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

Me I never overclocked Mine, I just used Mine for number crunching on Seti@Home and the normal web browsing, email and such. As I'm not much of a gamer.
 
By the time a company makes it to liquidation bankruptcy there is almost never enough to repay even the secured creditors, much less unsecured creditors. By the time the attorneys are done, the secured creditors usually end up with pennies on the dollar.

Rule #1 before filing a lawsuit: make sure that the party you are suing has the money/item that you seek to claim. If the party is broke, all that you can hope to gain is a worthless judgement.
 
I doubt Nvidia held back cards, just for the hell of it. The most likely scenario is that BFG was not kepping up with payments to Nvidia with the 200 series cards. So when Fermi was released Nvidia would gave given them very strict conditions. End result no money = no sales BFG and the business failed.

Like others have said, diversification would have helped. But if the management can't run a business then they were screwed a long time ago.

Even if BFG intended on saving some part for RMA's, who would want to work for them to deal with the RMA if a paycheck is not guaranteed. IMO you are SOL if your BFG card fails. Sucks, but it is what it is.
 
The straw that breaks the camels back, is still the straw that breaks the camels back?

Unless the camel could have been wearing a load bearing harness, then go find the camels manager and blame him.
 
No BFG Warranty WTF?:(

P1010249-2.jpg
 
caniba said:
I doubt Nvidia held back cards, just for the hell of it. The most likely scenario is that BFG was not kepping up with payments to Nvidia with the 200 series cards. So when Fermi was released Nvidia would gave given them very strict conditions. End result no money = no sales BFG and the business failed.

Like others have said, diversification would have helped. But if the management can't run a business then they were screwed a long time ago.

Even if BFG intended on saving some part for RMA's, who would want to work for them to deal with the RMA if a paycheck is not guaranteed. IMO you are SOL if your BFG card fails. Sucks, but it is what it is.
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IIRC, the issue was the Nvidia was forcing AIBs to take on a certain number of stock of lower tier products or old shelf stock (which are harder to sell) before they would allocate them any stock of Fermi.
 
Holy... Seriously? This thread makes me sad.

Not only is a great consumer-focused company going under - but some people have the audacity to spin their broken brain-wheels and create ludicrous conspiracies to justify their own sense of entitlement.

I'm going to cut this diatribe short...

I hate you.
 
I owned a BFG275GTX. No issues what so ever. It's been sold and now I have a Galaxy 470 GTX.

This got me thinking about "lifetime" warranties. I honestly do not believe it's good business. Just by reading [H] forums alone where threads every now and then crop up about someone complaining about not getting a 260GTX or better for their 7800 Ultra and the corresponding posters with similar comments. Not to mention the amount of stock they have to keep around.

I would most likely offer 2 year warranties for something that runs like the 470/480. Three year for 58XX/460 and 5 years for low end stuff.

Lifetime, just don't see the point. Unless it was some type of extended /renewal warranty.
 
Well you can already see that EVGA is pushing much more -TR 2 year variants across the board, Granted they cost about $20 less then the lifetime ones, but I can see the writing on the wall one day for them. It's already that way on the EVGA motherboard side of things.
 
BFG didn't pay Nvidia in a timely manner for credit extended. EVGA did. Nvidia stops "supporting them". BFG dies. End of story.

Lesson to you kiddies - pay your bills on time.
 
Spare-Flair said:
Hopefully your cards are getting enough air to keep them alive for a few years. Where does your signature come from BTW? I want to see that annoying game collection now.
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Actually my testing shows that as long as you have adequate air flow, having the 480s side by side like that is not that big of a deal. They can bring in a lot of air through the vents of the back edge of the card. The 5800 cards do not seem to be as tolerant to being "squished." :)
 
Jeffredo said:
BFG didn't pay Nvidia in a timely manner for credit extended. EVGA did. Nvidia stops "supporting them". BFG dies. End of story.

Lesson to you kiddies - pay your bills on time.
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Keep making stuff up. It makes for good entertainment. ;)
 
I still have a 9800 GTX I purchased from BFG. It's still chugging along just fine. Part of me wants to carefully clean it off and package it up, and one day sell it to a museum. Another part of me wants to ride it until the cows come home- it's been reliable enough that I'm sure I could squeeze a few more years out of it.

This is a sad day. I think all of us should, at some point this evening, raise a pint of a fine, malted beverage of choice, an whisper a brief prayer of thanks for the short years we had.
 
martinmsj said:
I owned a BFG275GTX. No issues what so ever. It's been sold and now I have a Galaxy 470 GTX.

