:Update: Bad things confirmed. ASUS GPU RMA started, heard bad things.

[TFS93]

Thanks for sharing this unfortunate experience. There is no chance I'll buy an ASUS GPU for my next rig after seeing this.

 

[RussianSensation]

Even after Sapphire's 7870 transistor fiasco, and prematurely dying fans, I would still give them a shot at improving their designs over time. With ASUS, since they are so popular, they seem to have absolute disregard for their customers since well there are millions more who will buy their GPUs. But honestly with MSI, EVGA it's very difficult to recommend ASUS GPUs based on countless GPU RMA experiences. I have to say that when I had to RMA an ASUS motherboard, the process actually went very smoothly. So I can't boycott the entire firm as this seems to be specific to their GPUs.

I feel that most of the GPU makers will only send refurbished GPUs as replacements though. It seems to be a common practice not only ASUS specific. What makes this situation worse is the length of time of RMA and that they promised a new GPU to the OP.

 

[motsm]

After seeing this and having similar issues myself out of Asus, Im done with them completely as a vendor. Hope they enjoy the cash they got from ripping OP off, they wont be getting any from me in the future.

Part of me is happy to read posts like this, but then I think of how unfortunate it is that ASUS is putting people in this kind of situation. I hope it doesn't hurt your bottom line too much.

I feel that most of the GPU makers will only send refurbished GPUs as replacements though. It seems to be a common practice not only ASUS specific.

Yeah, I recall getting a refurbished BFG GPU from an RMA quite a few years ago. It looked and functioned great however, so I had no complaints that it wasn't brand new.

 

[MTDEW]

Getting a refurb back from an RMA is one thing.
But those pics in the OP are an entirely different matter IMO.
Did you see those pics?

That thing looks like it was just yanked out of a PC without even removing its retaining screw.
IMO that's not a refurb, that's just plain junk and should NEVER be shipped to a customer as a suitable replacement GPU in any situation.

 

[Meghan54]

But honestly with MSI, EVGA it's very difficult to recommend ASUS GPUs based on countless GPU RMA experiences. I have to say that when I had to RMA an ASUS motherboard, the process actually went very smoothly. So I can't boycott the entire firm as this seems to be specific to their GPUs.

First, Asus motherboards RMA to a different facility than the gpu's do. The gpu RMA facility is horrid at best....I had one RMA'd gpu get lost there for over a month, only to be found in a stack of other returned gpu's that had never been looked at. Almost like it was in a trash pile.

But I wouldn't include MSI in any "they've got great RMA service" list. I'm currently on a third return of an MSI gpu.....each one I've gotten back has been worse than the one I sent. MSI seems to be following in Asus's footsteps down the gpu RMA hellhole.

 

[Bubbleawsome]

I can't even get a rep for RMA on my gigabyte card. We should form a club.

 

[MTDEW]

I can't even get a rep for RMA on my gigabyte card. We should form a club.

I'm really sorry to hear that.
I RMA'ed a Sapphire reference R9 290, and they replaced it with a R9 290 Tri-X that looked "new" (it still may have been a "refurb", but I couldn't tell either way)
And I couldn't be happier.

But I honestly don't see how ANYONE could consider what the OP received as an RMA replacement as acceptable.
I mean..LOOK at those pics!

Does Gigabyte at least allow you a live chat with a rep?

 

[bigboxes]

Thanks to the OP for outing the horrible RMA service they received from ASUS. I have an ASUS mobo that is still running strong after 5 years, but I am currently looking at a video card upgrade and there is no way I will be going ASUS after reading this. Ugh.

 

[Bubbleawsome]

Does Gigabyte at least allow you a live chat with a rep?

The only official options they have are a phone #, an email, and the automated RMA. I didn't want to go through the automated RMA again and the email was unresponsive. I'm antisocial and don't want to use calling as my first option. I took to the internet to find a rep. There are none. The only active one is Atom80 over at overclockers.co.uk and they denied me an account. I've also tried tweeting them directly and going to their official UK forums. Gotten no help from either. I think calling them is the only choice left. I might actually get a real person this time.

The thing is, for all I know they might be willing to fix my situation plus some, I just can't contact them.

