Motherboard Woes
I’m building a new computer, I’ve spent the past 3 or 4 months researching what I want, and finally in mid May started purchasing the parts I needed for my new machine. I got a great price on my Intel Pentium D 805 from ZipZoomFly, and got the case I wanted for a significant price reduction from NewEgg.My first two items arrived without issue, I was a little aggravated that my case didn’t come with a packing slip and I had to print out the receipt myself for my rebate, but overall its no big deal and I really did get a great deal on it.
Fast forward a week and I decide to purchase the rest of my purchases, totaling $363.26 from NewEgg. At this time NewEgg was offering an open box version of the motherboard I wanted to purchase for $25 off the retail price of $89.99, it of course came with the warning, I’ve purchased Open Box items before from other places and I’m pretty savvy with computers, so being without some wires and software doesn’t bother me much. I got the following warning upon checking out my order:
IMPORTANT!Your order contains a open box product(s). Please read the following before you proceed:
Newegg.com does not test any product, including open box items. Open Box items therefore are only tested by the original manufacturer. Due to varying qualities between manufacturers, YOU ARE TAKING A RISK BUYING OPEN BOX PRODUCTS.
Open Box merchandise are OPEN BOX products that contain components that have been owned by other clients and returned to Newegg.com. The products are sold considerably under cost. Newegg.com guarantees all open box products for 15 days only. CPUs, however, only have 7 days for refund. All open box items are considered OEM “barebone” parts.
Barebone means Newegg.com can only guarantee the item by itself, and no other accessories. No matter what the product description says, open box products may not have all the other accessories normally shipped with a new product. Newegg.com is limited to the barebone part of the item itself. Do not be upset or surprised if your open box product does not contain any cables, adaptor, manual, CD, drivers, fan, etc. Newegg.com will not send you any missing accessories, even if it is an essential part.
While Newegg.com does not like to discourage sales, only the experienced PC enthusiast should purchase open box items and know how to deal with missing accessories. Only buy open box products if you are willing to resolve defects and/or know how to find missing accessories.
Open Box products do have a considerably higher return rate than brand new items. If you are just looking to get a good deal, please only buy new products.
YOU ARE TAKING A RISK BUYING OPEN BOX PRODUCTS.
However in this situation I was wrong to assume that the company would only sell Open Items they deemed to still be in good condition (not visibly broken). I also assumed that since this item was only discounted $25 bucks that it would be a better bet. Boy was I wrong.
I receive most of my order on the 24th of May, which was quick and opened everything up to make sure all was in order. I opened the motherboard and was dismayed to find that it was just the motherboard with none of the cables or software.
It was at this time that I also noticed that the shield that is put in place to protect the CPU pins for the socket 775 processor wasn’t on the motherboard, it was floating around in the bag. So I pulled out the board for closer inspection. I was dismayed more to see what condition this board was in. The shield that covers the NB cooling pipe was scratched and dented badly, and the board looked quite abused. I checked the pins of the CPU socket and found them to look okay on inspection.
Crossing my fingers and hoping the scratches and abuse weren’t more then cosmetic I hit up the nearest Micro Center for some cables. The 15 day limit to verify this board worked was definitely at the forefront of my mind, so I wanted to be able to get everything together once the memory and hard drive arrived.
The hard drive and memory arrive, and I set everything up using the downloaded manuals from Asus and try to fire her up…
Nothing, not even an unhappy beep, just nothing. The LEDs on the board light green to let me know its receiving power and the fans for the processor, graphics card and case kicked on. Frustrated I check my connections and try again. After an hour or two of fiddling I finally give Asus a call.
My call the Asus is probably the best part of this entire motherboard ordeal so far. The tech I spoke to Allen was helpful and polite and walked me through a few steps and made sure I had everything connected. Still no luck, he asks me to try another power supply, I oblige and yank the PSU out of poor negumi’s computer (taking him away from his video game in the process) and hook it up.
Nothing, the verdict from Allen is as I feared, bad board, he tells me to hold a second while he documents the case and gives me a case number and a phone number. He tells me to call this number Tuesday (this was sunday afternoon and Monday was Memorial Day) to set up an RMA to return the board and get a new one.
Relieved I thank him and disconnect everything, give Negumi back his computer and take the board out and pack it up for return. Little did I know that I wasn’t out of the woods quite yet.
Tuesday I call Asus to get the RMA information, and the helpful girl who picked up let me know that since I’d purchased it so recently I should probably contact NewEgg to have it exchanged, and just to give them the case number and everything should be okay and it’ll be a faster turn around then they can provide.
