misinformation here, rumors will be rife unfortunately.
 
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Spare-Flair said:
I never realized you were a BFG employee until recentely, although I had always trusted your PSU reviews. I apologize if I have quoted you out of context, I was just taking what was said on that first website with your quote.

Unless guys like you and Jeff decide that you'd like to clear up some of the misinformation here, rumors will be rife unfortunately.
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Well.. it's out there now, so not much you can do. That's the Internet for you. Even Steve quoted the quoted quote quote on the front page. I guess I should've chosen my words better. Looking back at what I said, it does look like I blame Fermi for BFG's demise. I never said Nvidia denied allocation, but we all know that there was a serious lack of allocation. Things just started to fall apart around the time of Fermi so it's like the lack of allocation as well as some friction between BFG and Nvidia at that same time frame was the straw that broke the camel's back.

I'm not sure neither Jeff nor I could really clear anything up. Everything we know is from what we saw first hand and were told by our superiors. I'm pretty sure those who were behind closed doors in meetings between BFG and Nvidia aren't going to be saying much any time soon.
 
jonnyGURU said:
That's 5.4 years since the HardForum originally crashed, lost most of the registrations and I bothered to come back and register again. ;)

It's quite entertaining, really. :D Everyone has little tidbits of information as to what's happening/happened with BFG and they're building a lot of interesting little stories. None of it true... but interesting none the less. :D This is going to be a fun week for me to sit back and watch from my Android as I stand in the unemployment line. ;)
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well there is a bright point here for you, with your resume I doubt you will spend a lot of time in that line. :cool:
 
FighterAce124 said:
This slightly upsets me as I went out of my way to get a BFG GTX285 when they were launched because I knew BFG was a solid company.

Guess not. :( Oh well, cut losses and move on. The 285 is still kicking, and when it finally does drop, it'll be about time for a new generation anyway I suppose..


Would be a fantastic PR opportunity for anpother major manufacturer to step up and say "We will cover your warranty because BFG shit the bed". Guaranteed to provide a massive boost in loyalty toward them, not sure if it would be enough to cover the costs of taking over RMAs though. I know if EVGA for example said "We will do BFGs RMAs, please contact us", the next time I buy a card, it would be an EVGA. Even if I didnt have a BFG card, that would win me over.
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Once again I'm stuck with a lifetime warrenty that's not worth a shit. Like you I purchased a BFG 280 GTX BECUASE of the lifetime warrenty from a strong company. It saddens me to see them go becuase of Best Buy pulling the plug on them which is one of many factors that dealth the final blow to their company from what I can see. Now my 280 is starting to lag a little after an hour of game play and it might be the beginnning of the end for this fine card with a no good lifetime warrenty. Like I said, Once again meaning this is the second time this crap has happened to me. I Still own the Visontek GeForce TI4600 with a bad vga port that had a liftime warrenty thru Visiontek. I contacted Visiontek only to find out that they had been bought out by another company (Hartford Group?) which was named by another person eariler in this thread. Once I contacted them I was told that they would not repair nor honor my Geforce lifetime card warrenty becuase they were not the same company and would not be selling GeForce card becuase they had switched over to making and seling ATI videocards. I explained to one of Visiontek's employees that I felt like if your going to buy someone good name then you should honor thier warrenty. I was offered $100 tradein value for a card that was less than a year old that I paid $329 at CompUSA. The fucked up thing is I had to purchase a card from them to get the $100 and all of thier cards were more than $100 over the shelf price of the local stores. Shit,I never pay retail! I'm alway looking for the deals and that's when I buy. This was and still is very insulting to me. To this day I will not buy a Visontek product. To Me they are a bunch of sorry ass Canadians that bought a customer base and did not have to build one that the other companys.

It would be nice if another company would pickup the BFG warrenty slack. I agree, it would win me over and build a good reputation and customer loyality if another company would help out. Even now that I've had 2 lifetime warrenty FAILURES, I will NEVER purchase a 400+ video card without one unless no one offers one. Oh yhea I almost forgot FUCK YOU VISIONTEK!!!
 
Baditude said:
Once again I'm stuck with a lifetime warrenty that's not worth a shit.

Even now that I've had 2 lifetime warrenty FAILURES, I will NEVER purchase a 400+ video card without one unless no one offers one.
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lifetime warranty is not a sustainable practice... maybe that's why your 'lifetime warranty' companies go under :D
 
I am reading a lot of anger and bitterness about there not being any warranty on these cards but most of them will last longer than the people will use them.

When a company goes out of business there are people working for them that will lose their houses. Lose their cars. A $200-400 video card warranty is a pretty minor deal in that context. The company went out of business and not only do people expect them to honor their warranty (there is no 'them' anymore btw) but are thinking someone else should step up and honor the warranty out the kindness of their hearts??? Uhm... sense of entitlement? No one wants to be stuck with a broken video card, but lets face it, its not that big of a deal.
 
The whole "blaming Fermi" aspect is far too skewed and inaccurate, at least in terms of it's wording. Now, if it was stated that "nVidia is to blame", if indeed they can even be blamed, that would at least be accurate. It's the company (nVidia), not the GPU, that's to "blame".

However, one has to wonder about what someone else mentioned above, which is whether or not BFG's business practices were not truly to blame, or more to blame than the whole fiasco would suggest.