 

[monkeydelmagico]

Figures. I finally have enough money to afford Asus mobo and GPU only to find out the company has gone straight to hell in a handbasket. Sigh....

 

[RadiclDreamer]

My story of them (condensed version) was I bought a new motherboard that died just outside of the return window, (cant remember if it was 30 day or 15) which forced me to contact ASUS. The board simply failed to boot at all, so after several days of waiting i was issued an RMA which took about 10 days to get back to me once they had my board and it was awful, 1 ram slot and 1 PCIe slot were dead, and REEKED of cigarette smoke.

I emailed them back and told them it was unacceptable for them to send out an RMA like that especially since mine was practically brand new, they didnt apologize but instead demanded I send it back at my cost again to get another RMA, this time i get one back pretty quick but there is a missing capacitor and chips all over the board. I again contact them and express my disgust but they refuse to replace with a new one and refuse to pay shipping costs.

The final RMA worked and was in decent shape save for some scratches on the heatsink but I can live with that.

I like their boards, but their messed up customer service and RMA process makes me blacklist them, I had thought maybe i had an isolated incident, but it appears around 5 years later they are still up to their old antics.

 

[motsm]

I like their boards, but their messed up customer service and RMA process makes me blacklist them, I had thought maybe i had an isolated incident, but it appears around 5 years later they are still up to their old antics.

It's just rediculous how many of these cases you find with ASUS compared to other vendors. You can find isolated instances with MSI and Gigabyte etc, but ASUS has been doing it steadily for years.

I found 3 different ASUS reps online, one assigned to HardForum, NewEgg and a service review site, I have emailed all of them with a link to this thread. Guess we shall see if they care about losing customers over this. :Edit: PM'd the rep at OCN as well, still waiting on a reply from anyone since Friday.

 

[Runequest2]

I was thinking about buying their GTX 970.

Now I have decided to just avoid Asus since if I have a problem I know it will be a huge hassle to deal with them over repairs or a replacement card.

 

[RussianSensation]

I was thinking about buying their GTX 970.

Now I have decided to just avoid Asus since if I have a problem I know it will be a huge hassle to deal with them over repairs or a replacement card.

No point whatsoever as MSI Gaming or Gigabyte G1 are quieter and overclock better.

 

[xAlias]

Glad that I saw this thread as I was debating to get an Asus 970 or a MSI 970.

Seems like this has cleared up the confusion as I will be staying away from Asus GPUs and pc hardware if this is an indication of their RMA service.

 

[motsm]

Two of the reps I emailed got back to me. One of them told me that I can only get a refurbished card through the warranty, which I would have been fine with 4 months ago, not anymore. The other rep was more vague, and told me he will see what he can do.

It's getting really hard to keep my cool with these people, but I'm doing my best.

Lastly, apparently the rep I'd been working with is out sick, so that is why I hadn't heard from her.

 

[RadiclDreamer]

Can you not try a chargeback on your credit card? I know its technically not the fault of the seller, but if you cant get anywhere with Asus it might be time to let the vendor fight it.

 

[motsm]

Can you not try a chargeback on your credit card? I know its technically not the fault of the seller, but if you cant get anywhere with Asus it might be time to let the vendor fight it.

This is a GTX670, so it's far too late for an option like that if I was to consider it.

 

[oleguy]

First, Asus motherboards RMA to a different facility than the gpu's do. The gpu RMA facility is horrid at best....I had one RMA'd gpu get lost there for over a month, only to be found in a stack of other returned gpu's that had never been looked at. Almost like it was in a trash pile.

But I wouldn't include MSI in any "they've got great RMA service" list. I'm currently on a third return of an MSI gpu.....each one I've gotten back has been worse than the one I sent. MSI seems to be following in Asus's footsteps down the gpu RMA hellhole.

Based on what I've read here, the GPU RMA group is the same group of misanthropic a-holes who ran the MB RMA group back in the early 2000s. Maybe ASUS realized that the MB business was too valuable to screw around with... or at least resulted in too much litigation from OEM partners. I had an ASUS A7A from the days when AMD was the pinnacle of performance CPUs. I RMA'd it because it turned out that the AGP Pro slot was running in some kind of fallback mode and only had PCI (not PCI-E) speeds. While I only had a Kyro II in there, it was noticeable.