This got me thinking about "lifetime" warranties. I honestly do not believe it's good business. Just by reading [H] forums alone where threads every now and then crop up about someone complaining about not getting a 260GTX or better for their 7800 Ultra and the corresponding posters with similar comments. Not to mention the amount of stock they have to keep around.

I would most likely offer 2 year warranties for something that runs like the 470/480. Three year for 58XX/460 and 5 years for low end stuff.

Lifetime, just don't see the point. Unless it was some type of extended /renewal warranty.
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Yes the sense of entitlement is a bit disturbing and makes me feel like the lifetime warranty business is not sustainable. We already see EVGA coming out with a TR warranty lineup that is not lifetime warrantied. Everybody expects to RMA their old cards and to get fantastic upgrades forever.

That said, unless someone here has some real figures on how lifetime warranties as part of marketing is integral to marketshare and business compared to the losses incurred in basically providing indefinite replacements, often having to replace cards with more powerful models as time goes, we can't really say anything.

You could make the case that the premium cost with lifetime warranty models will basically be like the product production plan hocked at a brick and motor store but even those usually only last from 1-3 years depending how much money salespeople can squeeze out of the vulnerable and uninformed.

I've often thought that perhaps it would be in company's best interests to replace their lifetime warranty polices with a payout or customer credit policy that if a card dies within a certain number of years, that the customer would be reimbursed with a cheque or credit toward a new model (or credit toward step-up) for the current market value of their old card. I think maybe a 5 year warranty (like many harddrives) might be a good target as well.

That said, as a consumer, I do hope lifetime warranties continue and I will continue to pay for them and give my money to those companies that provide them and provide evidence that they will live up to those commitments (and show signs they are sustainable company).
 
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chememan said:
......... By the time the attorneys are done, the secured creditors usually end up with pennies on the dollar......
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Unless you're a secured creditor for GM or Chrysler, that is. Then you get zilch.....:D

Sorry, couldn't resist.
 
Spare-Flair said:
I've often thought that perhaps it would be in company's best interests to replace their lifetime warranty polices with a payout or customer credit policy that if a card dies within a certain number of years, that the customer would be reimbursed with a cheque or credit toward a new model (or credit toward step-up) for the current market value of their old card. I think maybe a 5 year warranty (like many harddrives) might be a good target as well.

That said, as a consumer, I do hope lifetime warranties continue and I will continue to pay for them and give my money to those companies that provide them and provide evidence that they will live up to those commitments (and show signs they are sustainable company).
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Interesting idea there. Car battery warranties are similar to that. Basically if the battery has a 5 year warranty, it is replaced for free in the first year, second year a small deductable, and so on until the final year where they give you credit towards the purchase of a new one.

Then again car batteries versus video cards are quite worlds apart. (Batteries can be salvaged versus bad chips.)
 
martinmsj said:
Interesting idea there. Car battery warranties are similar to that. Basically if the battery has a 5 year warranty, it is replaced for free in the first year, second year a small deductable, and so on until the final year where they give you credit towards the purchase of a new one.

Then again car batteries versus video cards are quite worlds apart. (Batteries can be salvaged versus bad chips.)
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A lot of people want new cards anyway. Unless these companies have tons of old stock they just want to give away, they need to spend time testing and in some cases providing a new card of equal or better performance (if the same old model was not available). Instead of them wasting their money on shipping and the customer wasting money on shipping and the customer ending up with a card he will likely sell anyway to be able to afford the latest and greatest videocard, why not extend the customer credit or discount toward that newer model from that company. This is basically the step up program but for broken cards.
 
Not completely surprised by this... I appreciate that many have been very happy with BFG products and service, mine was not so good.

Bought two BFG GTX 280 OCX's with the attached rebates, did my part, they sent me the cheque 2 months later only to have it bounce (NSF). A week later I get a letter from them about a bankrupt rebate promotion company and not to cash the cheque- a little late... Went through the process to try and get the rebate cheque sent again as they described (they made me do the work, even though they had all the original documentation). After months of waiting, I called, resent (third time) and in the end never did receive the money. Last call was a "we'll look into it and get back to you". Never did heard from them again.

While some here hope they start up again under a new name, I now have two video cards that have no lifetime warranty and I'm still out the $160.00 (CDN) in rebates that enticed me to purchase in the first place (over my previous excellent experiences with EVGA). In fact, the bank even charged me a small "fee" as a result of the NSF. So in the end I paid more than market price...

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me!

As a result, they wouldn't see another dime of my money, and you can bet I'll be on the lookout for this speculated company that will rise from the ashes.

All this being said, I do hope the employees are quick to find work.

