EVGA "Lifetime Warranty" Warning

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Arcygenical said:
There's a big yellow sheet in the box that says Register within 30 days or you're limited to a 1 year warranty... At least, there was in mine.
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stoney_titan said:
Same here. I think mine was orange?????

If I got "stuck" during registering the first thing I would do is email them or re-register. You filled out all the needed crap and decided that not getting verification was fine? :rolleyes:
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Mine was green,but it was in the box.OP you waited 7 months,thats crazy.I dont think eVGA can be held to account for your actions on this.The only thing I can think of is that you may have bought the card before the policy change.
 
Manny Calavera said:
Mine was green,but it was in the box.OP you waited 7 months,thats crazy.I dont think eVGA can be held to account for your actions on this.The only thing I can think of is that you may have bought the card before the policy change.
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Which was November of 2006. I bought mine 2 days before the change :D
 
I've had 2 EVGA cards so far, a 8800GTX i bought in the first month it was released and a 7800GTX that was also bought within the first month that was released. On both boxes there was a note saying you had to register within 30 days and not to return it to the store on the box flap. Inside of both was also a slip that said the same. I registered both with no problems at all and i've had my 7800 die once but back then they had cross shipping without the signup thing they have now and got a new card within 3 days so their service was really good. A friend had his 7900GT die twice on him and he got his card back within 5 days both times.

Anyway I think you need to pay more attention to whats inside of what you buy before bad mouthing a company since this seems entirely your fault. Either research warranties or look thoroughly within the box next time. And if you have a problem registering it I dont see why you never did anything about it to get it resolved back then. Maybe it got lost in your spam filter or something so might not be entirely their fault too.
 
xbeemer said:
I did. I was told that they "had to do that because people were selling their cards and the non original purchasers were trying to claim the warranty." But since EVGA insists on having the original purchase receipt, which is going to identify the original purchaser, or they won't honor the RMA, this is clearly untrue. It's more like how the insurance companies try to scam away legitimate claims on flimsy technicalities.
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I got a RMA replacement on a EVGA 6800GT that was never registered and I did not have the original purchase receipt. Y M M V.
 
Because there has been a lot of response in this thread in support of EVGA, I thought I'd wait for things to play out before responding again. While I naturally don't care for the flack I'm getting for complaining about EVGA's warranty tactics, I generally find the people who post here are pretty sharp....so I though a wait and see, and perhaps reevaluation of my position might be in order.

I did get an RMA since the card failed within the 1 year period, and I did sent it in. As of now, UPS tracking says it was delivered but not accepted, rescheduled most likely because of the holidays. I did get a backup card because I expected slow RMA response, especially this time of year. So no problem on that. Yet.

This morning I got an email from support asking for my comments. I don't know if this is something they send to everyone, or it is because of my posting here, or what. But I did respond. Here is the email I sent them. I will follow up again when this is resolved.

--------------------------------My response to EVGA support-----------------------------------------------------

First, let me say the two tech support people I was finally able to talk to were fine, and your web based registration and product tracking is also very good, once I was able to get on.

But it is highly unlikely I will buy from EVGA again because of what seems to me a kind of sleazy, dishonest bait and switch on your "lifetime" warranty. When I bought my 8800 GTX last April, I switched from Asus, which I've used for years, to EVGA because of the buzz on the HardForum, about this great lifetime warranty.

When I got the card last April, I dutifully tried to register it, but the verification email never came; and the web site is set up so you are pretty well stuck until it does. So I let go.

Now, a mere 7 months after getting the EVGA 880 GTX, it failed. So I went to the EVGA web site to get an RMA, and I discovered that I needed to register within 30 days for the lifetime warranty to be honored.

I didn't know about the 30 day registration requirement. Nowhere on the box or in the manual does it say registration is required. There is even a blurb about the advantages of registration, but no mention of it being required to preserve the lifetime warranty. Last week someone on HardForum pointed out that the warning was on the box flap, and third look at the saved packaging reveals that, yes, it's there on the box flap, in white on light green, clearly designed not to be noticed. This is the sleazy part.

