XFX Horror Story

[CurseTheSky]

IMO, their course of action isn't very good (considering the delay), but it's far from bad. You want to talk about bad service? I've read several bad posts about Sapphire, Power Color (IIRC), MSI, ASUS, etc. At least XFX is trying.

With that said, they should offer him a fourth option:
- 4890 stock replacement, overnight or two day shipping, apology for long delay, and either $20-30 back as compensation for the lesser card or $50 off next XFX card purchase as a nice incentive.

 

[RobsTV]

I see you are into playing the "what if" game. Its a fun game where the outcome is only limited by your imagination. I'd like to imagine the comoany is going to cover their warranty. Thats why they gave him the options they did. If they dont end up sending the XT, then you cross that bridge when you come to it.

He buys a specially hyped card and pays extra for a better warranty to ensure that he has the use of the card he bought for a long time. He did the right thing (he thought). Now, the company has no replacement and no ETA for that replacement. Tuff. Send him a loaner in the mean time. But, it must be at least what his warrantied card was. When he bought his 4890XT they told him it was better than a normal 4890, and now it is only just "comparable"? Right. If they do not have the 4890XT in stock, keep moving up the list of cards they do have in stock, and send him that as a loaner. Even if it is a 5850. Loan him that card. It is not the slightest bit the customers fault or problem. If is 100% the fault of XFX for not stocking warranty replacements and is entirely there problem. End of story. He paid to have a special card, not a normal card.

The worst part of this whole fiasco is how it affects current buyers of 5xxx cards from XFX. What happens in a year if they have a failure? Looks like they are not going to stand up to the plate and take care of customers. If it happened here, it might happen to you next. Warranty valid only if in stock is what it comes down to, not a good warranty at all.

 

[smackababy]

IMO, their course of action isn't very good (considering the delay), but it's far from bad. You want to talk about bad service? I've read several bad posts about Sapphire, Power Color (IIRC), MSI, ASUS, etc. At least XFX is trying.

With that said, they should offer him a fourth option:
- 4890 stock replacement, overnight or two day shipping, apology for long delay, and either $20-30 back as compensation for the lesser card or $50 off next XFX card purchase as a nice incentive.

I am pretty sure a factory OC'd card is like $10-15 over an original. Why should they offer any money back? I could say like 15% off his next XFX card would be good, but other than that he is getting almost an identicle card.

Also, if you look at newegg's information concerning XFX cards, it says LIMITED LIFETIME WARRANTY.

 

[happy medium]

He buys a specially hyped card and pays extra for a better warranty to ensure that he has the use of the card he bought for a long time. He did the right thing (he thought). Now, the company has no replacement and no ETA for that replacement. Tuff. Send him a loaner in the mean time. But, it must be at least what his warrantied card was. When he bought his 4890XT they told him it was better than a normal 4890, and now it is only just "comparable"? Right. If they do not have the 4890XT in stock, keep moving up the list of cards they do have in stock, and send him that as a loaner. Even if it is a 5850. Loan him that card. It is not the slightest bit the customers fault or problem. If is 100% the fault of XFX for not stocking warranty replacements and is entirely there problem. End of story. He paid to have a special card, not a normal card.

Thats a very good point.



And missed the limited part guys sorry.

 

[nitromullet]

Where's the principle in all this? This warranty advertisement from XFX should read: "we'll warrant your card if we have it in stock, else we'll downgrade it or give you the option to pay for a faster card".

Personally, if there was a card company that offered a three month upgrade (like EVGA and BFG) with credit for the full purchase price, and thereafter offered an upgrade credit offer based on current market value of the card I'd buy every singe video card I ever bought from them.

This is about what you get if you sell your used card in ebay, but you have to pay the ebay/paypal fees and risk dealing with morons.

Let's be honest... the 4890 is last year's model, isn't really worth much more than $150 these days, and anyone buying these at Newegg for $200+ is an idiot.

 

[waffleironhead]

He buys a specially hyped card and pays extra for a better warranty to ensure that he has the use of the card he bought for a long time. He did the right thing (he thought). Now, the company has no replacement and no ETA for that replacement. Tuff. Send him a loaner in the mean time. But, it must be at least what his warrantied card was. When he bought his 4890XT they told him it was better than a normal 4890, and now it is only just "comparable"? Right. If they do not have the 4890XT in stock, keep moving up the list of cards they do have in stock, and send him that as a loaner. Even if it is a 5850. Loan him that card. It is not the slightest bit the customers fault or problem. If is 100% the fault of XFX for not stocking warranty replacements and is entirely there problem. End of story. He paid to have a special card, not a normal card.