Case number in hand I call up NewEggs customer service and wait on hold for about 4 minutes before I’m connected to a nameless man who sounded like he was unhappy to be up at that hour (they had just opened) and didn’t sound as if he really wanted to hear my problem or fix it. I rattle off the story to him and he tells me, “Well you took the risk with an open box item. And we can’t exchange the item for you, only issue a refund to your credit card.”
I tell him thats fine, I’d been hoping for a little more consideration especially after how much I’d spent but whatever. He takes my case number and gives me and RMA number and tells me I’ll receive an email with the details on how to return it.
He then kindly informs me that he’ll waive the 15% restocking fee for me (Gee really? For a defective item? Wow I feel special!)
Numbed so far by this experience I read over the email only to now find out that not only do I get to wait for my money, but I also get the dubious honor of paying for the shipping to have the obviously defective item returned.
Angry and wanting this thing out of my face I mail it, priority mail with delivery confirmation for $9.50. And now after a day or two of reflection I can’t help but feel like the victim of an attempted bait and switch. How they could sell an item that was obviously broken, for so little of a discount, then make the customer pay because of their screw up? Sounds more then they’d sent it in hopes to recoup some of the money for an item they accepted back from another customer that they shouldn’t have in the first place. They were trying to dump their mistake off on me, totally unfair and a completely unacceptable practice for any company.
I will never be purchasing from NewEgg again, as of right now I’m waiting for them to receive the board and process my refund, and I’m going to be sending them a letter demanding a refund for the shipping costs.
My only regret? Not taking any pictures.
More to come…
I’ve been ordering things from them for years, but haven’t bought any OB Mobo’s. Jim bought 3 for side gig for a former client a few months back and they were fine. Part of their problem is nudnicks re-stocking defective parts instead of RMA’ing them — or at least properly labelling use/defect/etc.
I did have a bad experience back in February though. I had pre-ordered a game that Jim wanted for Valentine’s Day. The release day came and went and no contact from NewEgg. I contacted them several times regarding the issue and after going back and forth with them for about a week, it turns out that their pre-order system had a huge glitch and never placed my order. The idiot tech I had been dealing with never offered anything other than a half-ass “Sorry ’bout that.”
I eventually bought Jim’s game from a local place here, and only after sending a very heated email to their customer service department did I get a proper apology and a discount on my next order.
I’ll still buy certain things from them, but I won’t ever pre-order anything from them again.
Comment by Nitallica — June 2, 2006 @ 4:59 pm
I think my agitation is with exactly what you said, restocking defective parts insteadof just RMAing it or absorbing the loss and then expecting the customer to have to pay to send back an obviously defective item.
I don’t mind getting defective stuff, buying open box I knew there was that possibility. But having something that upon initial visual inspection screamed “BROKEN” being sent to me, and then I have to shell out to send it back? For their sakes I hope I get a decent response to the letter I’m writing up now for them regarding my anger, and agravation with the whole issue, including wanting to be refunded for having to cover the shipping costs. AND the gall of the fact that they could have charged me a 15% restocking fee. Bad customer service.
And I expected so much better I’d heard nothing but good things about NewEgg from other people. I guess thats why I was so ready to trust their Open Box stuff.
Comment by Ran Kailie — June 2, 2006 @ 5:13 pm
If you paid for it on your credit card you could just tell newegg that you are going to take it up with the credit card company (so they’ll get charged more due to chargeback costs). You should not have to pay shipping to return damaged goods - shipping costs should only be charged when you change your mind or if they don’t work with something else that you have (as opposed to being plain broken).
Comment by Andy — June 2, 2006 @ 7:07 pm
www.google.com
Comment by This is the dumbest complaint I've ever heard. You bought something they told you they didn't test, warbed you it could have problems, and when it did offered to issue a refund. You gambled, and lost the cost of shipping it back, and you didn't have to do — June 3, 2006 @ 2:09 am
I’ve gotten a defective dvdrw drive from newegg and had to pay the shipping to send it back to them, it’s just part of the deal.
You would’ve had to pay to ship it to Asus to get a new one if you had gone that way instead, the only place that I’ve been to that didn’t require you to pay the shipping on a defective item was PC Club who would take the return and mail it for you to the manufacturer, sadly they all closed up in this area of Washington.
