ASUS fighting an RMA over inconsequential scratch

[Zberg]

To those of you who have RMA'd a card, wondering if anyone was able to successfully fight this battle:

 

ASUS ROG strix card bought new 1.5-2yrs ago.  No issues until recently, card is now giving me flickering, red/blue artifacts (kind of weird spots on the screen that flash quickly?), and crashing games left and right (error: graphics device disconnected, something to that effect).  Also clocks stuck in 1700's at normal temps when it used to always boost to 1890-1950 range at stock.

 

Sent it in to RMA, and they are trying to tell me because there is a scratch between the HDMI/DP cable inputs (from plugging the cord in), that is the reason for the malfunction and the warranty is void...are you F'n kidding me...

 

Going to dispute it, but I have a feeling they can legally get away with this. 

 

Feels like a car dealership shirking me on an under warranty transmission because the windshield got dirty.

 

Anyone have any luck in these situations?  They said I can just pay them the cost to fix it and itll be all fine...: $1100.00.  Thanks ASUS, an 1100 dollar scratch.

[Fasauceome]

The only way I was able to get Asus to even acknowledge my RMA was to call multiple times on multiple different days and elevate my concerns. It was an hour and a half at least per call (usually) but for an $1100 GPU that would be worth it to me. If it drags on for too long, insist that your case be elevated. Someone along the chain will recognize that a scratch on the I/O shield can't affect the card functions.

[Zberg]

Just now, Fasauceome said:

The only way I was able to get Asus to even acknowledge my RMA was to call multiple times on multiple different days and elevate my concerns. It was an hour and a half at least let call (usually) but for an $1100 GPU that would be worth it to me 

I called them twice today to vent my frustration as nicely as I could without yelling at the guy (who had nothing to do with it), and he said the only path is to dispute.  I think I am going to follow your advice and call them daily

[Jeppes]

Are you in EU? Here they will have to prove that and there is no way you could find a judge stupid enough to think a cosmetic scratch would break a card. Here was a case where Samsung tried to deny warranty on Galaxy S because of custom rom and lost because they could not show that the custom rom broke it.

[AndreiArgeanu]

A bit weird to be honest. I didn't have any issues dealing with Asus over in Europe. When I had an issue with my laptop's hard drive being unplugged they were quick to have me send the laptop in and they were nice enough to even clean it's heat-sink and replace the thermal paste all for free. I guess you'll just have to dispute it and see how it works out.

[Tanaz]

These companies can be so inconcistent simply because it's all about what "agent" you get that day. I've had a great experience AND  a terrible experience with the same exact company (Logitech) in the span of less than a year and it was all because of the person that was on the other end and what mood they were in. Hold your own, keep pressuring and do not let up.

[Gohardgrandpa]

3 minutes ago, AndreiArgeanu said:

A bit weird to be honest. I didn't have any issues dealing with Asus over in Europe. When I had an issue with my laptop's hard drive being unplugged they were quick to have me send the laptop in and they were nice enough to even clean it's heat-sink and replace the thermal paste all for free. I guess you'll just have to dispute it and see how it works out.

You have way better consumer laws over there then we have in the states. 
After reading this asus can kiss my ass, I won’t buy their stuff again. This is beyond stupid. If they don’t do the right thing here I’d post email between you and them online for proof so everyone can see how shady they are 

[Zberg]

17 minutes ago, Jeppes said:

Are you in EU? Here they will have to prove that and there is no way you could find a judge stupid enough to think a cosmetic scratch would break a card. Here was a case where Samsung tried to deny warranty on Galaxy S because of custom rom and lost because they could not show that the custom rom broke it.

Im in the states, I have a feeling I am going to have to badger them like crazy (and am planning on it)

[Zberg]

14 minutes ago, Gohardgrandpa said:

You have way better consumer laws over there then we have in the states. 
After reading this asus can kiss my ass, I won’t buy their stuff again. This is beyond stupid. If they don’t do the right thing here I’d post email between you and them online for proof so everyone can see how shady they are 

The most frustrating thing is that they instantly wrote it off as "Customer induced damage" and referenced the IO shield scratch, and clearly never investigated in any way shape or form why the card actually stopped functioning properly, just got enough "evidence" to say I voided the warranty and called it a day. 

 

Im pissed that I am going to have to sink a lot of time into this, but its too expensive for them not to make it right.  Ive heard EVGA is awesome with their warranty stuff, I might be sticking strictly with them in the future depending on how this turns out.

