RMA Abuse.

[Sunner]

Humans are by their nature dishonest, be it lying to their significant others, RMA'ing stuff they broke, CEO's cheating their companies for millions, or just taking an apple from your neighbor.

Live with it.

 

[Googer]

I give you plenty of credit here especially for haveing a high IQ and Moral standing that is better than 90% of the people responding to this thread. What I was refering to is the markup from wholesale both BM and Dot Com pay about the same and have similar profit margins despite the retail cost, even though Dot Com MAY have lower operating costs and explains the price differance between Compusa and NEWegg.com. an Rma COSTS both companies the same.
What i meant in the begining and did not explain too clearly is that retaillers often dont cover the cost of damaged equipment since they often get a credit from the manufacturer. The manufacturar then passes those costs on to the wholesaler. In the end it gets passed on to consumers and it does not matter where you buy it from or how much you spent or saved. A fraudulant rma Costs a Circut City customer just as much as a NewEgg shopper; even if one handles more RMA's than the other.

 

[Avalon]

I can't stop laughing at your signature picture. Two hours of sleep is starting to catch up to me today
:thumbsup:

 

[imported_TimJ]

Originally posted by: Googer

Originally posted by: TimJ

Originally posted by: Googer

Originally posted by: TimJ

Originally posted by: mechBgon
Number of RMA abusers who will cease their abuse as a result of this thread?

If anything it will inspire more people to RMA stuff they broke.

Please explain your reasoning. Thanks.

Joe Schmoe broke his ____. He was like "damn, there goes $X down the drain." He reads your thread and thinks "wow, if those RMA departments are really that stupid, I'll just RMA it and get a new one."

It is a concious decision to RMA somthing, you cannot stop some one born with out a set of morals from doing the wrong thing.

Your answer is like telling a terroist that bombs scare people. Its nothing that they dont already know.

You greatly overestimate the number of people who know what an RMA is.

 

[Googer]

I did mention that it was a while ago I saw it, and cannot rememeber where it was.

 

[MDE]

Originally posted by: Mrvile
It's actually whiskey.

Thank you.

It can be spelled either way.

 

[chocoruacal]

I'm no expert on RMA's, and NEITHER is anyone here. My own potentiall worthless anecdotal observation would be:

1. RMA abusers are probably a small percentage.
2. The largest percentage HAS to be: The Morons and The Ignorant. Computers are complicated; many people don't understand what they need BEFORE they buy, and are ill equiped to troubleshoot AFTER they do. Then there are the morons...we all know them.

Frankly, I think all of us are pretty fortunate considering how easy it still is to RMA to these huge corporations. I've had to RMA just about every piece of computer equipment you can think of and I've never had anyone give me a problem. Most don't even test the part, just swap it out with a refurbed unit...no waiting, no justifying the RMA.

 

[Googer]

When I was talking about the B&M story, I was merely making a comment on pricing, I was NOT referring to price markups due to RMAs. I understand full well the markup is for B&M and online stores as well, which is why in my first post I referred to the item price without specifying where it was bought at. Give me some credit here. I've already taken a couple economics classes, and they never covered anything that had to do with returned merchandise markup. I'm not going to spend hundreds of dollars to take a class just so you can get me to believe your statement. Give me a reliable article on this and it will save us both the trouble.

I dont know for sure, but I think you may not understand somethning here. RMA's Cost the Vendor (manufacturer) money and he passes that on to the retailer. RMA's dont affect the bottom line of a retailer as much as the vendor of that product. Get the whole notion of it costing the retailer (company) that you purchased it from, because in MOST cases it does not. I repeat, again it costs the maker of the product money and therefore makes it more expensive for the next guy to buy one no matter where he chooses to get one from.

 

[Thegonagle]

Originally posted by: Dethfrumbelo
There are plenty of signs out there that lead one to believe that the world is coming to an end. This is not one of them.

While I understand, and even empathize with, the OP's sentiment, I have to agree with your perspective.

But on the other hand, it doesn't do much to convine one that the world is NOT coming to an end. One of the prevailing attitudes says that this is perfectly fine. Permit me to share: I tweaked, and subsequently killed, an Antec True-Power PSU. I changed the fans without doing my research, and my best guess is that it overheated. I had intentionally voided the warranty, and didn't consider for a moment that I should RMA it. (The "warranty void if cut or removed" sticker served to remind me that this was not an option anyway.)

I came to AT and asked for some advice about other good quiet PSUs, because I didn't want to void another PSU warranty; I wanted something I could be happy with out of the box. I roundly rejected advice from more than one person that I change the fans back and RMA it. One of the pro-RMA posters even used a rolley-eyes on me. What's up with that?

My values say that it's not okay to abuse warranties; my attitude is, you break it, you own it.

 

[wchou]

Abuse? huh? why do you say that? instead of rma my broken obsolete junk, i threw them away. how is that abuse?

