Rant RMAs, returns, refunds, graaarrrrghhh

Ordered some RAM. RAM was DOA. filed RMA. 1 month. ONE ****ING MONTH. contact company (specialtech) - 'you should have sent it to OCZ' - **** YOU - IT WAS BLOODY DOA. Me being patient and polite (no raised voice or attitude, simple questions) Customer services rude and up themselves.

right, that felt good.

i still don't have my goddamned memory. £240 that they've been earning interest on and if i hadn't had a very nice friend with some spare mem, i'd have been staring at a very expensive, very useless paperweight for all that time.

it would be nice to see a sticky here regarding our rights and distance selling regulations - i mean, is a retailer entitled to behave in this way (as far as my understanding goes _they_ are supposed to replace it as it's unfit for use)? is OCZ entitled to insist that all RMAs go through them rather than retailers? what to expect from RMAs, and all sorts of that stuff?

 

Are you based in the UK?

The laws on consumer rights seem to differ quite a lot between the USA and the UK, so we would need to know where you are based to be able to advise.

 

Fod
look the spoon is right there ok



Posts: 2,534
Location: London
Join Date: Aug 2004



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Somehow, just somehow... I think he might just be in the UK.

 

also the fact i paid in £ might have clued him up.
blarg, i sent a fairly curt email asking for a refund. i better bloody get it.

 

I hope you paid via plastic, of the credit kind. If so simply phone your bank and get them to do a charge back.

 

unfortunately i paid with a debit card as my credit card was maxed out on the other component purchases at the time (not that i buy on credit - i have just reached my balance limit on the card for that month). should teach me.

 

I handle RMAs for a small custom computer company. Usually when an item's DOA, the policy is to go to the company you purchased it from. As you've discovered, though, sometimes that doesn't work very well - quite honestly, I'd rather work with the manufacturer in most cases. I don't know what the legalities of the situation are for the US, let alone the UK, so I'm no help there.

I take it you're still in possession of the RAM? OCZ is pretty good about RMAs. 'Pretty good' is of course relative, it'll still take maybe two weeks, depending on shipping and the phase of the moon (by which I mean luck). We have a form that we fax to them, which I don't see online, probably means it's exclusive to businesses/people who bought their stuff before everything went online... let me search their site some more...

Okay, here's the best I can find. Go here, and then under 'Contact OCZ Support' either click 'create a support ticket' to start the RMA process online, or hit 'more' to see the international support phone numbers if you'd rather call them. My experience is that calling is faster, as they ask for everything and process it on the spot, but it can be more frustrating if you have to deal with long hold times, unpleasant people, accents and/or non-native speakers.

They'll usually ask for the place you bought it from and the invoice # by way of proof of purchase, and they may ask you to email/fax a copy at some point as well. Explain that your RAM was DOA, say exactly what it was doing (beep code, no POST, whichever) and say that you swapped it for known good modules of the same type (DDR1/2/3, frequency) and that resolved all the issues. I've never had a manufacturer challenge the 'tested with known good components' argument, once I've proved that I'm not an idiot. They may want to know what make/model your computer is, or possibly the Mobo/CPU/GPU if they're really anal - I can't remember exactly what OCZ asks for.

Good luck to you, and sorry for the hassle. Even with the weight of "We are a business that sells $$$$$$$ of your products a year" behind me, I still get the run-around sometimes. I feel your pain. Luck, mate.


Edited to add: I'd be happy to write up a general guide to RMAs, if there's interest. I haven't done RMAs with every company under the sun (my company almost never buys from Gigabyte, and not at all from ATI since I've started there), but I can at least provide an overview of how it usually works.

 

Thats the very thing, dude. I rang my retailer the second I realised my ram was faulty - their response: "We'll send an RMA form to you, fill it out and send it and the memory to us". So I did - that was on the 5th September, and I received an email by them on the 12th to say they had received it. They have been sitting on my memory for a month now with not a thing being done, and when I rang to complain about this, they have the cheek to say "Oh, you should have sent it to the manufacturer'. After mentioning that really, since the memory was DOA I would have expected a fairly straight swap from stock due to the memory being unfit for sale and therefore being the retailer's responsibility to replace under distance selling regulations, the CS guy's word for word response was, "Oh, here we go, distance selling regulations" and then launched into the "Should have sent it to OCZ" script once more. At this point I thanked the man for his time and sent an email requesting a refund. We'll see what their response is to that today. Believe me I will raise ****ing hell if they so much as blink at it.