On one hand, you have their main supplier of their biggest selling hardware, GPUs, cutting them off. Certainly, that could screw a company that predominantly sells GPUs. But, how did this come about? What made nVidia decide to cut off one of their largest distributors? The fact that nVidia cut them off makes me wonder if there wasn't something with the company that prompted nVidia's decision.

So, that leads to "on the other hand"... liquidating an entire company over one GPU series? If BFG was such a "great" company and had a large enough customer base due to that, how did they end up in such a bad financial situation so quickly? Fermi is released, nVidia cuts them off (for reasons I don't know) and all of a sudden they're liquidizing their company?

I don't know, just seems odd to me...
 
MrGuvernment said:
I see lawsuit for people who's cards are still in warranty period, the company has to cover a warranty i assume unless there us some fine print and they filed bankruptcy?





wasn't sapphire also the actual board maker for ATI cards sold by ATI... or at least many eon's ago? But sapphire also had a bad CS rep too though.
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I doubt a law suit will do anything. If a company is insolvent who are you going to get compensation from? Not to mention that the corporation will be (if not already has been) dissolved. If there was serious illegal activities going on at BFG then you can technically go after the share holders of the corporation, but that doesn't appear to be the case here, so essentially once the corporation dies, so does your ability to win any law suit. BFG can probably be blamed for poor management, which is unfortunate, but not illegal.
 
NVIDIA is not to blame for BFG's troubles, BFG is to blame for BFG's troubles. It is that simple.
 
After nVidia released the GTX 460 it seemed pretty obvious to me that Fermi can be a profitable venture, so yeah I kind of doubt nVidia is to blame.

The warranty thing does really suck though. It sounds like BFG pulled a fast one of us though - they did absolutely nothing for us to guarantee that our cards could be serviced in the future. Maybe it isn't standard business practice but if a company I ran was going down the tubes I'd be trying to do something to make sure the customer has options in the future for service.

I agree that it would be nice to see another company step up and offer to cover remaining warranties. They don't have to do that and I'm not demanding it, but it would be an awesome way for said company to instantly gain some loyal customers.
 
paperwastage said:
lifetime warranty is not a sustainable practice... maybe that's why your 'lifetime warranty' companies go under :D
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how is it not? seriously. "most" cards could be refurbed to work again with proper care, furthermore old cards that brake and that are replaced with new stock usually only get the cheaper runs anyway.

that said this sorta pisses me off about BFG. mainly for a company that is so known for their warranties to tell people to piss off.

Shit i JUST rma'd an abit motherboard at the beginning of the month with no issue...and how long has it been since abit died?
 
The biggest problem (I think) with lifetime warranties is that people overclock, overvolt, and mod their cards and then expect companies to take the financial hit to service a warranty that should be void.
 
paperwastage said:
lifetime warranty is not a sustainable practice... maybe that's why your 'lifetime warranty' companies go under :D
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night_2004 said:
The biggest problem (I think) with lifetime warranties is that people overclock, overvolt, and mod their cards and then expect companies to take the financial hit to service a warranty that should be void.
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overclock i disagree with, as long as it remains software overclock only.
 
Im pretty sad to see them go. They were the only company that I would buy GPUs from. I actually hoped to get a BFG Fermi card months ago... Their support was one of the best I have ever had to deal with. Zap at OCN and Jeff over here have been super helpful to me in the past. I am sad to see them and JonnyGURU all out of a job.

As for people complaining their warranty isn't valid anymore. Its a risk we all take when buying from anyone with a life time warranty. I agree it sucks, but I find it a bit disgusting complaining about a video card when others got screwed out of their job. Most gpus will last years on their own. I think the big issue is people expect to have their overclocked hardware repaired when it wears out. Thats part of the overclocking game.. Every forum you see people break X product from X company and ask what people think they will get back. You break it, you buy it should apply with overclocking. I'd put any overclocked BFG card back to stock clocks if your worried about it breaking. As for the parts that are manufacturer faults, thats the ones that get screwed. :(

As for their promises of continued warranties, I doubt they for saw Best Buy dropping them and them not having a revenue stream to stand on. Plus I bet there was a rush on RMAs that helped clean out the remaining stock. Ive seen threads on several forums where people were asking or admitting about rmaing a card to get a new or refurbed one before BFG went belly up.

Sorry for the semi rant. I have been overclocking forever, but its sad to see people hurting their "favorite" brands by doing stuff like that,.
 
I knew when they refused to fix my 7800gt i bought from them they were a crappy company that would go down eventually. glad to hear they are toast.
 
Manaknight said:
Shit i JUST rma'd an abit motherboard at the beginning of the month with no issue...and how long has it been since abit died?
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News flash, the company that owns ABIT is not out of business/bankrupt.
 
I own 2 BFG Power Supplies, one only a few months old, and a BFG GTX280. Am I screaming about my lack of warranty? No.

They're just some computer parts. 5 years from now and they'll all likely be in the trash anyways. Get over it. If the company goes under, well, that sucks, but nothing you can do about it.
 
Well, I don't want to mischaracterize jonnyguru's comments who said they were taken out of context. If a mod could remove the "Project Manager blames Fermi" from the title, that'd be great.
 
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