:roll:

 

[Googer]

Amen my Brother, you and I are on the same chapter! But there are those who if did what you had done would not have thought twice about Sending it back to the place of purchase for a refund or replacement.

I rememeber as a kid an old saying "if you break it you pay for it" - thanks grandpa!

 

[piasabird]

If you send a motherboard back put some mark on it so you know it when they just mail it back to you claimning it is a new motherboard.

 

[Googer]

Originally posted by: piasabird
If you send a motherboard back put some mark on it so you know it when they just mail it back to you claimning it is a new motherboard.

What do you mean?

 

[MDE]

Originally posted by: Googer

Originally posted by: piasabird
If you send a motherboard back put some mark on it so you know it when they just mail it back to you claimning it is a new motherboard.

What do you mean?

So you know that they aren't sending you the same board back claiming that it's new. Recording the revision and serial number also works in this situation.

 

[klah]

...

 

[Falloutboy]

Originally posted by: jayn
whisky

ATI ATI ATI ATI

 

[Googer]

klah has posted a message entitled RMA Abuse..

Message Posted on: 12/01/2004 05:48:45 PM
Looks like NewEgg no longer accepts motherboard RMAs:

http://forums.anandtech.com/me...7&threadid=1455341

You can view the message at http://forums.anandtech.com/me...=1454693&forumid=1.

Thanks for making that point klah. The abusers are loosing it for all of us, First a big online retailer and I am willing to bet that Motherboard Makers are next to kill RMA programs. Stop abusing the system while you are still have a little bit of time left.

 

[Googer]

Originally posted by: MDE

Originally posted by: Googer

Originally posted by: piasabird
If you send a motherboard back put some mark on it so you know it when they just mail it back to you claimning it is a new motherboard.

What do you mean?

So you know that they aren't sending you the same board back claiming that it's new. Recording the revision and serial number also works in this situation.

I don't think that will work very well. Yes that has happend, but more often than not RMA depts. will mix it up with other used boards and send you someone elses rma. Later on when Joe Computer Idiot rma's his board he will probably get your old one. It happend to my sister.

 

[mechBgon]

Has Newegg stated anywhere that "RMA abuse" is the reason that they no longer direct-RMA motherboards? Link please. Newegg has been selectively not RMA'ing certain models of motherboards since nForce2 came out, as I recall (edit: before, actually, starting with the EPoX 8KHA-series and their high CPU-temp readings). It may be that they don't want to deal with RMAs period, legit or abused.

I'm not sure I blame them, really... for example, 90nm Athlon64's require BIOS updates on popular motherboards to run, or to run properly (depending on the board). Similar thing with Prescott-core P4's on many Intel boards, even Intel-branded boards. People make a best effort, can't get it to run, and conclude in all sincerity that the new mobo is most likely defective. It isn't working, at any rate, and so they've never had the chance to abuse it. Back to Newegg it goes. Why is it Newegg's fault? Should they open every motherboard box and update the BIOS before sending it? Then we'd have people freaking out that they got a "used" motherboard "IT WAS OPENED, I CAN TELL!!!"

Based on my observations here, this "it-has-never-worked" RMA appears much more prevelant with the consumers than "RMA abuse" in the realm of motherboards. Now, CPUs might be a different story... people sometimes say they're RMA'ing their new OC-special CPU because their OC was not meeting their expectations.

 

[Avalon]

Originally posted by: Googer

When I was talking about the B&M story, I was merely making a comment on pricing, I was NOT referring to price markups due to RMAs. I understand full well the markup is for B&M and online stores as well, which is why in my first post I referred to the item price without specifying where it was bought at. Give me some credit here. I've already taken a couple economics classes, and they never covered anything that had to do with returned merchandise markup. I'm not going to spend hundreds of dollars to take a class just so you can get me to believe your statement. Give me a reliable article on this and it will save us both the trouble.

I dont know for sure, but I think you may not understand somethning here. RMA's Cost the Vendor (manufacturer) money and he passes that on to the retailer. RMA's dont affect the bottom line of a retailer as much as the vendor of that product. Get the whole notion of it costing the retailer (company) that you purchased it from, because in MOST cases it does not. I repeat, again it costs the maker of the product money and therefore makes it more expensive for the next guy to buy one no matter where he chooses to get one from.

I understand it is costing the manufacturer the money, but...as far as making it more expensive for us...like I said before, I'm sure if the manufacturer didn't have to absorb as much cost due to RMAs, prices still wouldn't be noticeably different, unless you were a big hardware spender. Regardless...Newegg is no longer accepting motherboard RMAs? That's pretty lousy. You'd think if they were going to stop accepting RMAs, they'd start with CPUs or video cards first.

 

[Googer]

How about all of those LGA775 motherboards with bent pins, I have heard about Motherboard manufacturers screaming about need-less RMA's on those.

Have you ever read some of the reviews on newegg, people admit to abusing motherboards, and dont deny that it does not happen. I have buddies who work in retail and I know very well what happens.

