My Corsair RMA Experience.

N

Nobi125

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Jun 7, 2005
Messages
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These types of threads are pretty popular in the video card forum, so I figured, why not make one for RAM.


As per the suggestions made by Corsair Representatives Redbeard and Mike Clements in this thread http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1123473 I decided to use Corsair's Tech Support Express service to get my defective ram replaced.


My ram was a 2x1GB kit of Corsair XMS PC4000 (DDR500).


After submitting the request on the TSX, I received this message in an email:
"Dear Valued Customer,
Your RMA request was received on 2/26/2007 10:27:27 PM.
We will review this request as soon as possible, and respond to you
with an RMA number or further suggestions/requests."


That got the ball rolling. All I could do next is wait.


I then received an email on Feb 27, 2007 that said:
"We are sorry about the issues you are having. Your RMA has been
approved and will be processed by our RMA department within 24-48 hours."


Mar, 1 2007: I received an email saying that my RMA was approved.
"This message is to inform you that your Corsair RMA Number for this
case is RXXXXXX. Please use this RMA Number when returning products to
Corsair.

An additional comment was sent with the RMA Number: Thank you for
choosing Corsair! The product you are returning under warranty is obsolete.
Upon receiving your return, we will test your product and attempt to
repair it. We will notify you within 24-48 hours if we are unable to
repair your product and will review alternate replacement options at that
time. If you have any questions please contact us at TF 888-222-4346 or
[email protected] "


I was overjoyed to find out that my year old ram was obsolete, but hey, that's the way things go.


I was able to get a good friend of mine to loan me some ram so that my computer was still functional while I was sending mine back.


March 6, 2007: I ship the RAM from Irvine, CA to Fremont, CA.


March 8, 2007 10:08 A.M: UPS delivers the package to Corsair


As the last email from Corsair indicated, I should expect to hear back from them within 24-48 business hours (1-2 business days).


Two business days later, nothing.


Now it's Mar 12, 2007 and I got kinda worried and wanted to make sure that they got the ram and that everything was going ok. So I used the email provided in the email from the TSX, which was [email protected], to ask them.


I did not receive an automated message saying they got my email, or even a response at all.


I figured that they might have not gotten it and gave them the benefit of the doubt. So on March 13, 2007 I contacted one of the representatives on this forum to see what the deal was. As usual, the representatives were there to respond quickly - even during non business hours. He told me that he would look into it.


I never received a direct response to my questions on the status of the RMA.


Thu, Mar 15, 2007: I get an email from a Corsair saying:
"We have received your return, however the part you returned is now obsolete and we do not have a direct or upgrade replacement available.

We have three options for an exchange; please let me know which one would best fit your needs;

1. Exchange for the 3200C2 or 3200C2PRO series.

2. Upgrade to the DDR platform (6400C4 series)

3. Issue a refund based on your original invoice

We apologize for the inconvenience. Please let us know how we can assist you further!

Regards,
******* ********
RMA Support Supervisor"


For those keeping track, this response was 5 business days after they received my RAM, not 1-2 as they specified.


To me, none of these options were satisfactory.
  • The first option would be a significant downgrade from my PC4000 kit.
  • The second option does me no good since I can't use DDR2 ram.
  • The third option would leave me with $220, while my exact set of RAM was being sold on Newegg for $283 when they had it in stock. I would not be able to get another 2GB kit of PC4000 ram unless I spent another $40-50 out of my own pocket.



In my response to the RMA Support Supervisor, I made it clear how I felt about each option and said that I would probably end up sending them my invoice unless they could do something else. I also asked what the best way to send it to them was.



Mar, 15 2007: I recieved a response that only addressed my question on what was the best way to send them my invoice. The representative completely ignored anything else I wrote (this becomes a very frustrating theme). I guess the RMA Supervisor was joking when he said "Please let us know how we can assist you further!." The email is below:

"Please attach the invoice and reply back so that I will Process your RMA futher.

******* ********
RMA Support Supervisor"



Without much else to do since my other requests were being ignored, I send them the invoice in an email attachment as they suggested. In that email I once again voiced my concern about the options that I was presented with asked if they could adjust the refund to allow me to actually buy a set of ram that was just as fast.



Mar, 16 2007: I received a response that indicated that they were going to process my refund. Again the RMA Support Supervisor ignored everything I wrote in the email. The email is provided below:

"Thanks I will process your refund now

regards

******* ********
RMA Support Supervisor"



At this point, I can't help but feel that there isn't anyone over at Corsair that actually cares or wants to listen to anything I have to say. If anyone, I would have expected the "RMA Support Supervisor" to at least read and respond to everything that I wrote instead of ignoring anything he didn't want to see. I never had much luck reaching them via phone since I have class all day and never had enough time to sit on hold. I guess I'm going to end up getting my $220 back and having to come up with the rest of the money to replace what I had before.

