Discussion Anyone else have such a poor experience with ASUS warranty service

[Rogue Leader]

I'll try to keep this brief.

The Network adapter in my launch day ASUS Crosshair VI Hero failed and I contacted ASUS to have it repaired/replaced under warranty. I sent the board in, received timely replies from them regarding repairs and ultimately was sent a new replacement Crosshair VI hero in a timely fashion. Heres where it all goes wrong. I open the (completely undamaged) box and see this:

I immediately photographed it (Wed 9/25) and contacted ASUS support with it. I asked if a new board could be expressed to me. I got no reply to that request but instead a direction to photograph the board, the shipping box, etc and send it to a claims email address. I did that (Thurs 9/26) and again requested a board be expressed to me. I got a canned reply that it will take 24-48 hours to send me an RMA to have the board sent back for repair. Unacceptable as this is not my board, just give me another, but I figured I would deal with that when I got the sticker. Friday passes, the weekend passes, Monday passes, This morning (10/1) I send another email asking what is up and can they express me another board. I get what sounds like a canned reply saying they will look into what is going on with the shipping claim for me. I reply to that email and I get an automated response in Chinese that the mailbox is full.

So basically as of right now I have a $300 doorstop. I don't see why they would not have just sent me a new board, even if they asked for my Credit card number to ensure I really sent it back I would have given that to them. Instead they have just basically blown me off. The cracked board probably works fine, but I sent them a perfect condition board (other than the failed LAN adapter) and I have a very nice glass case and a lot of LEDs so the crack would be quite visible. Plus I don't trust it, and I'm not going to put the time into putting it in just to have to remove it again.

Very unhappy with their service, and I've tried their social media channels to no response. Anyone else have these types of issues?

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

Never had issues with ASUS , just MSI. Sorry to hear the bad service.

 

[logainofhades]

I accidentally broke the charger port, on my Sandy Bridge laptop. I wasn't asking them to fix it, just point me in the right direction, so I could get the correct part, and have a shop install it for me. I knew it would not be covered under warranty. Long story short, I had to find it myself, on Ebay, with a bit of trial and error. Unacceptable customer service, imo. They make my local car stealerships look good.

 

[Darkbreeze]

I've had bad experiences, and good, with ASUS. As I mentioned elsewhere, I was able to contact Raja over on the ASUS forums and he was able to get me in touch with somebody that got my issues resolved but that was an extra step that I should not have had to make in the first place AND in my opinion it is just another example of how most of these companies couldn't give a crap about your or your warranty because they've already been paid. In fact, I'd not only venture to say that some of these companies are training employees TO avoid having to replace faulty hardware or handle complaints, but I know it for a fact because I've been told so by ex employees of some major companies.

It's disgraceful and another reason why I try to shine a light on companies who DO take good care of their customers, like EVGA and Fractal design, to name a couple. Sorry this happened to you man. ASUS used to be a good company and one you could trust to take care of their customers. Seems maybe that has not been the case and has been getting worse and worse for a while now. I think this kind of customer service experience is completely unacceptable and shows a complete lack of consideration for their customer base.

 

[DMAN999]

That definitely sucks.
I'd guess that they probably don't have many of those X370 MBs left on hand and are trying to find you a replacement from one of their partners/retailers.
But if that is the case they should just tell you that so you at least know what is going on.
I'd follow DB's lead and contact Raja on the Asus Forum and see if he can put you in contact with someone that can actually help.

 

[Darkbreeze]

He tried to do that. No answer. There seems to be a high level of "crickets" going on with this issue.

 

[Rogue Leader]

Yep I contacted Raja with no answer. I also contacted their social media channels both by tag and by DM on Instagram, and no answer. Their CS drones do answer up until that email bounced back, but their messages are tone deaf and useless.

Part of me wants to toss it in the trash and buy a Gigabyte or something, but I'm not ready to walk away from $300 in hardware that easily.

