Amazon and Newegg Issuing 20% Refunds for "Some" GTX 970 Purchases

[EChondo]

Kitguru: http://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/matthew-wilson/some-gtx-970-buyers-getting-partial-refunds-from-amazon/
Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/2w4g58/amazon_issuing_20_refunds_to_customers_who_bought/ 

 

We’ve had a couple of KitGuru readers get in touch to let us know that Amazon US and Amazon UK both appear to be willing to follow in Newegg’s footsteps and issue 20 per cent refunds to buyers of the GTX 970 graphics card following the recent VRAM fiasco.

Two readers, Tim Spencer and Akaki Mukhigulashvili, sent in chat logs with Amazon customer service, who after a little persuading, agreed to issue 20 per cent refunds on the GTX 970 purchase as a ‘one time exception’. Amazon customer service is usually pretty good and in this case, they are being very generous. These refunds follow on from US retailer, Newegg, which also agreed to give 20 per cent refunds to those that bought a GTX 970.

If you are genuinely annoyed about the GTX 970 3.5GB VRAM debacle but don’t fancy giving up the card entirely, then this may be an option for you. However, there is no guarantee that everyone will get the same treatment. A 20 per cent refund in this case will amount to around $74 or £58, which is quite a sizable amount.

For those that don’t know much about the recent controversy, the GTX 970 was recently discovered to only be using 3.5GB of VRAM, rather than the full 4GB on the GPU. This has caused quite a stir as many expected to be able to use the full amount of VRAM advertised on their new cards. Nvidia has since explained that 500MB of the VRAM is reserved for when it is needed but not all games or programs will take advantage of this technology.

 

 

So it seems Amazon and Newegg have been stepping up and issuing refunds of 20% to GTX 970 owners, it isn't apparent if this is a 100% thing happening as some people are having better luck than others, but it's great to see retailers doing things like this.

 

Have you gals/guys tried this as well and have been successful? If so, post below! I for one have already returned mine that I bought back in December, now I'm going to be waiting for AMD's 300 series.

[TheSLSAMG]

I tried it, according to the Newegg rep I will get $52.50 to my PayPal in 3-5 business days.

 

Also, the first guy IMO acted like a bit of a prat dick.

 

 

Edit: I have in fact recieved the money.

 

[XTankSlayerX]

It still has 4GB Of VRAM....

 

Its just advertisement, Razer isn't going to tell you that their headsets sound bad, or that the keys on the blackwidow are wobbly...

[Egoist]

That's actually great. If Nvidia had made this clear (You know they could have made it postive. Look guys it has 3.5GB of super fast Vram and 0.5 GB of reserve Vram that isn't quite as fast but it's still more Vram.)  and had offered the 970 for 80%  of it's current price at launch it would have sold even better. 

[EChondo]

It still has 4GB Of VRAM....

And what about the false advertisement of ROPs and L2 cache?

 

Because as far as I am aware, no one has 64 ROPs nor 2MB of L2 cache on any of their 970's which was originally advertised.

Also it is very disingenuous that Nvidia never released this information about the gimped VRAM, and I doubt the marketing and engineering teams miscommunicated. Nvidia got caught with their pants down and now they are making up even more lies to cover that up too.

 

Look, I don't want to start an argument here, but it's pretty blatant false advertisement. If you don't like that people are feeling gypped on their purchase because Nvidia lied then you don't have to post on this thread. Just ignore it and move on.

[eelnico09]

I went for it, told them about the 20% thing, and the girl took like 1 minute and refounded it right away. I think amazon just accepted it and will refound to whoever asks it.

 

I bought it using amazon global so i paid 502$ for the card, i wonder if i am getting 20% of 502$ or 349$

[Lays]

Just got off newegg chat, they won't refund me because they got a "we received an update from our head department and there is no partial refund that can be honored"

 

Edit: they did give me a $60 refund for both cards combined, I just had to complain about them giving others refunds and denying me one.