P.S. Did I mention that I now have to downclock my OCX cards to the reference clocks just to get some games to work... Ran fine in the same case, well cooled and temps only reaching 75 under load for the last 1.5 yrs. Good thing I have the "Lifetime Warranty"
 
sirmonkey1985 said:
odds are they planned to do the RMA'ing and at some point the bank or who ever controlled their loans they sold the company and its assets to them to cover the loan cost which then the bank/company liquidated everything to get their money back.. so while yes they may have had plans to continue the RMA service for video cards and continue to sell power supplies.. the contract loss with the bestbuy pretty much put an end to that..

anyone that actually thought a lifetime warranty ment it was a lifetime warranty needs to go back to business 101 and learn how this crap works..
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This is, in all probability, exactly what happened -- and even while the exec team knew their credit was drying up, of course they were going to act like everything was rosy and claim service would continue. After all, they needed to move stock to pay investors through liquidation.

And yes, anyone who doesn't understand that the "lifetime" in lifetime warranty means "lifetime of the company" and nothing more...

The sad part is, as has already been stated, people are SOL and people at bfg are out of jobs.
 
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I have BFG cards still and don't care if they go out of warranty anymore.

What did annoy me was getting sent cards for a warranty I had, that were themselves faulty. And having to deal with rude and obnoxious people that didn't seem to care about my claim at all.

This was going back to November of last year, so there was still some hope that the company might survive at that time I would think. Yet BFG's customer service had already gone to the dogs.
 
This sucks. About two weeks ago my dad just sent BFG a bad 8800GT that was covered with an RMA. I hope they replace it!
 
So should I undervolt and underclock my 295? It's the single PCB version. It's been running cool and running great. Now that warranty doesn't matter anyways, it's probably ok to watercool it, right? Theoretically that should improve its lifespan anyways. This is sad. Really sad. I loved BFG. Grrrr ....

Any thoughts on what to do with my 295?
 
well look at that......!

they went out with a big fuck-you.

avoid these boutiques like AIDS.


Were BFG psu's usually more expensive than straight up Seasonics?
 
SirKronan said:
So should I undervolt and underclock my 295? It's the single PCB version. It's been running cool and running great. Now that warranty doesn't matter anyways, it's probably ok to watercool it, right? Theoretically that should improve its lifespan anyways. This is sad. Really sad. I loved BFG. Grrrr ....

Any thoughts on what to do with my 295?
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Is it a factory OC model? I find that you can increase the lifespan of factory OC models by turning down the clock to reference speeds. They are usually tested for a short period of time for stability and binned for the higher clocks but over 2 years, there is degredation and then in 3 years your card is unstable and needs to be RMA'd.
 
BFG should sue Nvidia.

Still, While it always "feels" better to get a "Lifetime" warranty on anything the first question that always comes to my mind is, Who's Lifetime? Certainly not mine in this case.

Lesson learned, buy on reputation and performance and ignore promises that may not be able to be kept.

:cool:
 
There isn't any suing to be done. Read in between the lines on Kyle's post. BFG screwed up, not nVidia.

It just crossed my mind...nVidia probably offered the OEM some kind of warranty on the chips right? Maybe nVidia would extend the OEM warranty terms to us consumers :)? Just wishful thinking here, so sue me.

Here's to hoping that the community keeps track of the scumbags behind the failure of BFG so we know if they ever try to start up again under another name (and avoid them).
 
Blue Falcon said:
most of these are reference cards, BFG didn't do any custom PCB reworks
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That is not true. There were more custom stuff in the past, but examples of more recent ones were a custom GTX 285 (some of the P892 cards which mostly turned into OCFU and OCX, almost reference but had some different and some added components) and a custom 9800 GT (the OC2 and OCX versions deviated quite a bit from reference PCBs). BFG just choose to market "OC" and not "custom PCB."

jeremyshaw said:
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.
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Hey, I'm here too. :p I just usually hang out in the SFF forum here. I'm not mad, but more sad and feeling a bit aimless.

XPCSniperXX said:
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.
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Judging from posts on various forums, that definitely contributed to cleaning out remaining stock. Posts ranged from "I better RMA that dead card I've been hanging on to" all the way to "I better get one last free upgrade out of them." Jeff would probably know more about that, but I know he was pretty busy the past couple months.
 
Jeffredo said:
BFG didn't pay Nvidia in a timely manner for credit extended. EVGA did. Nvidia stops "supporting them". BFG dies. End of story.

Lesson to you kiddies - pay your bills on time.
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your ass, you enjoy talking out of it, don't you?
 