I can put up with them taking more than twice as long as they say to get back to me since all I really want in the end is a fair solution, but I'm not even getting that.

Considering my experience, it is highly unlikely that I will ever purchase anything from Corsair again for my own personal computers, or any that I build for others. If this type of service is a sign of things to come from Corsair, I wouldn't wish anyone the duty of having to RMA a product to them.

Edit: UPDATE - Redbeard and Corsair's RMA Support Supervision came through and fixed the situation. I'm being refunded with enough money to replace my ram.
 
Wow.

I have never experienced that level of disregard\failure of attention to detail in any industry before. Steamrolling customers and disregarding their concerns is extremely poor business practice.

You paid a premium for a "solid" product, expecting a solid factory warranty....you got neither the premium product, or the warranty. :(

Perhaps Corsair could contact a vendor and retrieve a set of his original ram, and issue the vendor credit for it? At worst, they could issue the poor guy a check to purchase his OWN ram (at the current going rate) or a competing set of DDR500\PC4000....rather than being forced to take the downgrade to PC3200.
 
Wow, that's a little disconcerting. For years I bought Mushkin ram, but have had really good luck with Corsair and felt like trying another company this time around. A lot of my customer builds include Corsair memory, so I figured it's time to buy some myself and if necessary use their RMA process (I have a 2x1GB kit on the way)...The only difference is that I've used Mushkin's RMA process many times, but never tried Corsair's. This makes me a little worried; I can only hope my experience will be different.

Thank you for the post though. It's appreciated!

-edit- I say you take this right back to Redbeard as he seems like a very reasonable guy. I'm sure he can help you out. It's a little different when you "know" someone vs. using the automated/advanced replacement e-mail inbox. Either way, post back!
 
That really sucks dude. DDR500 was pretty rare and I guess not many were made. Ask them if they will double the PC3200 ram (give you 4 sticks), I think that's fair since they did promise a lifetime warranty. Never head of a company downgrading a return.. don't stand for this crap!
 
I recently had a trying experience, but Redbeard came through for me as he has for many others here at the [H]forums. A company that's as big as Corsair will become removed from their customers, but if anything can be done, Redbeard's the one to get it done. Naturally your experience is complicated by the dated tech. Is there no way (fiscally) you can just bite the bullet and upgrade to a system that takes DDR2?
 
Nobi125 said:
I never had much luck reaching them via phone since I have class all day and never had enough time to sit on hold
Click to expand...
Pepsiennis said:
Is there no way (fiscally) you can just bite the bullet and upgrade to a system that takes DDR2?
Click to expand...

Sounds like he's a student....money is scarce enough to order off the dollar menu at fast food, let alone drop a $500-600 dollars on a solid new system. I speak from experience of being a poor student! :p

Hopefully Redbeard can step in and offer nobi125 a harmonious solution here. :(
 
_Durandal_ said:
Wow, that's a little disconcerting. For years I bought Mushkin ram, but have had really good luck with Corsair and felt like trying another company this time around. A lot of my customer builds include Corsair memory, so I figured it's time to buy some myself and if necessary use their RMA process (I have a 2x1GB kit on the way)...The only difference is that I've used Mushkin's RMA process many times, but never tried Corsair's. This makes me a little worried; I can only hope my experience will be different.

Thank you for the post though. It's appreciated!

-edit- I say you take this right back to Redbeard as he seems like a very reasonable guy. I'm sure he can help you out. It's a little different when you "know" someone vs. using the automated/advanced replacement e-mail inbox. Either way, post back!
Click to expand...

I will be sure to update this thread with whatever happens next.

I have never bought anything other than Corsair memory.

What's funny is that I almost bought 2GB of Mushkin DDR500 instead, but I went with Corsair because I figured if something was wrong, they'd be much easier to deal with since Mushkin seemed like a smaller company.

To me, it always seemed like they were the biggest of the ram companies and had the best reputation.

I've just never had to test their RMA system until now.

Redbeard and Mike Clements have been nothing but great guys as far as I have seen on the forum, but they don't run the RMA department.

As you can see in this thread http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1148306&highlight=corsair, specifically this part http://www.hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1030532926&postcount=17 I will definitely defend a company that I believe in.

