XFX Horror Story

[taltamir]

Is the op being whiny? a little...
Are XFX within their LEGAL right? probably.
Is it a HORROR story? no, not nearly.
Is what XFX doing right in this case? no.

I can understand the OP's frustration. XFX cards cost more than other manufacturers mostly because of their "superior" warranty support. If they can't honor the warranty, why are we paying more for their products? :hmm:

That is exactly the issue. I always pay extra for XFX (or sometimes eVGA if eVGA is a lot cheaper) because I want a better warranty. If this is all they do then why bother?

The customer shouldn't be the one forced to bite the bullet when it comes to warranty replacement.

Exactly.
They should have, on day 1, said "we don't have it" and suggested X$ refund to take the downgrade. Or choose any card, pay the MSRP difference -X$ (with X being 20 or 30$).

They instead dragged the case on for a whole month with no resolution in sight, and want him to pay 130$ upgrade fee or take a downgrade which is MSRP difference and means they are making a profit on it. (and as useless as that factory OC is, they DO charge you an extra 20$ for it; if it is "comparable" how come its 20$ cheaper?).

This reminds me this one time... I don't recall if it was a samsung or a different company but it was OOS. After waiting a few weeks I called to complain that they aren't sending it and they admitted it was out of stock. So they told me they will send a better one right away... I got a brand new hitachi of equal size in the box. I laughed my ass off and just went ahead and used it; wasn't worth my time to raise more of a fuss.

 

[MagickMan]

Are there any other ATI partners who offer a lifetime warranty? Just curious.

 

[evolucion8]

sorry op but this is far from a horror story. Sounds like XFX is working with you as much as they can to get your problem fixed and your just throwing a hissy fit.

grow up. they don't have a replacement right now they have offered viable alternatives. I wish half of tech companies were as good.

I just had to rma some bad ddr with crucial. The sticks had a lifetime warranty. They told me they were going to replace my $200 ballistix memory with $80 value ram or I could take a fair market value of $30 in instore credit. Too top it off the customer service rep told me I was lucky to be getting anything at all. Now thats bad service. (and yes a tried talking to people at crucial and they wouldn't budge even after I filed a bbb complaint)

You had the same issue as me, one stick of my 2GB kit of Ballistix DDR1 500Mhz went puff, and they changed one of the sticks, but 2 weeks later, the remaining stick died and they wouldn't change it because they didn't had them in stock, they wanted me to pay the shipping costs to ship me cheapo and slow DDR1 400MHz 3-4-4-10 memory sticks or a $30 credit to buy guess what? The same sticks since they didn't had faster DDR1 modules in stock at that time, it was on 2006, lesson learned, never buy Crucial.

 

[Apocalypse23]

It sucks to hear your story, I've been reading up a lot of mixed reviews about XFX in particular, but that could also be since XFX has the most amount of ATI customers at this point apart apart from the other vendors.

I have never owned any XFX cards as they have mostly been overpriced when compared to other brands. I actually just bought an ASUS 5870 since the XFX 5870s were sold out here in Canada, but also got a better deal as Asus has a 3 year warranty, free Dirt 2 copy, and has a better build ( I have never had any Asus products go bad on me). A 3 year warranty is more than enough for me when it comes to video cards as I usually upgrade my cards in about 1.5-2 years time anyway, technology changes very rapidly these days.

The only ATI brands I would recommend are Asus...AND Asus alone since I am really concerned with support from MSI, Gigabyte (their rma websites don't even load up sometimes!). Stay away from Sapphire and Diamond.

Visiontek is the only other ATI manufacturer offering lifetime warranty but they seem to be quite picky.

My money goes on Asus, and you can always find pricematching deals on the net to get a better price anyway.

I understand that you wanted the exact same card but the chances of XFX not having that same exact card in stock are high if it is discontinued, you can't blame them for that, and they should have offered you something similar in performance so they should be blamed if they didn't. These lifetime warranty deals seem really just marketing tools to me anyway as they give you a sense of "safety and peace of mind" when you purchase their product.

 

[ShreddedWheat]

I have always had good luck with them on a returned 8800gs.

 

[PCboy]

In my opinion, XFX has actually gone above and beyond already what most manufacturers would have done or offered to do for you. Consider yourself lucky.

