Newegg: the Standard warranty in action, and its complications. good ending!

[brinox]

So, way back when, say June of 2008, i bought an Asus HD 4870 512mb (vanilla type, with the factory aluminum yet copper-painted slot blower heatsink). Twas an excellent card, until a vreg shorted somehow and gave me a nice pop followed by the very feared smoke trail.

luckily the asus card had the 1 year standard Newegg return policy. I pleasantly obtained the RMA number and shipped my part back as per the regulations of such an RMA. Sending a part back to California takes long enough, but during the holiday season, this exacerbated the turn-around time on my replacement. Long story short for this part of it, my order was "billed" on the 24th of December. I did not receive the item until the 6th of January. Woohoo for UPS!

Moving along. I was very excited to receive the replacement part, but when i opened the box, i had received a newer "Dark Knight" edition of the 4870 by Asus. The main problem I had with this is my replacement order page showed i would be receiving the exact same card as I bought back in June. I clearly did not. that did not add up at all. The other point is my case was designed (thermally) with the slot blower cooling solution in mind. the Dark Knight uses a blow-down type which just moves air around the case.

So After a long discussion on the phone with Newegg Customer Service i finally was given a full refund for my purchase. In light of such refunds incoming, i decided my 24" monitor would benefit from a higher memory buffer. I decided that the new HIS IceQ 4+ version of the 4870 (with the aformentioned 1GB memory frame buffer) would be the perfect fit for my needs.

I went ahead and placed an order later that day (all on Tuesday, January 6th) and received my package on the 8th, but this time i received an HIS 4670, instead of the newer, and MUCH more powerful 4870. Mind you, this is the 2nd order within 3 weeks of each other that came to me wrong. I called Customer Service again, and decided it was another fluke or human shipping error, and asked for a refund, and subsequently placed a 3rd order (overall, 2nd for the 1GB card this week) and asked for free overnight shipping, in light of my troubles.

Much to my dismay I received the same 4670 card the next day. Finally, I received a phone call from a manager/supervisor type, instead of a front-lines CSR. I explained the situation (from the beginning) and after a short time, had found that the specific item I ordered on tuesday and thursday was mislabeled and would take some time to rectify.

After that, without even being asked for anything at all, the person i was speaking with offered me a substantial discount, on any order, without expiration in hopes of nullifying the troubles I had been dealing with.

While some may view it as buying a customer off, I find that doing business at one place, and only one place (in the major majority of senses) very much more appealing than buying at multiple places. So this substantial discount made my experience come full-circle, especially in the dooming economy.'

This is a prime example of a typical RMA situation that went well above and beyond both the customer's AND the business' expectations, and I feel the both of us are better off for it. The rep I spoke with fully confided in my willingness to understand that a business makes mistakes, and offered a perk for my continued support. I never once asked for anything that was not due, and that was only for a reimbursement for the overnight shipping, given that my downtime was increased because of the shipping error (which ultimately came to be that inventory error).


any thoughts?