 

[Darkbreeze]

And shouldn't have to. I had a sort of similar issue on a Sabertooth 990FX board and also in a separate case with a Z270-A. It took me over ten days to get an answer back through the normal channels on the 990FX and that one I got the wheels greased by Raja. The Z270-A board took a full month to get replaced and I had to constantly pester them in order to get it done. They kept coming up with excuse after excuse as to why no progress had been made on the replacement. That is EXACTLY why I have a Z170x-Gaming 5 AND a Hero VIII, so that if something goes wrong with my board I have a replacement on hand already. Since I just bought that Hero VIII last summer, I still have two years on that even though I bought it so late in the cycle, so I suspect if anything goes wrong with it during that time I'm going to be pretty much in the same pickle as you because they may not have replacements on hand.

 

[Rogue Leader]

It took me over ten days to get an answer back through the normal channels on the 990FX and that one I got the wheels greased by Raja.

I just realized why I haven't gotten a response from Raja, he hasn't been active on the ASUS ROG Forums since April 27th. I'd bet he no longer works there .

 

[DSzymborski]

Have you tried Twitter? I usually get good customer service if I complain directly to them on Twitter.

 

[Rogue Leader]

Have you tried Twitter? I usually get good customer service if I complain directly to them on Twitter.

Used Instagram, they have a pretty good presence there. And have ignored me

 

[Deleted member 14196]

get BBB involved. you will definitely hear from Asus then at some point.

 

[Darkbreeze]

I doubt it. Few businesses care a whit about the BBB these days. Besides which, they are independent, and are not a policing agency even though many people believe them to be. They have literally no power, over anybody, except to say yes people have complained about this business or no, so far nobody has complained about this business, yet. And to offer an independent accreditation saying "we think this business is good".

And clearly ASUS does NOT care about that, because they do NOT have any BBB accreditation anyhow.

https://www.bbb.org/us/ca/freemont/...ers/asus-computer-international-0633-92014611

 

[Rogue Leader]

UPDATE:

I got all "Karen" on them and asked to speak to a manager.

Longer version. I called their customer service number and complained to an agent there who told me basically he will "escalate" it but there is nothing he can do. I told him that I won't accept that and I want his supervisor. Got him on the phone, got the same story, said he would escalate and contact ASUS HQ to see what they can do. Unacceptable, next. Got the manager on the phone. Explained the story again, he said I'm actually very reasonable to ask for them to express a board back, but unfortunately still nothing he can do, and nobody higher I can talk to. But said he would personally continue handling this, call ASUS HQ on my behalf and try and get them to make an exception and mail a board out tomorrow, BUT he wanted me to know that he can't guarantee anything. He said he will call me tomorrow with a resolution.

Spent nearly 1 hour on the phone talking to these knuckleheads. Lets see what happens....

 

[Darkbreeze]

And THAT, is a sign of a company that has become a government, and has so much internal regulation that nobody can do anything because the entire process has become frozen with red tap.

For example, my issue with Fractal design, and getting a side panel, which by the way I finally did THROUGH Fractal design, not any retailer. I sent ONE email, which I immediately got a reply to. Two days later they shipped me, for free, a side panel that was HEAVILY surrounded with additional packing. No hoops to jump through. None of this "I can't" BS.

EVGA. Had a GQ unit I bought for one of my clients that also happens to be a friend and is a private investigator. He can't be without his system for extended periods. Contacted EVGA, told them who I was and what had been done already in terms of testing the unit. They immediately sent out a replacement unit, gave me an RMA shipping label and took his credit card information in case they ended up needing to charge for the unit they had sent out. Got the new unit two days later. They got the return two days after that. Thank you and goodbye. Done.

ASRock did the exact same thing for me on a motherboard. Even Intel did that for me on a processor after going through the steps of providing the tech with the results from the Intel processor diagnostic utility. ASUS, has lost touch with it's customers and itself it would seem.

They are likely to get a rude awakening when that begins to have a trickle down effect due to a lack of recommendations for, or recommendations against, their products due to poor customer support, which starts in 5, 4, 3, .................................

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

ASROCK was great when I returned one of me Z370 Extreme 4's. Received new replacement right away. MSI was horrible 2 dead replacement boards sent to my son.

 

[bignastyid]

UPDATE:

I got all "Karen" on them and asked to speak to a manager.