 

 

 luvdatpeen:  A while back, I purchased two Gigabyte GTX 970 G1 Gaming GPUs. You probably know this by now, but news surfaced that NVIDIA lied about certain specifications of the card and it's ability to leverage it's 4GB frame buffer.    Darren q:  I am pretty disappointed by such.    Darren q:  Looking around online, I've seen others getting partial refunds from Newegg and Amazon for this reason.    Darrenq:  It seems that it sits in the region of 20-25%    q.:  Hi Darren. Thank you for providing me with that information. I do apologize for the inconvenience. We are aware of the issue. In this case, I can offer you an R MA for store credit with prepaid shipping label. The store credit will be in the form of a New egg gift card and will have no expiration date. Would you like me to set up the return for you?    Darren q:  No, as this is not what I am asking for.    Darrenq:  As I stated previously, users around the internet have been successfully getting partial refunds for the issue of the false advertisement. An example of such can be found here.http://i.imgur.com/OIghkBk.png    Darrenq:  Therefore, i would like a partial refund.    q.:  Oh, I see. Previously, manufacturer does not take the items back so Newegg is trying our best to solve the issue at our end so offered partial refund. Now, they are willing to accept the item so we are unable to offer partial refund now. I would suggest you contact them to see if they can assist you with the issue. Thank you for your understanding.    Darren q:  I am sorry if I seem a bit pushy, but even a friend of mine had success with doing such earlier. If you need, his chat number was 479645. If you can look through it, you will see that he got a 15% refund, which amounted to $52.50 for his card.    q.:  Yes, I know this but currently, we received update from our head department and there is no partial refund can be honored.    q.:  I do apologize.   q.:  We can only offer refund RMA for the item.    Darren q:  That seems extremely unfair considering the circumstances.    q.:  I can only say worry for your situation, Darren and I hope you can understand us.

[Dabombinable]

I had to RMA mine (got a faulty, POS dud), but luckily at the store I purchased it from was able to give me just over 1/8th of what I paid as Nvidia lied by omission about the vRAM, and screwed up with the ROPS and L2 cache. Since it cost my $565, that is enough back for a new case. (Put a whole in my current one, and killed the thin 120mm scythe fan-I received a rather arrogant and condescending email from Gigabyte which has driven me away from them, I'll use the replacement G1 Gaming as long as it lasts, then I'm not going with them again).

[GlassBomb]

This... Is stupid. 1/8 less memory shouldn't grant you 20% of the value of the card.

The memory that's lacking isn't even worth 5% of the value of the card.

Some people...

[Lord Baal]

This... Is stupid. 1/8 less memory shouldn't grant you 20% of the value of the card.

The memory that's lacking isn't even worth 5% of the value of the card.

Some people...

Some people don't like being lied to sure and there's nothing wrong with that, there is how ever something wrong with people bitching about others receiving a 20% refund. Not to mention it wasn't just the Vram as stated above you and now quoted for you so you have no excuse to ignore it.

 

And what about the false advertisement of ROPs and L2 cache?

 

Because as far as I am aware, no one has 64 ROPs nor 2MB of L2 cache on any of their 970's which was originally advertised.

Also it is very disingenuous that Nvidia never released this information about the gimped VRAM, and I doubt the marketing and engineering teams miscommunicated. Nvidia got caught with their pants down and now they are making up even more lies to cover that up too.

 

Look, I don't want to start an argument here, but it's pretty blatant false advertisement. If you don't like that people are feeling gypped on their purchase because Nvidia lied then you don't have to post on this thread. Just ignore it and move on.

[mr moose]

Some people don't like being lied to sure and there's nothing wrong with that, there is how ever something wrong with people bitching about others receiving a 20% refund. Not to mention it wasn't just the Vram as stated above you and now quoted for you so you have no excuse to ignore it.

 

Not that I really have an opinion on the refunds other than to say this sets a dangerous precedent.  When people discover the Asus STX doesn't provide a hi-fi frequency response when driving 32Ohm headphones, are people going to be entitled to a 20% refund?  it's exactly the same thing, the product doesn't do what people think it should based on claims made by the company.

[FakezZ]

This is great and not because anybody deserved 20% of their money back, since the card is just fine performance-wise, but it goes to show that companies can't just get away with lying to consumers.

[imthewalrus]

This is stupid, most of the people asking for a refund don't even know the true reason why they are getting it. The card does have 4 gb of vram, but it can't utilize it due to the card not having enough rops. Just like the gt 640 released with 4 gb variants, it will never be able to utilize it. It's not like your card isn't performing as you expected, I mean even the reviewers got the same card, so is not like the benchmarks provided false advertising. This is coming from somebody that owns a gtx 970.