[jaslion]

16 minutes ago, Gohardgrandpa said:

You have way better consumer laws over there then we have in the states. 
After reading this asus can kiss my ass, I won’t buy their stuff again. This is beyond stupid. If they don’t do the right thing here I’d post email between you and them online for proof so everyone can see how shady they are 

Pretty much a case of no laws to prevent us from doing this so why not here. It's why in Europe I've often had the excuse of but the warranty sticker is removed and you've clearly replaced x and y so that is why it broke but they still fixed it because I simply said that prove to me that what I did broke it. They especially hate it when they have to honour their 10 year warranties :p. 8 year old trashpicked seasonic with a registered 10 year warranty broke. They could not replace it due to no longer having it in stock (obviously) so I ended up with a similar value platinum psu from them :P.

[jaslion]

2 minutes ago, Zberg said:

The most frustrating thing is that they instantly wrote it off as "Customer induced damage" and referenced the IO shield scratch, and clearly never investigated in any way shape or form why the card actually stopped functioning properly, just got enough "evidence" to say I voided the warranty and called it a day. 

 

Im pissed that I am going to have to sink a lot of time into this, but its too expensive for them not to make it right.  Ive heard EVGA is awesome with their warranty stuff, I might be sticking strictly with them in the future depending on how this turns out.

Evga is a bit better but not much. They'll all happily try to do the least work possible.

[Zberg]

Update:

 

Got an email back after fussing with them all day.  They basically have said:

 

The "damage" pictured (picture of scratches on IO shield by HDMI/DP ports) is not covered by the warranty by ASUS and must be paid for my consumer.  Please pay the fee below (1100$ + 88$ fee) for RMA repair to be complete.

 

They literally have not diagnosed any actual problem, and are trying to shake me down for 1200 wing wangs to fix the "damage"...an IO shield scratch....that has nothing to do with anything.

 

Extremely frustrated.  Sent very long and annoying email to them trying to get it escalated to a superior.  3 people now have looked at the case and been willing to write off the entire situation as due to scratches on the IO shield causing a GPU to flicker, artifact, downclock, and constantly crash...SMH

[Zberg]

Also to explain the scratches from my standpoint, the case was basically sitting in such a position that reaching the back of it was kind of annoying, sometimes had to fiddle with it a bit to get the cords plugged in without being able to directly visualize, so had to move the cord all around the input to get it in the right spot, creating cosmetic scratches on the IO shield.

 

[Skiiwee29]

And this is why ASUS is universally known to have the worst RMA experience and EVGA the best. 

[Zberg]

Just now, Skiiwee29 said:

And this is why ASUS is universally known to have the worst RMA experience and EVGA the best. 

So frustrating, I have never dealt with an RMA and would think there would be some attempt to actually diagnose the problem.  It has been 100%: "identify anything that we can blame it on, wash hands of everything, charge consumer for full fee to replace card."

 

If they dont make this right I will be avoiding all ASUS products in the future. 

 

 

[dilpickle]

Not only is their service bad but their hardware sucks too. I just had my 3rd motherboard from them fail. Never again.

[Gohardgrandpa]

1 hour ago, Zberg said:

So frustrating, I have never dealt with an RMA and would think there would be some attempt to actually diagnose the problem.  It has been 100%: "identify anything that we can blame it on, wash hands of everything, charge consumer for full fee to replace card."

 

If they dont make this right I will be avoiding all ASUS products in the future. 

 

 

I’m sorry you have to deal with this, especially with such an expensive item. This pisses me off and I have nothing to do with it. A scratch on the io panel is nothing, not like you sent it in with a busted ass fan shroud. 

[PineyCreek]

I would rather *censored* *censored* *censored*, thoroughly shoving it *censored* *censored* with a handful of rusty corncob holders than to ever deal with Gigabyte or ASUS's customer service again.  If I have a choice, I will never use or purchase a part or peripheral from them again that doesn't come with some form of external warranty (ex. take it back to the store rather than contact the OEM).

[dilpickle]

1 hour ago, PineyCreek said:

I would rather *censored* *censored* *censored*, thoroughly shoving it *censored* *censored* with a handful of rusty corncob holders than to ever deal with Gigabyte or ASUS's customer service again.  If I have a choice, I will never use or purchase a part or peripheral from them again that doesn't come with some form of external warranty (ex. take it back to the store rather than contact the OEM).