The worst part of this whole fiasco is how it affects current buyers of 5xxx cards from XFX. What happens in a year if they have a failure? Looks like they are not going to stand up to the plate and take care of customers. If it happened here, it might happen to you next. Warranty valid only if in stock is what it comes down to, not a good warranty at all.

Where did XFX claim that the stock 4890 was comparable?
They are loaning him a 4890 till his replacement comes in. He did pay to have a special card and they will warranty replace it, when they have one to ship.
I agree that the time frame for the replacement is rather long, but I feel the options he was given are adequate. Nothing is requiring XFX to upgrade him another generation of card nor is there a turn around requirement afaik.

 

[RobsTV]

If you used a credit card such as Visa to purchase this, call credit card company and they might be able to take care of it. No need for you to go through more trouble. Visa extends the warranty on purchases, and will either get it fixed, or get a refund. Nothing extra is needed to be done at time of purchase.

If you used other means to purchase, might want to just write this off as a lesson learned and take what they give you and be done with them.

 

[tommo123]

so, lesson of this thread is - xfx are as crappy as other card makers and will screw customers over? right. lesson learnt

 

[jacktesterson]

Some of you guys blamming the OP in this thread are redicioulous.

He paid for a XT. It was sold to him as a better card then the standard 4890. If they can't give him the same card which is not the OP's fault, they either give him a slightly better card, or a refund. Anything else is unacceptable. Who the hell wants a loaner card?

 

[MagickMan]

Some of you guys blamming the OP in this thread are redicioulous.

He paid for a XT. It was sold to him as a better card then the standard 4890. If they can't give him the same card which is not the OP's fault, they either give him a slightly better card, or a refund. Anything else is unacceptable. Who the hell wants a loaner card?

Exactly. These corporate apologists are completely blind. If XFX can't give him an exact replacement, a better product, or a refund then they're completely worthless. Hell, they charge as much as EVGA for their stuff, but EVGA will almost kill for you to make things right.

Something's wrong, and I'd be damned if I'd let them off the hook. There'd be some ass being chewed if it was me. The OP needs to get on the horn and start dealing out some frustration until they get their shit together.

 

[ChaiBabbaChai]

To the OP - Honestly, you need to talk them (calmly) into giving you the upgrade for $100. Here's a few tips that have helped me many times:

0. First and foremost, keep calling back until you get a rep on the phone that is in a good mood and is nice. I can tell by their voice, can you? (this is the most important step because if the rep is a bad egg, they don't even want to do their job the right way)

1. Be friendly, and tell them you are having issues with an RMA and that you would like to speak to their supervisor. Be nice.

2. Tell the supervisor that you feel you are being treated poorly (use your own words, be nice though) and that you would like them to figure out a resolution. Ask them what they can do for you.

3. If they don't offer the 5850 upgrade for ~$100, suggest the idea to them and if they say they can't do that, then ask them why they can't. Keep talking with them so they spend a lot of their time on you.

4. If that doesn't work, then the next step is to ask to talk to THEIR boss because "you have not been able to assist me up to reasonable standards".

Post back and keep us informed.

 

[ymetushe]

As far as accepting a loaner card, my main problem was not having to drain my loop, but that XFX WOULD NOT GIVE ME ETA on proper replacement. They way they made it sond, it seemed like ey were never getting the XT version. I can drain my loop just fine, trust me.

To the OP - Honestly, you need to talk them (calmly) into giving you the upgrade for $100. Here's a few tips that have helped me many times:

0. First and foremost, keep calling back until you get a rep on the phone that is in a good mood and is nice. I can tell by their voice, can you? (this is the most important step because if the rep is a bad egg, they don't even want to do their job the right way)

1. Be friendly, and tell them you are having issues with an RMA and that you would like to speak to their supervisor. Be nice.

2. Tell the supervisor that you feel you are being treated poorly (use your own words, be nice though) and that you would like them to figure out a resolution. Ask them what they can do for you.

3. If they don't offer the 5850 upgrade for ~$100, suggest the idea to them and if they say they can't do that, then ask them why they can't. Keep talking with them so they spend a lot of their time on you.

4. If that doesn't work, then the next step is to ask to talk to THEIR boss because "you have not been able to assist me up to reasonable standards".

Post back and keep us informed.

That's exactly what I did. Every time I called I was very polite, told them I believed $100 was reasonable, not $130. They told me they had no control over prices. I even told them that if they were to loan me a stock 4890, the'd lose more money on shipping alone. Didn't budge.

Asked to be transferred to the supervisor. Left him a voice mail, but my call was never returned...

IMO, their course of action isn't very good (considering the delay), but it's far from bad. You want to talk about bad service? I've read several bad posts about Sapphire, Power Color (IIRC), MSI, ASUS, etc. At least XFX is trying.

