Post your tech support / RMA experiances

Viper87227

Viper87227

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Jun 2, 2004
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I haven't seen a thread like this, and I think it could be really usefull for people who need to RMA some hardware, or contact tech support, and want to know how a certain company does at it. Post who you RMAed with / contaced and a bit of info on how it went.

Western Digital - Had to RMA my brothers 80GB drive, and it was a piece of cake. I didn't even have to deal with a person, I just put in the model number, cc number, and adress. I got the drive and shipped the defective one back in the box. Simple as that.

MSI - RMAed a Neo2. It was having trouble detecting hard drives. As with WD, I never talked to a person here, it was all automatic. I was disapointed with the time frame though. From start to finish it took nearly a month, with both parties using 2-day shiping. They held onto my package for three weeks. I contacted their RMA department twice via email and never got a responce back. I was rather disapointed with MSI.

MonarchComputer - This isnt a hardawre company obviosly, but worth posting anyways. This time, I was RMAing for a n00b friend I built a PC for. It was an OEM A64 2800+. Because it was OEM, AMD wouldnt RMA it, but I had only had it a month. I got in contact with Monarchs tech support, who was friendly and quick with email responces. It took less than two weeks from shipping to recieving the new CPU. I was really impressed by monarch.

Kingston - Yet another RMA. My moms PC has kingston value ram in it, and one of the sticks stopped working for some reason. I was never able to figure it out, so I RMAed it. Kingston was by far the worst experiance ever. After a I sent it, there stie updated a week later they received it (on two day shipping, bleh) Two weeks later, no chages, so I emailed them about it. No responce. Finally, a month after sending my ram, after still no update, I contacted kingston again. This time I got a reply saying that my RMA finished processing that day and will be shipping UPS Ground later in the week. Took nearly a month in a half start to finish!

PDP - My most recent RMA. I just purcahse a 2x512MB PC3200 XBL+K kit. However, bit on an odd situation, what I recieved was DDR2 that was stickered as XBL+K. I contacted them by phone, and while I got a indian guy which normally pisses me off, he spoke good english and was friendly. He told me there was an assembly line mixup, and that becuase it wasn't my fault he would give me 2-Day shipping. However, once he got me a tracking number, it said it was shipped ground. When I asked him about it, he told me he put 2Day shipping on my RMA form, but the shipping department must have made a mistake. So, I finally get my memory, and its just more bad news. I cant boot at anythink over 200mhz 2.5-4-4-8 2t. This is TCCD guys, thats clearly defective. So, I sent it back, and was assured I would get 2Day again. As of right now, Scott said he would be getting back to me today with a tracking number. I will give more details on this as it finishes. So far though, there tech support is rather friedly, but I am a bit skepticle on the quality of their products. We will see what results the next batch brings me.

G.Skill - I baught a 1GBLE kit fron newegg, and was having a hard time getting 275mhz 2.5-3-3--7. It would boot at that, but it was far from stable. The max stable was 260mhz 2.5-3-3-7. I emailed tech support, and the guy there was great. Being that G.Skill is a small tiawanese company, his english was only so/so, but it was understandable and he was rather helpful. We had 27 emails sent between us, some about tweaking the ram to get it to run right, and some about the tiawanese new year. He was a friednly guy, and it was a great experiance, and wit his help I was able to get 300mhz 2.5-3-3-7 with the ram. This is a tech support guy who knew what he was talking about...not sitting at a desk forwarding me pretyped responces. I was very impressed here!

Abit - Baught a Abit KV8 board from a member, and it was DOA. We both agreed that RMAing it would be a better option, so I did. It seems long times are common amoung motherboard manufactures, this one took about a month start to finish.

Gigabyte - My first board was a socket A gigabyte board...a GA7S748-L. I had a problem with the board one time, where my whole system powered down, and woudlnt turn back on. Something shorted, so first I emailed gigabyte tech support (which was a pain, there website sucks). Then, I rebuilt it, and whatever caused the short was not an issue, it worked fine. I totally forgot about my tech support email. Then, TWO MONTHS later, I got a rseponce, which was just a link to an FAQ that had nothing even remotely close to answering my question. I say, dont even bother contating gigabyte if you have a problem. They are useless.


Thats it for me, lets here some other tech support experiances, good or bad.