So now I have a failed card, with only a few months remaining on the 1 year warranty. 1 year. Asus gives an honest 3 year warranty, which is about right.

Ironically, I bought a 2nd EVGA card last week. Went to Fry's and bought an EVGA 8600 GTS as a backup because I knew it would be a while before I got the 8800 GTX back. Tried to register that, and ran into the same email verification loop.

My email does not throw spam away, it puts it into a trash folder which I keep for several months, for business reasons. The dog did not eat your email response. Not last April and not last week when I attempted the registration, then followed up with email to support, as instructed.

So I attempted to phone tech support. The phone support filter gives a bunch of number options, but none that will let you speak to a human unless you have something called "Custom Support" or something like that. After several unsuccessful attempts, I finally hit the selection for "Custom Support" and was asked to punch in the first digit of my (non existent) support registration number. Since it asked for only 1 digit, I just punched "3" and the computer connected me to a person. From that point on, the two people I talked to were great, and I was helped.

Thus it seems clear to me EVGA intentionally makes it difficult for people to get the warranty advertised on the box. If a customer has inside knowledge that he has to jump through hoops, to persist, to wend through the call filter computer, then he will do that because it's a $560 investment. Last April I didn't know this and EVGA did, indeed, sucker me.

My impression is that EVGA is one of those companies that got started with the best intentions, with dedicated good people who care about what they do, but eventually became a victim to the bean counters. It's an old, sad story in hi tech, and it's a rare company that can keep the good people it started with. EVGA may eventually be one that can, but from my experience it seems unlikely.
 
maybe EVGA should do something like BFG . They show when and what you registered :)

bfg.jpg
 
leoftw said:
maybe EVGA should do something like BFG . They show when and what you registered :)
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They do, they even list where you bought it from and you can save a picture of your receipt directly to their database for faster RMA, even a link to a pdf spec sheet and manual (if available) for your product and a picture of it.

 
then why is the dude saying something about a email verification . BFG didn't do that .


Seems like the dude complaining messed up . I made sure asus and bfg were both registered.
 
I think he meant the email verification for when you try to register something. I'm not sure but i never had a problem registering before.
 
AmongTheChosenX said:
to the person ahving problems.


have you tried using a DIFFERENT email address?
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I agree this and add that it should preferably not be something that can add rules and what not (like outlook or Thunderbird) , just something simple like yahoomail or something. I never had any problems registering any of my 3 EVGA cards.
 
BFG is the only true lifetime warranty videocard company. thats all there is to it. no need to register no BS

The whole register in 30 days thing is no different then when companies use mail in rebates they do it to assume some will forget and not do it.

The mere fact that they make hurdles along the way shows they are not offering it with the best intentions.

Granted if i didnt always buy BFG evga would be on the short list of first alternatives but they still arnt as good as BFG.

The OP was lazy in not knowing exactly what he was getting and not knowing to register.. but EVGA is not the shiny penny some of you seem to be throwing in the OP's face either.
 
BFG Tech Graphics Card Lifetime Warranty
Was not modified or damaged by overclocking, tampering, user error, accident, disaster, abuse, misuse, power supply, power application, alteration, repair, modification, a fix or replacement by someone other than BFG Technologies.
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EVGA Limited Lifetime Warranty Program.

There is no physical damage to the PCB, GPU/chipset, or components that are caused by: Damage due to improper installation, damage during modification of any kind, damage during any type of Aftermarket cooling installation, and water damage of any kind.
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EVGA allows aftermarket cooling. Not sure by BFG's wording if it's allowed. It seems to imply it's not.
The mere fact that they make hurdles along the way shows they are not offering it with the best intentions.
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Logging on to their site to register isn't like climbing Mount Everest.
 