What I got back was an A7A they claimed was new but was merely a refurb that had a new serial number sticker (poorly) slapped over the old one. For all I could tell (as it had the same problem), it was the same MB I RMA'd back to them. Hours on the phone and complaining to them resulted in nothing besides a lot of childish complaints and emails from their side (I wasn't much better, being 19 at the time), and insinuations that I was trying to tarnish their name by making false accusations about their RMA process and MB performance. To be fair, I might have been saying a few nasty things about them on Tom's Hardware, but I never actually pointed it out to them.

Needless to say, I've avoided all ASUS products since then, and it's sad (not surprising?) to know that such pathetic customer service continues to be Job One for their staff today.

 

[oleguy]

Two of the reps I emailed got back to me. One of them told me that I can only get a refurbished card through the warranty, which I would have been fine with 4 months ago, not anymore. The other rep was more vague, and told me he will see what he can do.

It's getting really hard to keep my cool with these people, but I'm doing my best.

Lastly, apparently the rep I'd been working with is out sick, so that is why I hadn't heard from her.

Don't they have supervisors you can speak to? Being a former call center wage slave, I hated it when people immediately asked for a supervisor, but the design of such hellholes is that only supervisors are the ones who can pull even the smallest of strings.

Otherwise, you might want to insinuate that you need to know where in their warranty policy it shows that a refurb is all you would get, as you are looking at what documentation you need in hand to file against them in small claims court (though that only really helps if you are going to carry such a thing out).

 

[RadiclDreamer]

Yeah. they have supervisors, they care even less than the rank and file call center folks, they are the comcast of the industry, basically f*** you, we're asus and can do what we want.

 

[nsafreak]

There are times when I wish well known sites and/or publications would do a survey of GPU & motherboard vendors and see how each handles an RMA for a video card and/or motherboard. Having a bad reputation from an online publication that's read widely enough might be enough to get some of these jokers to shape up their act when it comes to the RMA process.

 

[Grooveriding]

There are times when I wish well known sites and/or publications would do a survey of GPU & motherboard vendors and see how each handles an RMA for a video card and/or motherboard. Having a bad reputation from an online publication that's read widely enough might be enough to get some of these jokers to shape up their act when it comes to the RMA process.

This. The difficulty in doing this would be having cards that legitimately need an RMA. Some vendors base warranty on S/N and don't require an invoice, but others do. So they couldn't just try and get cards that go defective from other people.

Asus RMA for video cards is notoriously terrible. You could likely do a search in this and the other popular tech forums for 'Asus RMA' and find many threads like this. Hopefully more and more people avoid buying their products and they finally take notice. They are the largest AIB in GPUs and motherboards and there is no excuse for such abysmal warranty support. I think it's primarily going to be Americans that are getting shafted because Europe has strong consumer protection laws that hold the point of sale accountable for warranty claims and refunds.

 

[motsm]

Don't they have supervisors you can speak to? Being a former call center wage slave, I hated it when people immediately asked for a supervisor, but the design of such hellholes is that only supervisors are the ones who can pull even the smallest of strings.

Otherwise, you might want to insinuate that you need to know where in their warranty policy it shows that a refurb is all you would get, as you are looking at what documentation you need in hand to file against them in small claims court (though that only really helps if you are going to carry such a thing out).

I emailed multiple reps in the last few days about getting contact information for a supervisor, but they haven't responded to that question. It is also clearly stated in their warranty to expect a refurb, which I accepted for the first 3 failed RMA's. I convinced them to send new for the 4th however, they just conveniently failed to do so. Technically, they are probably within their warranty terms to muck about with a customer for a year if they chose to.

 

[3DVagabond]

There are times when I wish well known sites and/or publications would do a survey of GPU & motherboard vendors and see how each handles an RMA for a video card and/or motherboard. Having a bad reputation from an online publication that's read widely enough might be enough to get some of these jokers to shape up their act when it comes to the RMA process.

It's more important that the review sites get hardware than it is to call anyone out. Especially a company as large as Asus.