EDIT:

Dell - Forgot about this one till someone else metioned a monitor. I got a 2005FP with backlight issues and afew dead pixels. After a couple emails exhained between a rep, a new monitor was overnighted to me the next day, AND a prepaid UPS pickup was arranged for the bad monitor. I didn't have to life a finger. to make it even better, the monitor dropped $50 in price a few days later, and they credited me $50. This is the rule to which all customer support should follow. It could not possably get any better.
 
Funny you should mention this I just got off the phone with Logitech, I bought a set of Z5500 speakers that are making a weird buzzing sound. Took about 10 minutes to get through to them (Not a toll free number either) and when I did she asked me what was wrong then asked for the number off the back of the speakers. Next she said she will send out a new set and for me to dispose of the old ones. Kinda weird throwing a set of new speakers away but eh what the hell.
 
RMA'd a pair of seagate disks a bit ago. Good experience, the only problem is that you have to put the disks in foam, and it took me a while to find enough of the foam disk hats to ship. Had no problems other than that.
 
ascully said:
Funny you should mention this I just got off the phone with Logitech, I bought a set of Z5500 speakers that are making a weird buzzing sound. Took about 10 minutes to get through to them (Not a toll free number either) and when I did she asked me what was wrong then asked for the number off the back of the speakers. Next she said she will send out a new set and for me to dispose of the old ones. Kinda weird throwing a set of new speakers away but eh what the hell.
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This is good news for me. My dad just ordered a LX700 Desktop, and the mouse charger doesnt charge. Calling logitech right now, hopefully my experiance is just as good.

EDIT: The guy seemed nice...but damn that was some of the crappiest hold music I have ever heard. They are sending me a battary back for my cordless click pro mouse...but I dont think thatts the problem anyways, its supposed to work with regular NiHM battaries. Atleast I dont have to pay anything. He told me if the battaries dont fix it, he'll send me a new charger. I must say, I do like logitechs "dont bother to send your defectives in" attitude. Saves the hassle and money of shipping.
 
had to RMA a WESTERN DIGITAL 40 gig hardrive, went well, took about a week-GOOD.
had to RMA a KDS monitor took 3 days, GREAT-NO QUESTIONS ASKED-AWSOME!.
also had to RMA LOGITECH Mouse MX700, and guess what they sent me TWO instead of one! needless to say, I was HAPPY!.
 
Fujitsu - RMA'd a 36.4GB 15K SCSI drive. No questions asked by the tech support, just gave them the serial number. Took alittle over a week to go both ways.

Adaptec - RMA'd a DPT two channel RAID controller. They replaced it with a 3200s as the DPT was discontinued. No questions asked and I believe that they cross shipped it without taking my CC info (this was several years ago).

Dell - Alittle off topic as this was at work. They got me a new motherboard, raid controller, and backplane in an hour and a half for a poweredge server. This was on 4-hour response time warranty.
 
a little off topic here, but I'm looking for some help.
I'm RMA'ing my MSI K8N Neo2 Plat. I've got my RMA number and it's all printed out, etc. What I don't understand is the wording on the "Important Instructions"...

I understand that I have to ship it to MSI, but it says "freight pre-paid." I don't quite understand... is freight a specific type of shipment? and the pre-paid? Do I have to pre-pay to have it shipped back? So, I basically have to ship my mobo in 2 packages, both of which are paid for shipping?

I've never RMA'd anything before, so this is a learning experience for me. Thanks.

Drdeutsch
 
drdeutsch said:
I understand that I have to ship it to MSI, but it says "freight pre-paid." I don't quite understand... is freight a specific type of shipment? and the pre-paid? Do I have to pre-pay to have it shipped back? So, I basically have to ship my mobo in 2 packages, both of which are paid for shipping?
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They're just saying they don't want you to send it COD; you pay for shipping one way and they pay the other.
 
eVGA - Service was slow as a bitch, but instead of sending me a replacement they sent me a whole new retail-packaged upgrade

MSI - Same as eVGA

Abit - No upgrade, but service was DAMN fast

Gigabyte - Slow service, but got a new retail package both times (even though it was the same board!)

Dell - Fucked up the order, sent me a 1901FP instead of 1801FP after I RMA'd it. I bitched at them and they still refused to send me another 1801FP and sent me a 1905FP. Not the first time it happened, so be wary.