[Guest Kloaked]

-snip-

Don't make another post before reading the CoC; unless you're going to make a more mature post to actually add to a discussion, keep your shit flinging to yourself.

[Misanthrope]

Hehehehe, this is just call center stuff guys: I've got a "risk/value" table on each customer which varies depends on how much they pay, how many late payments and most of all their contract. Most guys in customer service have this and it basically lets you buy out good survey scores which you need to win over pissed off people. Notice how right after giving him the partial refund he mentioned the survey and got the fuck out. That's typical call center stuff, get em from pissed to happy and get the fuck off the call/chat hopefully it will keep em happy long enough for them to give you a good score.

 

Sorry to say but I seriously doubt there is any kind of refund policy on the 970 and depends on how much and how often you buy, I wouldn't be surprised to find out that if you had a bunch of RMAs in the past or it was your first purchase they might say "Best we can do is a 5% refund as a one time exception" and on the other hand if you're a whale and have been spending big on them for years they will refund the whole fucking thing if you ask nicely.

Edit: This exactly supports what I'm talking about being a case by case thing:

Just got off newegg chat, they won't refund me because they got a "we received an update from our head department and there is no partial refund that can be honored"

 

Edit: they did give me a $60 refund for both cards combined, I just had to complain about them giving others refunds and denying me one.

[Sharif]

Same here i got mine!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Yeah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

I sort of feel happy to be ripped of!   

[Prastupok]

I had to RMA mine (got a faulty, POS dud), but luckily at the store I purchased it from was able to give me just over 1/8th of what I paid as Nvidia lied by omission about the vRAM, and screwed up with the ROPS and L2 cache. Since it cost my $565, that is enough back for a new case. (Put a whole in my current one, and killed the thin 120mm scythe fan-I received a rather arrogant and condescending email from Gigabyte which has driven me away from them, I'll use the replacement G1 Gaming as long as it lasts, then I'm not going with them again).

 

They screwed up the vRAM bandwidth if anything. They never advertised ROP count or L2 cache publicly, so that REALLY can't be taken into account. And people are just looking at an excuse... they probably didn't even know what L2 cache WAS before this "issue". 

[Theo]

Ill see if this works on amazon . de 

[Sharif]

I went for it, told them about the 20% thing, and the girl took like 1 minute and refounded it right away. I think amazon just accepted it and will refound to whoever asks it.

 

I bought it using amazon global so i paid 502$ for the card, i wonder if i am getting 20% of 502$ or 349$

I got 72 dollars =D

 

 

So stoked 

[Lord Baal]

Not that I really have an opinion on the refunds other than to say this sets a dangerous precedent.  When people discover the Asus STX doesn't provide a hi-fi frequency response when driving 32Ohm headphones, are people going to be entitled to a 20% refund?  it's exactly the same thing, the product doesn't do what people think it should based on claims made by the company.

I'm not sure if that product specifically says it does like the 970 did with it's 64 ROPs and 2MB of L2 cache or memory bandwidth. I guess if it does then they should be entitled to some form of compensation. I personally never bought a 970 so this doesn't effect me in anyway but there's only one way to keep companies honest about their hardware specs false advertising is illegal for good reason. (well it is under Australian law at very least) 

[Crazy Ginger]

all i can think of this is im probably going to score some great deals on cheap openbox 970s!  that combined with the fact that AMD is releasing their 300 series should drive down the price of those openbox 970s!  SLI here I come!

[Prastupok]

all i can think of this is im probably going to score some great deals on cheap openbox 970s!  that combined with the fact that AMD is releasing their 300 series should drive down the price of those openbox 970s!  SLI here I come!

 

The 20% refund is for those who are keeping their cards...?

[Sharif]

The 20% refund is for those who are keeping their cards?

Yup

[Prastupok]

Yup

 

It wasn't a question. He said open-boxes... there won't be any with the 20% refund.

[Lord Baal]

It wasn't a question. He said open-boxes... there won't be any with the 20% refund.

I'm amusing the ".....?" confused him when you were just questioning the logic on the guy you quoted lol