Kowan said:
Logging on to their site to register isn't like climbing Mount Everest.
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No it isn't, but I have to agree that I despise the practice. They should be able to verify warranty throught he serial number alone. I also hate the requirement of keeping the original purchase receipt. The serial number and original date of manufacture would be enough for me.
 
Dan_D said:
No it isn't, but I have to agree that I despise the practice. They should be able to verify warranty throught he serial number alone. I also hate the requirement of keeping the original purchase receipt. The serial number and original date of manufacture would be enough for me.
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I see both sides of the fence here;

Side A: registering can be a bit of a pain. You have to take the 5 minutes to go online, fill out a simple form, and send it in and get an e-mail. You also have to have the original receipt in one form or another. Since I buy everything online, and mostly from NewEgg, that's no issue for me. But, keeping an in-store one would be bothersome, I guess?

Side B: eVGA doesn't want just anyone to be able to send in a card for RMA. They don't offer a transferrable lifetime warranty. What else are they to do, to prove that you're the original owner? Once it's registered, it can't be re-registered, and you have to have the receipt to provide validation that you own it. That's not too bad, IMHO.

So, either you're with lazy camp A, or perhaps overprotective camp B.
 
I've called eVGA twice.

They were always professional and helpful. The first time was when I had a bad pair of 7900GTX cards (the ones that overheated and the memory eventually died). I received a Cross-Ship RMA (which wasn't common then, it was a special procedure for the bad 7900 owners at the time, now it's an option as "Advance RMA"). They overnighted new cards to me for free, and then I sent my bad cards back after I returned from vacation, as the new cards arrived the afternoon of the day I went to Ohio to visit relatives. No problem with that.

The second time I talked to them was when I had a problem with Windows Vista x64, SLI and my X-Fi. I had the "SLI Strobe," wherein I would boot my computer and either get no sound and a logon screen or I'd get audio but a black/white strobe light instead of a logon prompt. I wanted to know if they knew anything, and I found out the issue was not with Creative or eVGA, but something in nVidia's drivers/Microsoft's operating system. No problem there either.

I'm sorry to hear you had a bad experience with eVGA, I honestly won't buy (NVIDIA) graphics boards from anyone else.
 
I have called eVGA twice, the first time the rep was nice and helpful, the second time they were less than friendly, gave me incorrect info, and didn t stay on the line with me.

I decided not to call back and became a lot more self sufficient after that.
 
burnin8r said:
I have called eVGA twice, the first time the rep was nice and helpful, the second time they were less than friendly, gave me incorrect info, and didn t stay on the line with me.
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I've noticed that some of the late night support people are idiots. On the other hand, there's late night support. If you have trouble with the phone reps, post on the forum. You should be able to get in touch with a more senior tech fairly promptly that way. One other tidbit, depending on how you contact them you'll sometimes get a followup form email from Joe Darwin requesting you forward any relevant feedback about your customer service experience. EVGA is very interested in keeping their quality of service high so if you get an idiot when you call phone support and don't report it, you're shooting yourself in the foot.

I wish they'd drop the 30 day thing, but once you get past that, EVGA has the most straightforward warranty policy I know of. I've asked them for advice on different methods of removing ramsinks before - as above, that would have gotten me a big "warranty void" stamp from BFG just for asking. EVGA was all "well try this, this, and this - but if it doesn't work send it in anyway and you'll have to pay $20 or something."
 
*sigh* I still remember when EVGA was an Ebay-only, bottom of the barrel company. Times have changed...
 
I read this Topic and It made Me think if I regeistered My 7900gt. well it's 18 months old, so i went to the EVGA site and It allowed Me to regeister perfectly..
 
jediknight73 said:
I read this Topic and It made Me think if I regeistered My 7900gt. well it's 18 months old, so i went to the EVGA site and It allowed Me to regeister perfectly..
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The policy that requires people to register within 30 days only applies to people who bought cards after nov 8 2006(8 series release).
 
ashmedai said:
I've noticed that some of the late night support people are idiots. On the other hand, there's late night support.
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Ouch...that hurts since i recently became late night support as well as weekend

We have had alot of people come in and out of tech support so you may have gotten someone who is no longer with us. The guys we have now are all top notch and i can attest to that, they all know a great deal. But we do have a few new guys as well, so dont get too bad if they cant help you. Just ask to be escalated.