Not had to RMA anything else, I believe
 
PDP - Nightmarish ONE MAN RMA DEPT. Slow to ship (two weeks). Slow to respond (48 hours to respond to email). Blaims other components. Sent back something that is no better than the product I RMA'd. Beware, they are an immature company.


Viper87227 said:
PDP - My most recent RMA. I just purcahse a 2x512MB PC3200 XBL+K kit. However, bit on an odd situation, what I recieved was DDR2 that was stickered as XBL+K. I contacted them by phone, and while I got a indian guy which normally pisses me off, he spoke good english and was friendly. He told me there was an assembly line mixup, and that becuase it wasn't my fault he would give me 2-Day shipping. However, once he got me a tracking number, it said it was shipped ground. When I asked him about it, he told me he put 2Day shipping on my RMA form, but the shipping department must have made a mistake. So, I finally get my memory, and its just more bad news. I cant boot at anythink over 200mhz 2.5-4-4-8 2t. This is TCCD guys, thats clearly defective. So, I sent it back, and was assured I would get 2Day again. As of right now, Scott said he would be getting back to me today with a tracking number. I will give more details on this as it finishes. So far though, there tech support is rather friedly, but I am a bit skepticle on the quality of their products. We will see what results the next batch brings me.
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I'm pretty frustrated by Scott Laio at PDP right now. I bought the 3200+XBLK 1gb dual channel kit from Monarch (order placed 02-12-05). I had some problems with slow shipping from Monarch, but I contacted them and they got right on it and overnighted the memory to me at no charge (but it still took a total of 6 days for it to arrive from Atlanta, GA to Raleigh, NC). At least they made it right.

Fast forward 5 weeks, just outside return to Monarch, I get my processor upgrade (530J on an Asus P5GDC Deluxe). I decide to try out my Corsair PC4400 Rev1.1 back in the board (pulled the PDP 3200+XBLK). The PDP won't POST above 230mhz with any voltage/timing settings or with SPD defaults. The Corsair churns along at 253mhz in my setup. I'm like.. ok.. support time. I contact support, they say "no problem, here's your RMA". I'm like that was easy. Scott sets up an RMA, I pay to ship my memory back to them $8 USPS Priority (california from north carolina). They acknowledge receipt 3 days later with an email that says I will get an update when the RMA is processed with tracking information on the return shipment. Two full weeks go by with no update. I contact Scott, he plays the 'What's your RMA# Game' despite the information being in the email I sent him.

He doesn't respond again until AFTER I receive the memory the following Tuesday (a total of 18 days AFTER they received my memory). Guess what, the new memory is no different. I pick up the phone and call (my first contact was via website/email). Guess who answers? The one man RMA/support department, that's who. He walks me through many attempts (even after I explained that I've been doing this longer than he has) and agrees that there must be a problem. Now today, 4 DAYS later after he promised to be in touch the next morning.. he blaims my motherboard, saying it's not OC friendly.

I was like, dude.. are you on crack? I'm telling you I have isolated your memory as the problem, I can put the corsair (with old hynix chips) in the motherboard and run 253mhz with default SPD settings. I can put DDR2 memory in the board and run 260mhz (DDR2@693mhz). He says he can send me memory that he's tested to 500mhz but cannot make any further guarantees. So now he wants me to ship my memory back AGAIN, another $8 and wait AGAIN, for god knows how long.. to get very possibly the same thing back I'm sending in, no guarantees.

I explain that I have a motherboard capable of DDR1 or DDR2, and I've tested with borrowed DDR2 that I will be satisfied if he just swaps me for their XBLK DDR2 since he can't seem to come up with memory that lives up to the 533mhz they advertise, that BTW sells for the exact same price as the DDR1 kit. He said he would see if he can do this several times, and never offers to actually do it. I ask for a refund of my purchase price (paid 6 weeks prior to contacting him for support) as an alternative as I'm tired of dealing with PDP support and there's no guarantee the DDR2 will do what they claim either and that I'll be right back to square one.

I'll update you guys on what happens when I hear back from him.. I pray to God it's not another 4 days before I hear from him again. If it is, I assure you the BBB will hear from me first. I wish I had bought this stuff on a credit card, so I could just file a claim.. but unfortunately I paid for it with paypal (and I'd only be screwing Monarch, instead of PDP, which is not what I want).

