Insane Asus RMA Story (Misunderstanding)

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So, I tried to RMA an X99-WS E motherboard with Asus a few weeks ago. The board just stopped booting one day, code 00. I submitted the RMA, packed the board in it's original box (which was put in another box) with socket cover installed. I even took photos of the board while packing it (for shipping insurance purposes). Here are said photos.
My RMA was subsequently denied for "Customer Induced Damage" of which they sent me photos. The tech that got ahold of my board actually BENT A FEW PINS. They claimed they would fix my board for $154. I keep everything I own immaculate and was incredibly surprised by this claim. ASUS shipped the board back to me, which showed up earlier this week. This is the board when I got it back (without a socket cover, might I add).

I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I had heard the ASUS horror stories over the years, but I had not ever had to RMA a board with them. Now that I have, what an absolute joke! I have never dealt with such an unprofessional company. I have RMA'd with EVGA and Gigabyte in the past with no issues (let alone anything like this).

I went and contacted there corporate care team. I spoke for about 30 minutes with a rep (who was actually quite nice) who promised he would get the issue sorted out for me after I sent the photos I had taken. As requested, I sent the photos and waited. Yesterday I got an email from what I presume is the rep's manager saying my "request for free repair" had been denied and that if I wanted my motherboard fixed I should have paid the fee they requested.

I have no idea what recourse I can take. If anyone has any advice I'd gladly take it. It's essentially my word vs. theirs. I'm sure plenty of people have successfully RMA'd through ASUS - I just got screwed here. Unfortunately I'm the one out a couple hundred dollars looking for a new X99 motherboard. Needless to say I'm incredibly upset with ASUS and will NEVER be purchasing or recommending another product from them.

EDIT: Just a misunderstanding. Will be getting resolved.
 
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Damn. I can't quite tell on my phone, but what damage did they do?
 
There isn't much you can do, sadly. I mean if you want to try to hold their feet to the fire over this shit you can look at suing them in small claims court or contacting your state attorney general's office. However in small claims you'd probably get a default judgement they'd never pay and the AG's office would probably not be willing to take up the case.

Sadly this is how it goes with ASUS in my experience, they are just absolute trash at RMAs. If you buy an ASUS product, you more or less have to accept that you are going to have to replace it yourself, if it breaks. The good news is they tend to be well built so failures are rare, but if they do fail, getting any service out of them is next to impossible.

It is bad enough to influence my buying. I still buy ASUS boards, because I feel their UEFI is the best and because consumer boards (my system has an LGA1151 board) are cheap enough I can afford to replace it, if needed. I still may not go with them next round (I used to use Intel before they got out of the game). However when I was laptop shopping I wanted a "gamer" laptop and ASUS was off the table for the reason of support, got a Gigabyte instead. Same deal with monitors, I got real interested in those 144Hz IPS monitors that got launched, but I wasn't getting an ASUS product. Got myself the Viewsonic version which launched more recently just last week.

So you can go after them through legal channels if you wish, but all that is likely to do is cost you time and get you little. The best thing you can do is what you are doing: Refuse to buy them, and let others know your story so they reconsider buying them as well. Ultimately this can be the most damaging to them as if companies get bad reputations it can cost them. I mean it has certainly cost them a bit in my case not really with personal purchases but because I'm a sysadmin and we frequently need to buy aftermarket graphics cards. They are never ASUS, because of the RMA issue. So they've lost out on probably 300-400 or so GPUs of various power levels over the years.
 
Is it at all possible you damaged the socket pins when you put the cover on?
 
Is it at all possible you damaged the socket pins when you put the cover on?

Its generally not possible with the socket covers that Asus uses. They do not go deep enough beyond the socket retention mechanism to reach the LGA pins on the board.
 
Welcome to Asus RMA, I had issues with them too for an x99 board. It started giving 00 errors and so I sent the thing back to them and they kept it for two weeks. Afterward I got it back and assumed it was fixed so I sold it on eBay only to have the buyer tell me it had the same 00 code issues. I ended up losing money on refunding the buyer and when I contacted Asus they told me their internal testing showed nothing wrong with the motherboard.

They did offer another RMA but I was tired of wasting my time and had already moved on so the Rampage V is just sitting in a box now. I did replace it with another Asus board but ended up going the 7700k route to get away from the buggy x99 platform.
 
Its generally not possible with the socket covers that Asus uses. They do not go deep enough beyond the socket retention mechanism to reach the LGA pins on the board.

Unless you hit the pins with a corner.
 
Is it at all possible you damaged the socket pins when you put the cover on?

i was thinking the same as I have done this when trying to ship a MoBo out.

is it possible the damaged the pins when taking the cover off?
 
My issue with them is their fans on the video cards are custom with a re-used part number so if you order their part number you get a fan that won't mount. They wont sell you replacment fans just after warranty and they don't use bearings so they wear out just after warranty. I had to rig 3 MSI fans on my old Fury (Thanks for the assist MSI). I own a Asus motherboard right now, but I am getting more and more antsy about buying from Asus.
 