Not sure if I'll be making any posts like that in the future.
 
dopee123 said:
That really sucks dude. DDR500 was pretty rare and I guess not many were made. Ask them if they will double the PC3200 ram (give you 4 sticks), I think that's fair since they did promise a lifetime warranty. Never head of a company downgrading a return.. don't stand for this crap!
Click to expand...

Yeah, I'd have to imagine that since they make less DDR1 now, it's probably harder to come by enough modules that will hit those speeds.

I'd ask them to double the ram, but their RMA Supervisor already ignores anything that I write except what he wants to read.
 
Pepsiennis said:
I recently had a trying experience, but Redbeard came through for me as he has for many others here at the [H]forums. A company that's as big as Corsair will become removed from their customers, but if anything can be done, Redbeard's the one to get it done. Naturally your experience is complicated by the dated tech. Is there no way (fiscally) you can just bite the bullet and upgrade to a system that takes DDR2?
Click to expand...

I considered that, but Spring quarter is about to start in a couple weeks and tuition is my most pressing concern.

..............especially, considering I just picked up a new monitor, I won't be buying any other computer related stuff for some time to come.
 
I guess I'm not RMAing the defective Corsair DDR2 I bought directly to Corsair. I'll send it back to Newegg instead and hopefully get a decent set. Their RMA has never failed me and it's fast.
 
My Corsair rma experience was similar. The 24-48 hour figure is apparently from when they check the received parts in, not when they plain receive the package. I sent in my rma on a Monday, they received it Tuesday via UPS ground (I live 2 hours away from Fremont), the rma was "checked in" to Corsair on Thursday. The following Tuesday I received an email stating the replacement part was on backorder and they had no idea how long it would take to return to stock. The next day I received a package from UPS with my replacement parts. It was like one department had no idea what the other was doing, and the lack of communication was frustrating. I sent several emails and made several phone calls just to get an update on the rma status.
 
This is a stunning example of why I refuse to purchase or sell any of Corsair's products. Especially since I deal primarily with ECC Registered DIMMs.

This is how they treat all their customers. I won't take this level of disservice for an old PC2100 ECC Reg'd system (which if they called obsolete, they would be replacing at their cost from another manufacturer, whether or not they want to.) Why the hell would I take it on a DDR2-667 2GB DIMM? Forget an FB-DIMM.

Keep up the "great" work Corsair, and you'll be sure to never make my approved manufacturer/vendor lists. That's a not so subtle way of saying, your customer "service" is intolerable, and you need to fix it.
 
*knock on wood*

i hope my corsair 620HX stay healthy,
dont really want to deal with corsairs rma by reading your story bud :(
​
 
AreEss said:
This is how they treat all their customers. I won't take this level of disservice for an old PC2100 ECC Reg'd system (which if they called obsolete, they would be replacing at their cost from another manufacturer, whether or not they want to.) Why the hell would I take it on a DDR2-667 2GB DIMM? Forget an FB-DIMM
Click to expand...


That's BS and you know it.
 
TypeO said:
That's BS and you know it.
Click to expand...

What part? The fact that all memory RMAs go to the exact same phone number, exact same support staff, exact same process?
Or the fact that I can still get PC2100 ECC Registered because that is the only memory you can use in an Intel Xeon EM64T when going over 12GB in a system?
 
dcbiii said:
Hopefully Redbeard can step in and offer nobi125 a harmonious solution here. :(
Click to expand...

I can tell you this, I'm not pleased with how this went down either. We've had delays in RMA before but usually the customer is made aware of it.

I can tell you also that I'm doing my best to find a good solution to this, as nobi125 actually got the answer from our RMA department before I could respond to him with anything I'd found out.

I want to make this right, nobody should have to suffer through the kind of lack of information presented to him. We're going to have delays sometimes, and yes, sometimes our RMA procedures are hamstrung by the fact that a lot of our parts are no longer in production, but we should definitely have some way of letting the customers know what is going on, 5 days to hear back from RMA is too long.

I'll be posting in this thread again this week with more info for you guys, I need to talk to some people at work (today is Sunday, nobody is there, I'm writing this from home) and see what we can do to make this right.


Every company is going to have failures sometimes, it's how we recover from the failures like this that shows the character present. We'll make this right one way or another.
 
I really appreciate it Redbeard.

I too agree that the ability to fix mistakes shows what a company is made of.
 
You know, I've never really liked Corsair because I've always thought they were just overpriced because of hype (kind of like the Best Buy of RAM), but Redbeard's presence/activity here on [H] has greatly boosted my confidence in their customer service, which is well worth a mild price premium.