This Topic in this forum is about RMA and Hardware abuse in general, it pertains to hardware of all spicies. Not motherboards and Retailers exclusively (newegg.com was not on my mind's radar when I wrote this).

By the way newegg is not always the cheapest or the best like some may have you believe, only a fool would buy something with out shopping around. But this is off topic, so lets not dwell on that too much here.

 

[Googer]

I dont know if you have read this whole post, but I believe I had mentioned this here. Some people will abuse their hardware till it ceses to function beacuse they were running the "thing" <---[insert any device name here] so far out of specfication that it burned up, and then they call the manufacturer or retailer saying it never worked from the start. When it did work that is untill they broke it and then lied about it. That my friends is abusing the RMA System (RMA Abuse) or as the legal system likes to call it "fraud".



Edited fot Grammer and Spelling @ 3:20 am

 

[Googer]

Originally posted by: mechBgon
Has Newegg stated anywhere that "RMA abuse" is the reason that they no longer direct-RMA motherboards? Link please. Newegg has been selectively not RMA'ing certain models of motherboards since nForce2 came out, as I recall (edit: before, actually, starting with the EPoX 8KHA-series and their high CPU-temp readings). It may be that they don't want to deal with RMAs period, legit or abused.

I'm not sure I blame them, really... for example, 90nm Athlon64's require BIOS updates on popular motherboards to run, or to run properly (depending on the board). Similar thing with Prescott-core P4's on many Intel boards, even Intel-branded boards. People make a best effort, can't get it to run, and conclude in all sincerity that the new mobo is most likely defective. It isn't working, at any rate, and so they've never had the chance to abuse it. Back to Newegg it goes. Why is it Newegg's fault? Should they open every motherboard box and update the BIOS before sending it? Then we'd have people freaking out that they got a "used" motherboard "IT WAS OPENED, I CAN TELL!!!"

Based on my observations here, this "it-has-never-worked" RMA appears much more prevelant with the consumers than "RMA abuse" in the realm of motherboards. Now, CPUs might be a different story... people sometimes say they're RMA'ing their new OC-special CPU because their OC was not meeting their expectations.

Since I started doing this as a young boy I have nerver ran Into such hardware compatabilty issues.

It is the user not the retailer's responsibility to make sure that what they(consumer) are buying is compatable with their existing hardware or other purchases. I have an education in this field I hope that most people buying this stuff do too, however I am afraid that most of the time it is not always the case. Reading a how to guide you picked up at the grocery store does not count.

Like they say in the tech field: "Its not the computer that is broken, It is the user"

Education is Cheap. Ignorance Is Expensive.

 

[Zebo]

Originally posted by: klah


All hardware should have an integrated PROM that writes a bit when it has been overclocked >10%.

OK idea but heres better.

I just wish everything was sold "as is" as I void every warranty for anything I own and I'm still paying for your guyzes warranty. Communist scheme. You want a warranty, you buy it, not me.

Why should I have to pay for a warranty, which is incorporated into product price and ammorized equally over each product they sell including to me, I'll never use? I read it costs each Ford customer $3500 for warranty (more on expensive cars less on econoboxen). Why should I have $3500 tacked on to my truck price when I'm going to throw aftermarket banks turbo charger, a lift, ladder bars, weld rock protection and oversized tires with full intent of never using my warranty? I bet video cards are the same $50 xtra for useless communist warranty. That's what pisses me off. Not people using the warranty just that its there at all. Just like communism, you give an inch people take a mile, just human nature which is why it failed and was abused. But I don't hate russians anymore than RMAers I hate the game/system which compels them to act in unethical behavior.

My2c

 

[Avalon]

Originally posted by: Googer
How about all of those LGA775 motherboards with bent pins, I have heard about Motherboard manufacturers screaming about need-less RMA's on those.

Have you ever read some of the reviews on newegg, people admit to abusing motherboards, and dont deny that it does not happen. I have buddies who work in retail and I know very well what happens.

This Topic in this forum is about RMA and Hardware abuse in general, it pertains to hardware of all spicies. Not motherboards and Retailers exclusively (newegg.com was not on my mind's radar when I wrote this).

By the way newegg is not always the cheapest or the best like some may have you believe, only a fool would buy something with out shopping around. But this is off topic, so lets not dwell on that too much here.

Mmm, spices
Don't know too much about LGA775 motherboards. From what I heard from Anandtech, bent pins wasn't an issue, but I guess plenty of consumers are a lot more careless than a hardware guru
Use a combination of Zipzoomfly and Newegg, and you'll get a mix of the best prices.

Hey Zebo, you know how we have retail and oem models of hardware, and the oems come with less extras and a smaller warranty? Well, what if a new model type was created, called WOW. Without Warranty. lol. Basically all you'd get with the barebone item with a guarantee that it wasn't DOA, but after that, you're completely on your own. If it was something like a motherboard, they could hack $20 off the price or something. That'd be interesting.