Fyi guys, if you ever had AMAZING customer support or TERRIBLE support....

evga.com/rateus

That gives us an accurate gauge of feedback regarding your issues and our performance.

Guys just so you always know, calling in to EVGA is always going to be faster than emails because emails get backlogged.
 
xbeemer said:
I'd been a happy user of Asus video cards (and other Asus products) for several years. They offer a 3 year warranty, which is about right. But because of the buzz on this forum about the lifetime warranty EVGA offers, when I made the jump to a 8800 GTX last April, I got the EVGA.

I generally register the products I get, especially the expensive ones, if I can do it online. I tried with EVGA and got stuck on the "email verification" which never came back. So I spaced on it.

Now, a mere 7 months after getting the EVGA card, it failed. So I went to the EVGA web site to get an RMA, and I discovered that I needed to register within 30 days for the lifetime warranty to be valid. Where the hell did it say that? On the web site if you look for it, no doubt, but I never remember seeing anything like this on the box.

So now I have a failed card, with only a few months remaining on the 1 year warranty they offer if you miss your 30 day registration window. 1 year.

Think the Asus 3 year real warranty is a better deal. Especially since I've never had an Asus video card fail.

So the warning is: better rethink the "lifetime warranty" EVGA touts. It's sort of a bait and switch because it turns out to be really hard to actually register it. The process gets stuck, emails (which it says to send if you don't get the confirmation email) aren't answered, and it takes days from card failure to getting an RMA so you can send it in.

The Asus (and I expect most others) turns out to be a better, more realistic, less dishonest warranty.
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I am sorry, but 7 months out is far too far out from the original 30 days in order to grant you lifetime warranty. You could always contact Joe, but i'm almost sure you will have the same end result simply because we have the warning in so many places. Quite literally when you open the box(unless opening it cavemanstyle) you will see the warning.
 
Who keeps graphics cards > 1 year?! ;)

In the last three months I went from

1x 8800GTS 640MB
to
2x 8800GTS 640MB
to
2x 8800GT 512MB
to
2x 8800GTS 512MB

So where's that 9800GTX?!
 
xp3nd4bl3 said:
Who keeps graphics cards > 1 year?! ;)

In the last three months I went from

1x 8800GTS 640MB
to
2x 8800GTS 640MB
to
2x 8800GT 512MB
to
2x 8800GTS 512MB

So where's that 9800GTX?!
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Wow, sounds like the exact same thing i did. Except i went from single 320 to SLI GT. Hey russian, can you put a fire under the butt of whoever is supposed to be approving my 680i RMA. Same username as here on evga site.
 
i don't think there's any kind of bait and switch tactics going on here. My email verification never had any problems, so I think it's just your settings bugging out and then your laziness screwing you over. Regardless, I think EVGA will help you out if you tell them exactly what happened and if you have all your receipts and packing slips and whatnot.
 
Arcygenical said:
There's a big yellow sheet in the box that says Register within 30 days or you're limited to a 1 year warranty... At least, there was in mine.
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Same here. I registered the day I put my video card in and didn't have a problem. Now it's true that with BFG and ATI I only registered when my cards broke down (after 2-3 years) and it worked fine, but then again I don't remember seeing more than a registration recommendation in their manuals. eVGA was a lot more clear about it.
 
xp3nd4bl3 said:
Who keeps graphics cards > 1 year?! ;)

In the last three months I went from

1x 8800GTS 640MB
to
2x 8800GTS 640MB
to
2x 8800GT 512MB
to
2x 8800GTS 512MB

So where's that 9800GTX?!
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I do. In November of 2006 I purchased two EVGA 8800GTX's and I've used them in SLI ever since. In December of this year I added a third card. That was about a week ago and I'll keep this configuration until the proper successor to the 8800 Ultra shows up. The funny thing is, I've probably spent less on video cards than you have.
 