With that said, they should offer him a fourth option:
- 4890 stock replacement, overnight or two day shipping, apology for long delay, and either $20-30 back as compensation for the lesser card or $50 off next XFX card purchase as a nice incentive.

Honestly, if they offered me something like this, I'd have accepted the offer right away.

 

[ChaiBabbaChai]

:/ Can you still file a dispute with Visa and then buy a new card?

 

[IdBuRnS]

If XFX wanted to do right by their customer they would just suck it up and give him the better card since they are unable to fulfill their warranty by providing him a replacement of his exact model. It's a simple as that. It's highly unlikely that they are going to receive more of the XT cards that the OP had, as has been mentioned the card is old and certainly aren't being manufactured anymore.


As for the usefulness of a lifetime warranty... I had to RMA the EVGA Socket939 nForce board that was in my WHS. Well, the board had a lifetime warranty but was about 4 years old so of course they didn't have them in stock anymore. They gave me 3 options (after stringing me along for 2 weeks):

1) Replacement Socket755 board free of charge
2) Replacement AM2/3 board free of charge
3) $150 in "EVGA Bucks" to their online store

All of these options sucked for me because #'s 1 and 2 would require that I spend at least another $200 out of pocket on a new CPU and RAM. #3 left me with having to spend a minimum of $150 out of pocket in their store to buy anything useful.

I told them that all 3 options sucked so they offered me a $75 check in the mail. I took that.

In this case a lifetime warranty was useless to me because a few years later they couldn't provide a direct replacement for the product that had died. At least with a videocard the interface doesn't change anywhere near as often as processor sockets.

 

[M1A]

XFX must be a little like Powercolor is now. I have been waiting for an RMA from back before Christmas. It finally came Wed and packed very poor. The heat sink on the card was bent and the card would not display. I have so many e-mails to RMA Dept (Hugo) and he only answers about 1/5 of them. It took 2 weeks just to get my first answer. So you are not alone and I believe a lot of these hardware manucfactures are slipping and do not care about their customers. I will be buying BFG again in hopes they are still treating customers the way they did 2 years ago. Well I will not be buying XFX then also when I upgrade again.

 

[dguy6789]

EVGA will almost kill for you to make things right.

Thanks, I needed a little humor in the morning.

 

[IdBuRnS]

but EVGA will almost kill for you to make things right.

I've had to RMA a few things through EGVA and, except for this last time, the experience was pretty painless.

They repeatedly dropped the ball with my last RMA (the mobo I posted about above), even contacting me 3 weeks after they told me that my check was in the mail to tell me what my replacement options were. Lo and behold my check was not in the mail and I had to wait even longer. They still came through in the end...but my WHS was left non-functional far longer than it should have been.

 

[ScorcherDarkly]

Some of you guys blamming the OP in this thread are redicioulous.

I'm not blaming the OP for the problem, I'm saying that they offered solutions that fulfilled their warranty and he didn't take them. Besides pitching a fit until he gets what he wants, there's not much else to do.

He paid for a XT. It was sold to him as a better card then the standard 4890. If they can't give him the same card which is not the OP's fault, they either give him a slightly better card, or a refund. Anything else is unacceptable. Who the hell wants a loaner card?

I don't disagree with you, but that's not what the warranty says its going to do. The options they offered him fulfill the warranty he paid for. You can dislike the terms or language of the warranty all you want, it doesn't make them any less true.

 

[blanketyblank]

This is hardly what I'd consider a horror story, and from XFX's perspective there is really no good option here. Anything they do for this customer they'd have to do for other customers which means they could lose a lot of money if they are too generous.

A $260 refund or free 5850 is too generous. If they always do something like that it will encourage people to buy and overheat their cards for the potential upgrade. Even rumors like that are bad for them since the customer service required probably costs them any profit they'd be making on the sales. It maybe good publicity, but the potential liability while 4890s are being sold (for discounted prices) is more dangerous than one customer spreading his "horror story".

I'm sure if the OP RMAd in a year or so when 4890s aren't officially being sold they wouldn't have any trouble providing a 5850 or 5830 as a replacement since the fear of RMA upgraders is past. In the meantime pick an option and move on.
I'd say go for the loaner and OC it yourself(I think they are one of the few companies that cover this under their warranty) and when it burns out in a year or two try their warranty service again. You'll probably get what you want then.

 

[billyb0b]

i'm doing two XFX 5850 black editions right now in crossfire. had a 7800gtx from XFX in the past too.

I've always been happy with their stuff.

 

[Interitus]

There's a lot of good points in this thread for you OP. I know your situation sucks, but just collect yourself and try to negotiate with XFX. I know they're not offering you what you feel you're entitled to, but they are making attempts to work with you, and truth be told, you'll probably never see that XT. This is why I love EVGA. Twice I've had cards fail that were no longer in production, and EVGA supplied me with a newer card of slightly higher performance (latest issue was awhile back with a 7800GT that died and they returned me a 7950.)