Yeah it’s nice to bitch and get some steam off but come on, it was an open box, you took the gamble and your only out $9.50, you should feel lucky that it wasn’t more. I’ve lost more than that in just paypal fees getting my money back from shiatty eBay sellers.
Caveat emptor.
Comment by Nate MC — June 3, 2006 @ 7:12 am
Thing is, this isn’t a shitty ebay Seller, its a large well known company. Like Andy said, paying to return something you decided you didn’t want is fine, but having to pay to return something they sent that was OBVIOUSLY defective is a load.
Tells me they lack any amount of quality control. Open Box is a gamble, but it should be a gamble not a hand stacked against you deliberately as an attempt by the company to make a quick buck.
Comment by Ran Kailie — June 3, 2006 @ 8:41 am
I agree with some of the others here, you took a chance and they properly warned you. You’re only out shipping, you should be happy with that. In your above statement you say they shouldn’t sent you something that was obviously defective, if it was obviously defective why did you install it and try it out? Why did you troubleshoot it? I’m guessing because it wasn’t obviously defective, you said there was some physical damage but not enough for you to continue to install it?
Comment by dan — June 3, 2006 @ 10:38 am
What a stupid complaint. You gambled to save $25, you lost and you’re out $9.50. Give me a break. Pffft, 9.50, what a load of bull.
Comment by Rob — June 3, 2006 @ 10:41 pm
To Dan:
I couldn’t return the board without attempting to see if it worked, and troubleshooting it with Asus first. So I HAD to take the time to connect it up and work with Asus’s Support.
Yeah I could have taken pictures and emailed them to NewEgg in an attempt to prove they had sent me something obviously broken, but I was giving them the benefit of the doubt. They mentioned that the boards were tested by the original manufacturer, so I assumed that perhaps it meant the board was refurbished and had been tested.
To Rob:
$9.50 puts almost a half tank of gas in my car. Sorry I’m not rich like you obviously are and $9.50 and saving $25 bucks can mean quite a bit to me, especially with how the price of gas and everything else is going lately.
The thing is with a reputable company you shouldn’t be GAMBLING on something that is obviously defective. Something that’s obviously defective should never even be sent out to a customer. Then said customer shouldn’t have to even think about paying a 15% restocking fee for a defective item. Any other company I’ve worked with has always paid the shipping charges to send back defective products.
Comment by Ran Kailie — June 4, 2006 @ 2:55 pm
To me, NewEgg gave you a plenty good enough warning… If 25$ or even 9.50$ is alot of money for you, all the more reason not to make such a risky purchase.
Comment by Martin — June 4, 2006 @ 8:38 pm
How are you so sure that “….hand stacked against you deliberately as an attempt by the company to make a quick buck”?
I mean, you had one bad experience… that’s not nearlt a large enough sample to draw any conclusions about anything about NewEgg. They said untested… you go on like they must have known it was defective, but there’s nothing that says they even looked in the box. Therefore, they don’t *know* it’s broken and rather than just throwing it in the dumpster they offer it for sale with adequate warning and a discount. You took a risk buying an OB item, and you know that.
What possessed you to do that, I don’t know. You’re asking for a possible headache just by trying it, was it worth the $25? You apparently have had no experience RMAing anything because you pretty much always have to pay shipping. That was part of the risk you assumed when you decided to buy it.
This looks to me like nothing but a knee-jerk reaction, trying to blame anything but one’s self. I mean come on, you’re just lucky that faulty board didn’t take any other hardware down with it. If it was me, the very second I saw pieces of motherboard floating around, I would get on the phone - I wouldn’t risk plugging in a brand-new CPU and other parts.
In your quest to save a few bucks, you put some money on the line and lost that risk. Still, it seems you haven’t learned that sometimes you get what you pay for.
As for the other person, not pre-ordering from NewEgg - that kind of thing can happen sometimes. If anything you may be safer pre-ordering from NewEgg because they’ve had some trouble and have audited and fixed the system. I know I’ll still use NewEgg whenever I’m buying hardware or flash memory or software; great website + great service from what I’ve dealt with + speedy delivery. The computer I type this on I built from components purchased through them, as well as the wireless router and cable modem.
Comment by blergh — June 15, 2006 @ 8:30 pm
I too had a very similar experince that I plan to write about, EXCEPT it was a retail item. I feel they try to cheat customer all the time by sending refurb hoping no one will notice the switcheroo.
All in all, it took me almost a month to get the tv that I purchased.
Comment by Brandy — July 26, 2006 @ 5:02 pm