THe Case of the Missing RMA credit: Would You Believe this Outfit ?

[MegalosSkylaki]

I RMA'd something.
Told it would be credited within 5 days.

No credit.
Call Co. 1/2 on Phone.
"You'll be credited within 5 days"

No credit.
Call Co.
Like thaey heard it for the first time.
2/3 of an hour later:
"You'll be credited within 5 days."

No credit.
Call Co.
"err..Gee whiz..You'll definitely be credied. Give it about 5 days."

Any guess what hPPENS NEXT?
"wHT IS YOUR ORDER # SO i CAN SEE IF.."
"Let me speak to a Supervisor, please"

Nick gets on the phone.
"Well you see the time starts from when you report you weren't credited. When did you report you weren't credited ?"

So what happens to people who don't notice and simple assume they have been credited? Or use a credit card that takes a month to post credits to milk the float and the customer forgets ?

"Well...umm..err..we would of caught it eventually"
Eventually?
"...within a month or so and credited it"
A month, not five days assuming they "caught it"

"Why did you then fail to credit the account in 5 days as per promise when I bought it to your attention?", says da DOOOG--the obvious question to a Co. rep who says his Co. would have caught the oversight and voluntarily credited the RMA without the Customer taking notice of the failure.

"Errr..so HOW COME you didn't post the credit in 5 days when I bought it to your attention the first time more than a month ago ?
Or Three more times after ?"

IMO, the Co. is using the "undiscoverd RMA credit" as an income generating device. They get the product back to resell. And they keep the money. After all , the Customer didn't report the non-credit--which is what starts the clock.

UBID offerred me a coupon for $20.
4 to 5 hours for $20.
Minimum wage ?

Judging by their behaviour when I involuntarily (for them) told them of the non-credit, I doubt very much they have an efficient system for discovering their mistakes--when they profit from them--or voluntarily without customer request fixing that "error".

ANYBODY have an RMA NOT credited ?

Credited ONLY after you noticed the ommission and REPORTED it?

Didn't credit the RMA even then ?

DOOOG

[Tazman]

About the only bad RMA I've had was with Western Digital. I had a 30GB drive go south. I did an Advanced RMA and they charged my card $120. The drive should have been to me in 3 days. I received the drive a week and a half later. I took it out of the box, packed the bad one in and shipped it back to them that day.

I had already replaced the customers drive with a 30GB Maxtor. The replaced drive sat on my desk for a few days before I got around to putting it into a computer and check it out. That dive cavitated worse than the one I sent them. I called and did another Advanced RMA and chewed them out for sending a defective replacement drive (someone asleep in QC?). They charged my card another $120 for the Advanced RMA! That was $240 against my card for over two months before it was resolved.

I use Maxtor drives in my builds now.

Sorry to hear about your RMA troubles Dooog.

Mike

[MegalosSkylaki]

Taz, ,

Maybe some Co's think RMA stands for Returned Merchandise Appropriated.

Because it often takes a long time for credit card Co's to post credits, they rely on Customer's forgetfulness or assumption it was done.

UBID puts a freeze on funds immediately when there is a purchase. Why not use the same technology when they scan an RMA return ?

Sort of 80% of 'Rebates' are not acted on--X % of RMA 'credits' are not followed up on by Customer--hence, a 'profit center' ?

I don't like UBID insulting my intelligence: "We would have caught it anyway" They didn't have to "catch" it; I spent 4 hours on the phone with them over a month.

There should be a PENALTY for Co's that are caught eating the RMA.

Like 'treble credit". Only for real.



So who got the use of the $250 for two months. ?
How much time did you put into it ?
Any penalty for the Co ?
We gotta turn this around.

DOOOG

[MegalosSkylaki]

Finally got my RMA credit from uBid.

And a "coupon" for $38 to boot.

Sorry Charlie !

Not adequate for Co. that says it would have "caught" the non-credit by itself and paid, yet didn't pay until after four attempts on my part.

Real solution is to fix up their RMA credit procedures. But to do that they have to want to fix them.

uBid benifits financially eveytime there is an "oversight" Or four such "oversights" back to back. Do they or don't they ? Any guesses ?

DOOG with an RMA credit + a Coupon

[SEALTEAMTHREE]

At least you guys got respones from the companies. I have tried to contact Asus's tech support (a contradicition of terms, I know) for about a month without a SINGLE reply of any kind, even an auto-remailer saying "Your request for RMA service has been recieved. You should expect a reply within five business days. Do not reply to this e-mail, ect." They have impossible phone hours, and even if I stay up late and call their non-toll free line nobody answers and I get the same outgoing message "Thank you for calling AsusTech. Please stay on the line and one of our customer service representitives will be with you shortly" or "our phone hours are 6-10 pm PST, monday through friday. Please try again later. Thank you for your intrest in Asus products...". The only reason I bought another motherboard from them is because it comes with a two year warranty from the reseller, NOT the manufacturer.

On the other hand, I got great tech service from ViewSonic. I bought a 19" monitor from them, and it made this high-pitched buzz when turned off. I e-mailed them, and they responded the same day. They even paid for return shipping, and I got a new monitor a week and five days after the bad one shipped out. I wish all companies had tech service that was that good!

[MegalosSkylaki]

My feeling fom my former days as a Psychologist is that you do not benefit somebody (or an organization like a Co.) by insulating them from the natural consequences of their actions.

Co's like the one you describe obviously try to do it for you--or rather for themselves.

The trick is to associate some consequence for their behVIOUR. unfortunately most of us don't have the time to do so.

See if you can locate a CEO if it is a public Corp.and put the burden on them. If you are in the military , see if your buddies can help out (and not against Service rules).

Hunt them as they live: by the I-net. Post and ye shall find other members at varied sites who have the same problem. Never assume you are the only one as (obviously in this case ) , they are repeat offenders. Take anectodal notes.

track down the HQ if you can find it, and put them on the spot for explaining this very public behaviour. There should be a penelty for taking the phone off the hook as a 'blow away' strategy.

Call up the Tech/internat Reporter for the Wall Street Journal and see if this Nationally published very large circulation Newspaper will mKE a phone call for its newsworthness. "Asus has phone off the hook. Major producer was unavailable for support to Customers"

Have they ever given you misinformation from their service computer which is where most Tech Support get the "official Co. answer. "intel supports AMD--are they better CPU's " when SONY insisted that intel was prodrucing the chipset for a Duron.

You'll be amazed how many damaging admissions their staff sometimes make.

Finally, you are not a slave. You needlessly worked on this so Co. should reimburse you for your time and tolls. Insist on this as well as changes as the only "Sorry" you'll accept.

Good Luck,
DOOOG

P.S. Find "the other camp" ! Believe me , their major competitor will listen to you. Ask for Legal Dept. Their competitors Legal Dept--preferably one that has phone on the hook as is incurring big costs doing so. Sounds like unfair competition to cut costs that way...

[[linlkz]]

If for hard ddrives, go with Maxtor you guys. I had two hd's that shorted but it took me less than 10 min on the phone to get them to ship out replacements that arrived 3-5 day, they needed my credit card first but no charge was even made... I give Maxtor 11/10 for customer service/satisfaction

[maface]

I also had good experience with a Maxtor RMA. Now, since you asked, for the bad experience RMA'd something back to webuildpcs.com in Oct was told will get credit for $100. Didn't recieve the credit, tried calling can never get through, e-mailed many times never a response(including the owner), filed complaints nothing. Actually stayed on the phone on hold for 2 hrs I was so mad I didnt want to hang up the phone
They obviously don't care