If I were you, I'd try to calmly suggest some alternatives to their solutions. For example:

1) Show them the price difference between OC'd 4890's and 5850's for other vendors. If it's close to the $100 mentioned, offer them the $100 for the 5850 upgrade. You could also barter for a 5770 replacement. Sure it's slightly slower than a 4890, but a little more than the $130 they suggested for a 5850 upgrade would put you in good position for a nice 5770 CF setup. (Might be a little pointless for your WC though)

2) Propose the idea of maybe taking the 4890 non-OC'd as a replacement and possibly some kind of slight reimbursement. Maybe a low dollar amount non-expiring credit for a future purchase of one of their cards.

It's really out of XFX's hands when it comes to supplying you with a replacement for a non-production card. I'm sure they would work with you. You just have to show willingness to accept a reasonable offer, and go about it in a calm and collected manner. Obviously these types of situations make people angry, I know I would be too, but respect and courtesy go a long way in getting you what you want when dealing with a manufacturer. It's a two-way street. Show them that you understand their position and they're more likely to show you that they understand yours and work toward a happy ending for both parties.

As someone mentioned here earlier, their pricing for replacements is internal and independent of the retail channels. It's why even when you go through EVGA with the step-up program, their prices are higher than what you will find at online vendors. Just try to look at it this way: If you sold the 4890 XT and upgraded to a 5850 how much would you pay? Chances are that the total in the end wouldn't be that much different than taking their $130 offer. But try to offer them the $100 or even say $115 or $120. Worst that can happen is that they say no. If it comes down to taking the stock 4890 and getting nothing else, calmly explain to them that while you appreciate their intent to rectify the situation, you feel that you were slightly shorted in the process. Tell them that you hope to have better experiences with them in the future, even if you're completely soured to the idea of buying from them again. If they think that you're a loyal customer that feels their service was a bit short of what you expected, you'd be surprised what they'll do to keep you as a buyer.

-edit-

Somehow I missed Chai's post and the OP's response, kind of a repetition, my bad.

 

[Rifter]

I dont understand how any of you can be blaming him are you all retarded? Maybe im just taking his side because i also have a OC'ed 4890 from XFX but they have NOT offered to fulfill his warranty, you know as well as i do that there never will be a 4890XT in stock again ATI is not making 4890 chips anymore.

So offering him a regular 4890 then "wait" for a XT is never going to happen and he will be stuck with a lower end card than he paid for, and you can say its comparable all you want but my OC'ed 4890 gets a little better than 10% performance than it did at stock clocks, and 10% might make no differnce whatsoever at the high end but for minimum framrates can make a world of differnce, especially in games such as crysis. Could even be the differnce between minor stuttering and smooth gameplay.

They are trying to get out of having to follow their own warranty which is total BS and in no way shape or form acceptable. If they want to do that bullshit take this card and wait crap they should ship him a 5850 so he can use that and "wait" for his XT thats never going to show up anyways. And then if he ends up keeping it then at least they have actually done right by their warranty.

 

[MagickMan]

I've had to RMA a few things through EGVA and, except for this last time, the experience was pretty painless.

They repeatedly dropped the ball with my last RMA (the mobo I posted about above), even contacting me 3 weeks after they told me that my check was in the mail to tell me what my replacement options were. Lo and behold my check was not in the mail and I had to wait even longer. They still came through in the end...but my WHS was left non-functional far longer than it should have been.

That's not good, ride their ass if they screw up. They respond well to irritation, much better than XFX it seems.

 

[MagickMan]

This is hardly what I'd consider a horror story, and from XFX's perspective there is really no good option here.

Yes there is. They can suck it up and sell him a 5850 for $100. He said that was a fine compromise.

 

[v8envy]

So, to summarize the practical options:

1. Accept the 'loaner' graciously knowing you'll probably never see a higher clocked 4890.
2. See if your credit card company can help. This is probably your best bet -- be enough of a pain and XFX may decide the $30 is not worth thousands of dollars of mantime on their end to keep you from upgrading to a supported product.
3. Keep the support ticked open, keep checking in and don't allow them to close it. A variation of #2.

Eventually the 5830 may show and XFX may get you one of those. Of course, they may claim your card depreciated while they sat on it and only warrants a 5450 as a replacement... 1/2 =)

Downgrading from a factory OC 4890 to a 5770? Really? Would YOU accept that? I know I wouldn't. The problem is the gaping hole in ATI's lineup. A 5770 is too low end of a card to replace a 4890, and 5850 too high.