I don't know if it has been said in the thread already as I haven’t read through the whole thing but XFX now also requires you to register within 30 days to get their lifetime warranty

How do I get it?
All you have to do is purchase an XFX Graphics Card and register the product within 30 days of purchase to activate your Lifetime Protection.
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http://www.xfxforce.com/web/support/showWarranty.jspa?regionId=1&productGenerationId=730964

I do enjoy BFG's version of registering at anytime, however I expect no where near the amount of service I would receive from EVGA or XFX from them
 
Dan_D said:
The funny thing is, I've probably spent less on video cards than you have.
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Ha ha, quite possibly! The thing for me isn't having the best performance and being happy with it. I just like to tinker with new stuff.
 
Crotan said:
I don't know if it has been said in the thread already as I haven’t read through the whole thing but XFX now also requires you to register within 30 days to get their lifetime warranty


http://www.xfxforce.com/web/support/showWarranty.jspa?regionId=1&productGenerationId=730964

I do enjoy BFG's version of registering at anytime, however I expect no where near the amount of service I would receive from EVGA or XFX from them
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Wow, i did not know that... thanks for informing us.
 
RussianHAXOR said:
Ouch...that hurts since i recently became late night support as well as weekend
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Heh...I'd be doing that too, but for my overloaded course load. I had a guy give me blatantly wrong RMA info, so I referred him to the RMA policy page on the site and he cussed me out. Joe got an email over that one. :rolleyes: Was tired of troubleshooting so I just emailed an RMA tech who had their address on the forum, and had an email with all the info I needed when I woke up.
 
I just registered my card. Signed up for a "membership" and got the email within seconds. Clicked the activation link.

Registered my card in the amount of time it took to type in my S/N. No email verification required to register.




.
 
Today, it seems, my RMA replacement 8800GTX was shipped from EVGA.

Although over three weeks seems excessive to process an RMA for an obviously dead card, once I was able to get an account set up, the process was painless. And as it was over the holidays, an extra week processing is not unreasonable. In fact, I went down to Fry's and bought a backup 8600GTS knowing it would be a while before I got the 8800GTX back. At the time I was unaware of the 30-day registration issue, and I had no problem with buying another EVGA card.

Today I sent an email to EVGA Support (using the web form that is available once you have an account, as they seem to ignore regular email) presenting my case and asking for a reinstatement of the Lifetime Warranty:

Two questions here, one regarding the 8600GTS purchased on 12/18/2007, SN#7067732700238, and one regarding the 8800GTX purchased on 4/4/2007, SN#7088312065637.

Regarding the 8600GTS, there was a $20 rebate that requires that I send the UPC code from the box. I'll need to cut the box as the UPC sticker is scored to prevent removal without destroying the box. The question is, if I do this, does it void the Step-Up offer, which appears to want the package returned in resale condition?

Regarding the 8800GTX, it failed on 12/14 and received an RMA, which apparently has shipped today, 1/4/2008. The question is, once I get the replacement and (promptly) register it, can the Lifetime Warranty be reinstated for this card?

My original attempt to create an online account was rejected (as it also was last month) at the email verification, so I didn't finished the registration process and I was unaware that I needed to do this within the 30 days.

While the user manual for the 8600GTS does state the 30 day requirement, the manual for the 8800GTX I purchased last April does not. Also, the box flap warning on the 8800GTX is in very small blurred print (since cleaned up on the 8600GTS box). I simply did not see this requirement and was unaware of it.

I purchased the 8800GTX in good faith thinking I had the Lifetime Warranty. I ask you to reinstate it when I register the RMA replacement. Will you do this?
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I've not received a response yet...I'll post it once I do.
 
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