As for RMA'ing video cards, I could get started on Asus and really slam them, but those are stories for another day. But I'll never purchase another Asus video card....ever, no matter how good the deal.

Seriously. I can't see how this is a horror story. Getting something is better than getting nothing.

 

[OILFIELDTRASH]

It's not a horror story but it goes to show that their lifetime warranty is about as worthless as the paper it's printed on. Now I just see xfx products and laugh. You want me to pay you more money for your card just for the bogus extra customer service I'm supposed to get? Hahaha! At least with evga you can use the step up program. I could see paying more for that.

 

[pmv]

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.



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.

The original complaint is not a majorly important event, and I bet every single manufacturer of everything ever manufactured occasionally messes a customer around like this. The OP was obviously venting by going over-the-top and he's got a right to do that, but it doesn't mean XFX is any worse than any other card maker.

But what 'the warranty says its going to do' is ambiguous at best. The word 'comparable' seems ridiculously vague to me. You can't say what interpretation is 'true' unless it ends up being part of a court case and gets decided by a court. For you to say they are 'true' implies you are simply assuming the corporate side is always right. I don't see you can say that unless it actually gets to a court. It's pretty close to saying 'might is right' as you are simply siding with the interpretation of the more powerful party.

I do note though that XFX did not advertise their o/c card as being "comparable to a stock model!". If they did I must have missed that advert.

 

[ScorcherDarkly]

But what 'the warranty says its going to do' is ambiguous at best. The word 'comparable' seems ridiculously vague to me. You can't say what interpretation is 'true' unless it ends up being part of a court case and gets decided by a court. For you to say they are 'true' implies you are simply assuming the corporate side is always right. I don't see you can say that unless it actually gets to a court. It's pretty close to saying 'might is right' as you are simply siding with the interpretation of the more powerful party.

I'm certain they wrote it that way on purpose. As long as they're remotely close to fair on it's interpretation, they won't get serious challenges since the potential for the consumer to win the case is iffy. Really, who wants to sue over a video card? Especially when your case is dependent on the judge reading ambiguity the same way you do.

As far as siding with the company simply because "might is right", that's not the case at all. The 4890 XT is the same frickin card as a stock 4890 with a bios tweak to support the higher clocks. There still hasn't been an argument as to why that's NOT considered comparable, just a lot of people saying its crap that an ambiguous word is screwing him out of getting what he wants.

 

[ymetushe]

I'm certain they wrote it that way on purpose. As long as they're remotely close to fair on it's interpretation, they won't get serious challenges since the potential for the consumer to win the case is iffy. Really, who wants to sue over a video card? Especially when your case is dependent on the judge reading ambiguity the same way you do.

As far as siding with the company simply because "might is right", that's not the case at all. The 4890 XT is the same frickin card as a stock 4890 with a bios tweak to support the higher clocks. There still hasn't been an argument as to why that's NOT considered comparable, just a lot of people saying its crap that an ambiguous word is screwing him out of getting what he wants.

Well, the truth is that OC'ed cards are the same as regular cards, except for Black edition cards, perhaps. I mean, practically all stock 4890s would OC to 875 or 900MHz core (XT and XXX versions,) and I doubt XFX even bothers checking. EVGA certainly does not, as a friend of mine had one factory O'ed EVGA nV card that artifacted.

The reason I refused a stock 4890 is because their current "stock" 4890 has a cheaped-out PCB and an aftermarket cooler. They did not make cheaped-out 4890 XTs. That's the main reason I did not want their stock 4890.

 

[drunkgamer]

XFX. Reading a bunch of bad experiences with their cards AND their customer service.

Like someone else said, companies change. You either are growing/getting better or going in the opposite direction. No one stays the same.

Seems like XFX has really gone downhill.

I recently got a Sapphire 5870 and the card is nails and I had to contact customer service because I actually lost the dual-card connector cable. They actually sent me one free! Go figure

On NewEgg, many of the higher end Sapphire cards have won those consumer voted on best of awards while the XFX cards have rated lower.

If I were you, just file a small claims if you can if they have a state-side office you can name in the claim. They can't win and will lose enough profit that they would have to sell a few palletes of cards to make up for it.

I did it once with Dell and not only got what I wanted, it got escalated so high I got a free laptop for the wife too

Companies don't expect you to fight back. Get your $$$ and steer clear of XFX.