I own asus stuff, but all were bought second hand so warranty is never really a thought for me. After hearing stories like these, I’ll definitely avoid building their stuff new.
 
am I crazy for preferring pins on cpus rather than motherboards? This story sucks. Not sure what is going on at asus, could be incompetent techs or just corrupt practices.
 
Yeah, sorry you had to find out about the new Asus this way.
The era of good CS from them is long over.

I had to name drop install sites and the company I was working for at the time to get them to return a bunch of GPUs, and they were untouched and still artifacting.
 
am I crazy for preferring pins on cpus rather than motherboards? This story sucks. Not sure what is going on at asus, could be incompetent techs or just corrupt practices.
The pins on the old CPUs were way stronger than the delicate and fragile pins we see on these new motherboards. I rarely if ever heard about broken pins on CPUs.

Yet another reason to go with AMD. This was a power trip by Intel, nothing more.
 
The pins on the old CPUs were way stronger than the delicate and fragile pins we see on these new motherboards. I rarely if ever heard about broken pins on CPUs.

Yet another reason to go with AMD. This was a power trip by Intel, nothing more.

You know AMD uses these pins on Threadripper right? This isn’t a “power trip”.
 
Yes it is. Intel wanted to pass the RMA buck onto the motherboard manufacturers, pure and plain.

I fail to see how this has anything to do with RMA's...it makes the CPU far more robust for shipping and packaging, and considering the CPUs are by and large far more expensive than the motherboards they go in this was only beneficial to consumers that aren't idiots.

Especially considering the situation at hand in this thread is that the motherboard itself was damaged by the RMA vendor in question, at least that is the story.
 
I don't own a single ASUS product and I doubt I ever will. Too many horror stories. Customer service matters, and from everything I hear ASUS is the worst of the worst.
 
Sorry man I think you're screwed. I sent one in recently and they tried to charge me a similar amount of money. I told them to forget it I could almost buy a new one for the same price (not quite the same for you!) had to tell them to just send me the board back multiple times and they still didn't do it until the time ran out for me to pay. Absolutely useless bunch of clowns over there. Then when I get the board back they neglected to put it back in the anti-static bag, it was just on top of it in the box. Pretty sure they broke a pin on the USB 3.0 front extension connector too. I haven't bought many of asus' products lately and don't think I'm going to.
 
I'll take your word over theirs. Their RMA reputation is complete shit.

File a BBB report. Even if it doesn't help, do it just because.
 
Sadly I've had tons of issues with Asus and their RMA department, it's why I won't own any asus products anymore. I would try to work your way up the chain and send the your photos.
 
I thought there was an Asus rep on the forums here. Maybe you can talk to him. Somebody help me out on his name....
 
I would not wish Asus RMA on my worst enemy, what a nightmare they are. Asus never again.

Anyaways I been through this “process” as well.

They seemed to respond to better business bureau complaints. I threatened to take them to small claims court and said to the bastards I’ll waste as much of your time as I can in courts or on the phone till I get the cost of that board back come hell or high water.

They sent me another board but that one did not post. So I had to go through the whole process AGAIN! Sent another board back (mind you this is dragging out over 2 months) that seemed to work, until I tried to use the m2 port, doa. M2 port would not detect not even an option in then Bios. Called them again and they tried to blame my drive, the weather, anything they could until it was obvious it was the board. I told them to go screw themselves, never sent the board back in and just accepted the broken m2 slot as if they send me another one it’s like a roulette game, I could get someth8ng even worst back,

So yeah, try the better business bureau, it seemed to get someone from “head office”involved that someone at their crappy repair depot would have to answer to.


But yeah I feel for ya man, every time I see an asus logo I get pissed off now....you never believe it’s “that” bad from what you read, but it is...if not worst. I am surprised these bastards haven’t been sued into the ground, what they do is illegal.
 
The board you sent them is not the same board you received.
Not sure if you realized that.
x99.jpg
 
It never is. They say they “repair” these boards but they never do. They swap them and I am not sure they even check them first. Just play the Asus roulette game. It’s unbelievable.
 
The board you sent them is not the same board you received.
Not sure if you realized that.
View attachment 54654

That’s bizarre, I didn’t even look because the stickers are the same. It could just be the light in the first photo. Also looking now the m.2 screw is missing. If they swapped the board I truly don’t know what to say - that’s criminal.

I appreciate the support guys, I just wanted to get the word out about the terrible experience I had. Sounds like I’m just out the couple hundred buck. I’m a medical student right now and really don’t have the time to pursue legal threats, I might file a bbb complaint though.
 
If they did swap the board with the same serial number (which is easy enough to do after a reflash) that’s the definition of a warranty scam. Don’t let them get away with it.
 
Damn, that's a good catch by Zepher.

I would look at all she stickers on the board pictures and compare if you can. There seems to maybe be one sticker on the top of the bottom pci-e slot, and there are some above the RAM slots. There might be others too.
There might be other physical differences too.
 
Keep in mind this is likely the actions of one employee, probably trying to cover his butt. Not saying it couldn't be a bigger conspiracy but its unlikely.
 
Keep in mind this is likely the actions of one employee, probably trying to cover his butt. Not saying it couldn't be a bigger conspiracy but its unlikely.
The other incident I linked to happened in Canada. So it's not the same employee involved.
 
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