EDIT: It took awhile, but in the end I'm very happy. With considerable email and phone calls I was able to get a very good product for my money. If you have patience, PDP RMA is reliable but very slow. I expect them to improve their RMA turnaround in the near future.
 
OCZ: EXTREMELY FAST, 2day fedex shipping, signature required, Great communication (even after the fact, followup).

I once RMA'd 3700EB memory (which was out of production), so they sent me the new EL memory that was TCCD. Not ideal, but definitely didn't suck. Very fast, too.

Recently (while the PDP fiasco was going on), I RMA'd some of their 4-4-4-8 DDR2 memory because it wouldn't POST no matter what. I sent USPS, they sent out fedex 2day THE SAME DAY OF RECEIPT. Within 7 days I had new revision of the same memory back in hand that runs like a champ. Unfortuantely, I did this RMA for a friend (as the OCZ memory belongs to him). It's the only reason I'm not seeing RED over the PDP problem (I'm running his memory until PDP decides to grow up).
 
ASUS: Fast, crosship on CC, Great communication.

I had to RMA my P5GDC Deluxe to Asus. Their service wasn't exceptionally fast. The bios corrupted itself during bootup (for no apparent reason, just powered on, got bios checksum.. reboot, no POST). They sent me another board on a credit preauthorization. I put the old board back in their box, taped it up, and paid shipping back. Zero drama. Problem resolved in 4 days. However, I planned ahead and used a temporary credit card number just in case they wanted to play the 'you sent us back a physically damaged board' game (which abit did to me once a long time ago, way back in the KT7-A days).
 
CompUSA: For what it's worth, if you want no hassle.. the CompUSA TAP is a zerohassle policy. Instead of getting replacement hardware, you get store credit for the purchase price on your receipt. You absolutely can't beat that, when you consider how fast cutting edge hardware prices drop (by comparison to a 1, 2, or even 3 year warranty). I've been told that CompUSA workers have been told: don't question the customer, if they hand you a TAP receipt, give them store credit, but encourage them to buy a similar product.

Apparently, they have a better RMA procedure with the vendors that we do, lol. I really don't mind paying them $15 or so for that RMA power second hand. However, I have to wait and shop patiently to get the best deals from them (man they mark stuff up like crazy by comparison to online or even other local retailers).
 
Comp-u-plus - this was a few years ago. Ordered a Geforce 2 GTS (back when they were near top of the line) in OEM packaging. Got the box, label said it was a GeForce, inside was an ATI (!) card of some sort. Called them up, said the box was right but what was in it was wrong... they said that was impossible, but I said it is what it is. They begrudgingly took it back and sent me a new one.... same damn problem! The f'ing chipset on the card says ATI on it, for god's sake! Call them up again... customer support is incredibly rude, and we get cut off. I call back, and they say, and I quote "Stop calling here, we won't tolerate your harassment." harassment! For trying to get the damn thing I paid for! Called and asked for a manager and told him what happened... he didn't seem surprised or upset, but at least didn't yell at me. Well, I said screw you guys, take the thing back I want a refund, since you obviously are incapable of find your ass with both hands (not quite in so many words).

Awful.

-Nate
 
I have an ongoing issue with hp:
Here is the full thread on TabletPCBuzz

Basically: Fault Powersupply caused battery not to charge and make the ac connector act flakey. Returned under warrenty, there was a small crack on the frame i was willing to pay for since i dont know how it happend (Never drop or anything, so it might have came from the first repair i sent it in for), HP goes NOPE! You gota pay us $900 to fix it, or $125 to return it to you unfixed. Im like no, you said there may be a charge BUT you never told me how much, and your tech support guy never gave me a straight answer if it would be or not. So after a week of pleading, i was getting nowhere, so i talked to a campus lawyer and she sent a letter to them for me, still havnet heard anything from HP, going to call her tommrow and see whats up.

Now going on a month and a half without my TabletPC
 
I conducted a study and found out that 38% of the sexy voices that belong to the users I speak to actually come equipped with a body and facial features of comparable likeness.

I told John, the guy next to me, that I've learned my lesson. No more user meetings. He doesn't believe me
 
Gateway: An absolute nightmare!! The screen on my notebook went out and I called them up to initiate an RMA. I went through the whole process and the box never showed up. I called to check on it and they told me that no one had ever processed it at all. I initiated another one and the same thing happened!!