That was the last straw. The inconsistency in which they have dealt with my RMA right from the start is absurdly unprofessional and to say I am pissed off at them is a little bit of an understatement. They're up there with Mesh in the list of prime examples of how not to treat customers. Disclaimer: I dealt with Mesh 3-4 years ago. They may have improved now)

A note to Scan: the rest of my order was with you guys, as have been most of my computer-related orders these past few years (now there's an RMA process you can rely on). I know you only sell Corsair memory for 'political reasons' but I honestly believe this is not benefiting either your or your customers. Please do everyone a favour and seriously reconsider this policy - your prices for Corsair memory aren't even that competitive, if that's the reason for the exclusivity agreement.

 

I doubt you will be covered by the distance selling regulations, mainly as the regulations are there as a cooling off period and to check that the good you ordered are the goods delivered. yours was the right goods it just doesn't work, it then becomes a warrenty matter and a seller can use a manufactures warrenty for this if declared on their website's terms and conditions, unfortunatly you got screwed by incosistant customer service advice and now you will be unable to do as special tech advise, which is to submit a query on ocz website as you don't have the memory. best advice is to call again ask for a manager explain that the customer service of the company has resulted in incorrect warrenty information being sent to you etc, and you would now like a full refund as their company has done nothing to help. Oh and always use a credit card for tech/expensive purchases, gives the consumer a much more even fight if something goes wrong.

 

actually the distance selling regs also cover items unfit for use, which covers faulty things (surprisingly enough):

also handy to know:

translation: if you are returning faulty goods to a retailer, you don't have to pay for the postage.

 

If you ever want to get anywhere when having uncooperative phone opporators ask for the manager, and then if they don't help keep asking for a more senior person. This has worked for me in the past.

Also start to get angry and sound it, don't swear but saying "why the hell" gets the message across.

In situations like this, being polite gets your no where.

Also send a written complaint by recorded deliver so you know they have recieved it.

 

Note the above doesn't work well in call centres. Asking to speak to a line manager rarely does anything but get everyone's back up, often as not every working in the building is outsourced and works within set rules so no matter how high you go you'll get the same answer (this goes doubly for the railways). If you need something out side of the usual (like you know.. service) your probably out of luck. Staying calm and listening to the solution offered is usually better since the agents will know if there is any way to work round the system.

Disclaimer: The above is complete invalid if you get a noob on the phone, in which case escalate it as quickly as is reasonable!

 

yeah i've tried the angry route before. doesn't work, only makes them less likely to help.

 

stories like this are what makes some people stay away from any form of product returns, rmas and warranty claims...

/tinfoil hat mode on

i bet they do that on purpose to prevent you from causing them to do their job

/tinfoil hat mode off

as for the whole call center bashing...

would you be willing to pay 10 20 maybe 30% more for your product if in return they woudl hire / train soemone competent? No... people demand the lowest prices, the bad support is the price you pay for that.

besides that, big companies have strict policies which everyone (including 2nd 3rd lvl support and managers) have to follow, its not that they woudnt want to help you, its company policies that prevent it..

look at netwroks for example, buy a cisco product with a service contract... you wil pay more, but you will get good support and fast.
but, buy some cheap random chinese product and you will get crap support, its simple as that, you get what you pay for.

 

who was bashing, i was stating an opinion formed from three years on the phones and two doing MI reporting and support. What you say is true, but i would add if you want decent staff on the phone you can expect to pay a premium for wages, poor pay not only doesn't attract decent staff but also the ones they do have become disinterested and instead of trying to help just stonewall you with the company line.

 

You don't have the memory? Yeah, ouch. Time to get nasty about getting a refund or the product.

 

Microdirect.co.uk took 11 months to refund me on a faulty hard drive. Think yourself lucky.

 

acceptable news!

i am getting a refund. Perhaps the best aspect of this is that i am now going to pay a lot less for my memory now that prices have dropped.

 

Good news, but make sure they refund you what you paid, not what you'd pay today...