Well MSI is a shady company in general. If we were talking motherboards then who's left? Asrock?

[Rym]

Nah asrock sucks too.

 

I guess there's gigabyte?

 

I would demand that the PROVE to me that the I/O scratch is causing issues and if it's not then I'm suying or something very very annoying for them to deal with.

[Zberg]

2 hours ago, Rym said:

Nah asrock sucks too.

 

I guess there's gigabyte?

 

I would demand that the PROVE to me that the I/O scratch is causing issues and if it's not then I'm suying or something very very annoying for them to deal with.

Ya I do have an Asrock and a gigabyte currently and will say the ASrock is kind of jank.  Though I don't know if its just an AMD thing or its my board.   The B450 BIOS update process was extreme jank on my Asrock board, and now that it works, it is still incredibly sketchy.  To the point I wont bother with the "upgrade path" of AMD or ASrock boards in the future as I don't know which is to blame.

 

I will say I like my gigabyte board, but someone above mentions their customer service is pretty terrible I guess.  Maybe that's the industry norm  

 

EVGA is one of the few I have heard very positive things about

[Zberg]

2 hours ago, Rym said:

 

I would demand that the PROVE to me that the I/O scratch is causing issues and if it's not then I'm suying or something very very annoying for them to deal with.

I mentioned to them so many times that the premise of blaming the IO shield scratch for a malfunctioning GPU wreaks of them looking for anything possible to not do the work they owe, and that it is absurd and an argument that wouldn't stand up in "any suit".  Also mentioned that I will be emailing and calling daily until they make it right.  Top of their product line, 1000+ dollars and they try to pull this.

[Tanaz]

1 minute ago, Zberg said:

I mentioned to them so many times that the premise of blaming the IO shield scratch for a malfunctioning GPU wreaks of them looking for anything possible to not do the work they owe, and that it is absurd and an argument that wouldn't stand up in "any suit".  Also mentioned that I will be emailing and calling daily until they make it right.  Top of their product line, 1000+ dollars and they try to pull this.

Just hope you get a person on the other end that is at least semi-adequate. It is extremely annoying but letting them get away with it is simply not an option. They try to break people down into giving up - that's just part of their job description in order to save the company as much money as possible. 

[CommanderAlex]

6 hours ago, Zberg said:

Also to explain the scratches from my standpoint, the case was basically sitting in such a position that reaching the back of it was kind of annoying, sometimes had to fiddle with it a bit to get the cords plugged in without being able to directly visualize, so had to move the cord all around the input to get it in the right spot, creating cosmetic scratches on the IO shield.

 

Shouldn't a scratch on the I/O shield be considered "normal wear and tear" especially when fiddling with cables. For a lot of people, that happens to everyone trying to find the correct port to plug into. Shove it back to ASUS where the sun doesn't shine and elevate your case to a customer service manager. Hell I have trouble when I take out my graphics card because I can't push the clip that holds the card in the PCIE slot, so I have to remove the fan in between the towers of my Noctua NH-D15 with a U shaped dental clip and sometimes it scratched the backplate in the area I have to unclip the fan from. 

5 hours ago, dilpickle said:

Not only is their service bad but their hardware sucks too. I just had my 3rd motherboard from them fail. Never again.

I once had an ASUS gaming laptop in 2014 and the frickin motherboard failed after 5 months of use, the store actually gave me store credit as I had issues with the same model over 3 different laptops. Their QC and CS sucked then and it still sucks now and that is one of the reasons I never buy ASUS products. I recall seeing someone come in my local Micro Center to the service dept when I was doing a replacement plan with a product (don't work there) and their ASUS motherboard failed after just a year of use with the system refusing to boot and planned on switching it out with another company (MSI). 

[Zberg]

Excellent news friends:

 

After a couple days of relentless emailing and calls, success!  

 

 

On 10/27/2020 at 11:47 AM, Fasauceome said:

If it drags on for too long, insist that your case be elevated. Someone along the chain will recognize that a scratch on the I/O shield can't affect the card functions.

2 different other "service teams" looked at it and kept giving the same answer.  Did exactly this and kept asking it be elevated to a manager/supervisor and reminded them I know they are in the wrong and would continue to email and call daily (which I have been doing, to their chagrin).   After 3 days of calling they officially "elevated" my case.

 

They apologized and said they would cover the repair fee (1188$!) they wanted to make repairs.