YeuEmMaiMai said:
your ass, you enjoy talking out of it, don't you?
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Well.. apparently there's going to be a lot of he said, she said so I'm starting to think even the employees (the ones that don't have the offices with windows) don't even really know what really happened at the end. Nvidia's going to say one thing, BFG people are going to say another... Bottom line is what Kyle said, "BFG killed BFG". If you think about it, even if Nvidia was a total douche to BFG, it's BFG that put BFG in the position of relying completely on Nvidia for their core business. Kudos to XFX for diversifying with ATI and kudos to Evga for diversifying with a strong breathe of motherboard products. BFG? So much potential was flushed down the toilet.

In effigy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moufhy35mo0
 
Oldie said:
I shot this over to the news staff here, sadly it's quite believable, but it would be nice to get it confirmed by some insider.

As soon as BFG announced they were dropping graphics cards, I was pretty damn sure Fermi was at least partially to blame, though I highly doubt it was anywhere near the only factor. Pretty sad to see what appeared to be a great company go down this way.
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Actually there's more to it than Nvidia "causing" this via Fermi allocation. Multiple factors came into play here folks:

  1. People abusing the "Lifetime Warranty" via eBay
  2. BFG Screwing over the partners that helped build their name
  3. Poor engineering decisions
  4. Increased competition

The first one, BFG didn't (while eVGA did) protect itself really against people abusing the lifetime warranty. You would see people selling the cards on eBay, praising the warranty, while it was meant for the original purchaser only. eVGA protects themselves from this abuse by requiring you (and BFG required it starting on the 200 series really) to register the card and the receipt. However BFG's process was clunky and inefficient compared to eVGA.

Remember how you used to see BFG in all the top end computers. Hmm, seemed like if it was a high-end gaming PC it had a BFG video card in it, or multiple cards for SLI. Small system and boutique builders helped build BFG's rep by selling those cards as the best of the best. Then one day, again showing the warranty troubles, BFG stopped providing more than a 1 year warranty from the purchase date if the card was purchased as a part of a system without a completely independent price. Oh, and they started screwing over the businesses that helped build their reputation, especially after BB came onto the scene offering to sell their stuff. Been with BFG from day one? DIdn't matter anymore because you didn't get allocated cards.

BFG also used to be the best when it came to overclocks and crazy designs to squeeze out more performance. They didn't handle competition from other vendors, but especially eVGA, in that realm very well. This also rolls into the last one, because for a long time (in computer terms) BFG was able to squeeze out one heck of a price premium for their equipment. After competition became more fierce, they were unable to continue that and their profits suffered.

So go on, blame Nvidia for all of BFG's troubles. Heck, claim that's what led to their downfall. You won't be right in anything but the most bass-ackwards simplistic terms. That was simply the last straw in a long line of bad decisions by BFG.
 
To all the BFG peeps who are on [H], best of luck to ya, hope you find juicy jobs soon! Your service to the [H] community has not gone un-noticed and certainly will not be forgotten! :cool: Hope you stay around for a long long time.
 
Inglix_the_Mad said:
Oh, and they started screwing over the businesses that helped build their reputation, especially after BB came onto the scene offering to sell their stuff. Been with BFG from day one? DIdn't matter anymore because you didn't get allocated cards.
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Umm... Best Buy has been a BFG customer from day one. And allocation of cards depends on allocation of GPU's. BFG, or any company for that matter, isn't going to choose to have less supply than demand. Problem is, AIB partners don't really know what the GPU allocation is going to be until Nvidia is ready to ship, and by that time you've already got your orders in from Best Buy and need to build and ship ASAFP.

Having Best Buy as a customer can be blessing and a curse. It's good that they can forecast as far out as they do, but if you make a commitment to them you HAVE TO fulfill it. If you're late or can't fill an order, they penalize you monetarily. To avoid these penalties, it wasn't unusual for BFG to send an entire allocation to a Best Buy, and there have been times where product was shipped directly to stores, as opposed to distribution centers, and via air freight to avoid being late and getting penalized.

But yeah... I can't argue with too much of the rest of what you're saying. Lifetime warranty was abused. BFG didn't keep a good track of customers and what serial numbers those customers should've had so every Tom, Dick and Harry would RMA a card just to get a newer card. I've always been used to working at places where everyone was armed with a scan gun and every serial number was scanned before a product went from room to room or out the door. This just wasn't done at BFG.
 
dr.kevin said:
well look at that......!

they went out with a big fuck-you.

avoid these boutiques like AIDS.


Were BFG psu's usually more expensive than straight up Seasonics?
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They weren't made by Sesonic so the two items are unrelated and your attempted dig is just off base and unfounded.
 
pardon me if this perhaps sound a bit offensive to some,

based on the feedback so far, maybe it is obvious :

"Job number one" for any electronic retail/distribution/manufacturing operation in US

1. Have a sensible and resilient Warranty Policy plus efficient and verifiable Operation
 
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