While I was out of town the next week, I asked my father to bug them for me and he got them to overnight me a box finally. I shipped it back and it came back 3 weeks later. Unfortunately, those bastards pulled out my hard drive and replaced it with another one (I had upgraded it since buying the notebook). I called them and got nowhere. Emailed them and got nowhere.

I filed a complain with the BBB and they finally responded to me on the last day that they could before the BBB took action against them. I got my money back, but they were absolute assholes every step of the way.
 
why dont you just post this stuff on resellerratings??? You guys sure do break alot of stuff. I have 4 comps in my house, all build jobs. Not ONE component has ever gone bad. My oldest job has a P4 2.4c on an 865 intel board with some discount Ram I cant even pronounce and it runs like the day I bought it.
I did have a HD go bad on a Gateway taht I bought a long time ago (5 years maybe) and their (gateway) support sucked more than I want to describe. I just gave up and put in a WD replacement from BB and that was that. I wouldnt give gateway the time of day.
 
magoo said:
why dont you just post this stuff on resellerratings??? You guys sure do break alot of stuff. I have 4 comps in my house, all build jobs. Not ONE component has ever gone bad. My oldest job has a P4 2.4c on an 865 intel board with some discount Ram I cant even pronounce and it runs like the day I bought it.
I did have a HD go bad on a Gateway taht I bought a long time ago (5 years maybe) and their (gateway) support sucked more than I want to describe. I just gave up and put in a WD replacement from BB and that was that. I wouldnt give gateway the time of day.
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meh...resellarratings is for the sites you buy tthem from, not tech support experiances with a company. Plus, i think a consoladated thread like this is useless. Real easy for someone to browse and find out how a particular company is before sending off a part that coudl leave there computer down.
 
resellerrating gives you any opportunity to post(ie complain)any component of service you desire. I disagree. You can find posts about tech support, stuff you bought,your sisters last date, whatever you want! I find it to be most helpful, ESPECIALLY about support issues. meh........... :D
 
yeah.............but you could probably find out.............. whoa nellie!!!!!! ;)
 
An attempt to get back on track :)
Rma'd to Newegg, excellent
and to corsair excellent ******
Both no hassle or fuss quick turn around to boot!
My Twinx 1024-PT4000 mem went south after 3 years Last week,
E'd the ram guy at Corsair about not being able to run my new sticks in dual mode ( they worked in non dual )which NewEgg just replaced (2 day turn around)
and the Ram guy offered to replace the ram just to be sure. Should get em next week :D
My allegence is to The Egg and Corsair forever ;)
 
We interuppt this thread for a Public Service Announcement

ScHpAnKy said:
I banged her...
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you know, youd likely be suprised exactly how many female members this board has :eek:
and while I have it on good authority that "girl talk" is every bit as shocking as that of guys ( :p )
you just might want to have a slightly more friendly atmosphere

besides if your sisters see that they'll beat you bout the ears with it for years :p

we now return you to the thread, which Id hope will be slightly more on topic
 
Ha. Czar, you jsut reminded me of another experiance... how the hell did I forget this one. You of all people may find it interesting.

PC Power and Cooling - Yes, as hard as it might be to believe, PCP&C PSU's can have problems D= . Had a TurboCool 450 that started ascting real funky. I could jump black and green to turn it on, but then, I added one fan, and both ran slower (fan and PSU fan). Put on another fan, then came nearly to a halt. Put on a third and PSU would just kill. Messed with it for two days and gave up. Called PCP&C, and the girl I talked to was a total pain in the ass. She was not very friendly or professional at all. I imagined some greased up 400 lb hillbilly sitting by her lonesome in the back on a warehouse. Well, I got my PSU sent it, and this lady was supposed to call me back and let me know when the techs got to look at it, and again when it shipped with tracking information. I got neither call. Didn't take more than 2 weeks to get it, but it was a bit interesting how I got it. First off, it was terrably packed. There was almost no packing protection. Second off, all it was was the PSU... the same one I sent it. No RMA slip, nothing telling me if they repaired it, couldnt fix it, wasn't under warrenty. Nothing. I tried it, and it worked, so they must have been able to repair it, but damn, you woudl think they could tell me that. Clearly the precision and quality put into their PSU's is not extended into the RMA department (or lack there of),
 
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