If it weren't for the fact that I just bought 2gb of Patriot DDR2-800, I'd probably be getting some Corsair sticks after reading this/seeing how many times Redbeard has helped out people here. Next time though, Corsair will definitely be the first thing I look into for an upgrade. :)
 
Nobi125, you should be getting a call or email from our customer support group today or tomorrow about this. We've just put some things into place to try and rectify the situation in a more acceptable way.
 
Redbeard said:
Nobi125, you should be getting a call or email from our customer support group today or tomorrow about this. We've just put some things into place to try and rectify the situation in a more acceptable way.
Click to expand...

Now thats service....if it pans out...which Im sure it will.
 
Thanks Redbeard.

I'll make sure to update the original post when they do.
 
I just got off the phone with Corsair's RMA Support Supervisor. He seemed like a really nice guy.

He offered to refund me to the last price I saw the ram go for on Newegg, which was $283.

This will enable me to replace my ram with an equivalent kit.

I appreciate the efforts of Redbeard and any involved representatives down at Corsair, I would gladly buy another set of Corsair ram (if they still had any DDR500 in the retail channel :p )
 
Nobi125 said:
I just got off the phone with Corsair's RMA Support Supervisor. He seemed like a really nice guy.

He offered to refund me to the last price I saw the ram go for on Newegg, which was $283.

This will enable me to replace my ram with an equivalent kit.

I appreciate the efforts of Redbeard and any involved representatives down at Corsair, I would gladly buy another set of Corsair ram (if they still had any DDR500 in the retail channel :p )
Click to expand...

Good to hear, I'm glad it worked out. Again, I apologize for any miscommunication or confusion that took place. Thanks for being understanding about this stuff.
 
Redbeard said:
Good to hear, I'm glad it worked out. Again, I apologize for any miscommunication or confusion that took place. Thanks for being understanding about this stuff.
Click to expand...

No problem, after working three years in customer service myself, I know how it can be.

Quick question: I forgot to ask while I had the RMA Supervision on the phone....the refund just comes in the form of a check right (no credit card info needed or anything like that)?
 
Nobi125 said:
No problem, after working three years in customer service myself, I know how it can be.

Quick question: I forgot to ask while I had the RMA Supervision on the phone....the refund just comes in the form of a check right (no credit card info needed or anything like that)?
Click to expand...

It actually comes in the form of gold bullion. You know, pirates and all that.

Yeah, it should just be a check. :D
 
TypeO said:
That's BS and you know it.
Click to expand...

Of course he knows it !!! He obviously has a axe to grind for some stupid reason :mad: Corsair has some of,if not THE best CS in the industry,period,end of discussion. :)

The products they sell may at times be slightly more expensive,but you get it back in excellent CS that goes far above and beyond the call of duty.The only other companies that I have dealt with over the years,that is at Corsairs level is Nec and Samsung.All three have near bullet proof customer service. Good to know the OP got it all right in the end :) Kudos to both parties involved.
 
Hey Redbeard that's what i call beyond the call of duty. I hope corsair keeps up this level of customer service.
 
Redbeard said:
It actually comes in the form of gold bullion. You know, pirates and all that.

Yeah, it should just be a check. :D
Click to expand...

AmazedDizzy.gif
 
MY CORSAIR RMA EXPERIENCE​

No freaking clue, over 140 sticks, many with 2+ years in the field, never a had a DOA never had a failure.

Now PQI and /shudder Rosewell, What the hell was I thinking. We are not going there, I just ate em, and bought Corsair.


I had to put this out there, wow I cant believe peoples expectations. sounds like one guy did have an issue, will give him that, but see what happened, it got fixed. And there was a real person somewhere he could get in touch with.

I bought the most expensive Gigabyte Flagship desktop board and cannot get a reply from tech support on a bios option that is NOT EVEN IN THE MANUAL. No forum, no nothing but some crappy web based email question thing. I have been waiting for a week and they have not even looked at my question, its still "waiting for processing" whatever that means.

Earlier When I asked if the backside heatsink could be removed for watercooling or aftermarket coolers the reply was "Buy Gigabyte" (crappy) "watercooling, you warranty will be void. Thank you for buying Gigabyte." Well, never again.

EVGA and Corsair.

Am I a fan boy ? You bet your butt I am when it saves me time and money in the long run.
 
Just another update.

I got my check last week and a 2GB Corsair USB Memory Stick as well.

Pretty happy with how it all turned out, the delay was inconvenient, but overall, I'm happy.
 
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