Longer version. I called their customer service number and complained to an agent there who told me basically he will "escalate" it but there is nothing he can do. I told him that I won't accept that and I want his supervisor. Got him on the phone, got the same story, said he would escalate and contact ASUS HQ to see what they can do. Unacceptable, next. Got the manager on the phone. Explained the story again, he said I'm actually very reasonable to ask for them to express a board back, but unfortunately still nothing he can do, and nobody higher I can talk to. But said he would personally continue handling this, call ASUS HQ on my behalf and try and get them to make an exception and mail a board out tomorrow, BUT he wanted me to know that he can't guarantee anything. He said he will call me tomorrow with a resolution.

Spent nearly 1 hour on the phone talking to these knuckleheads. Lets see what happens....

Had do something similar with Gigabyte when getting my 980ti replaced. That whole debacle took 2 months.

 

[DSzymborski]

Service is one reason I get a large percentage of my items from EVGA; I've always gotten good service and there's a very high chance that I'll end up with an upgrade on my original item. Getting a 1070 Ti in return for my broken 1070 was just enough for me to put off an upgrade for a GPU generation.

 

[DMAN999]

On a positive note, I recently had a 16 GB kit of G.Skill TridentZ RGB RAM fail.
It was caused by Asus Aura corrupting the SPD data and G.Skill RMA'd it without question.
I sent it back on a Monday and by Friday I had a replacement kit.

I have only ever RMA'd 1 kit of RAM in the past and it was also G.Skill and that was back in the 90's.
They took great care of me then, which is why I am such a G.Skill advocate now.
And they just confirmed my belief in them.

 

[Rogue Leader]

And magically at 2:55 AM I received an apology note from the "Shipping Claims" team and a prepaid Fedex label, and the package is already packed and off to Fedex. Of course the wording of this email is not perfect:

We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience and discomfort you are experiencing in this particular situation.

Your FedEx claim has been filed for damages. Please use the RMA# [redacted] to send your unit in for RMA service to have the unit repaired under warranty.

Please be advised that you will still receive an charge quotation if you send the unit in for repair. Please dispute the invoice once you received it so that 100% discount can be applied. Selecting dispute option “I am experiencing the same issue that was not resolved from a prior repair”.

I am going to have to iterate back to them yet again, this is a replacement board, I don't want it repaired, I want another. Lets see how soon it shows up.

 

[Darkbreeze]

Not to mention, you might want to make it clear to them that THEY sent you a board that was already damaged, and that the damage did not occur in shipping since the box had no evidence of it. This is one of the things that makes it so hard to get anything resolved with these companies, is the fact that MOST of the people you are dealing with:

1. Don't really care, because honestly it's a person in a relatively low paying customer support job.
2. Don't primarily speak English and more often than not do not truly understand all of what you are trying to convey to them.
3. Have no sense of "I better get this right" because there is very little chance, no matter how off the mark their response or actions are, that there will be any kind of repercussions regarding it not getting done right.
4. Can blame anything they want on the shipper, in EVERY case, even if they know full well that they sent you the same product back or worse, sent you a unit that is in worse condition than what you sent them. Made evident by the fact that FOUR different retailers sent me four different TG panels, all of which were similarly broken, busted, shattered or otherwise damaged.
5. Did I mention they really don't care? The only people who ACTUALLY care at any of these companies are the people higher up the chain of command, and they've insulated themselves against you actually being able to get in contact with any of those people, without very real and extensive efforts to do so, as you've seen.

As much as I used to be against them because I don't like they way their warranties run concurrent with any existing manufacturer warranty, I'm beginning to change my feelings about supplementary warranties from places like Square trade, because having had to use one of their warranty replacement options once, it was a lot less painful than even dealing with a regular return from Newegg. Who, by the way, is nothing to deal with like they used to be before the change of majority ownership in 2016 by Chinese investment. Which, is a HUGE part of what is wrong with many of these companies. They are, most of them, Chinese owned and run. Even the ones in the US if they are tech related are primarily Asian controlled and really they couldn't care less about anything other than feeding the goods in vast numbers to a US that looks just like a giant open mouth.

 

[Rogue Leader]

The latest email

It is my understanding that you requested a NIB replacement and I will do my best to provide further assistance.

Please be advised that our service facility will proceed with processing a refurbished replacement upon receipt of the unit.

Lets see when that actually shows up.....

 

[Darkbreeze]

"Upon receipt of the unit"

You already GOT my unit, and sent me a piece of crap in it's place. I'll send yours back, but you already HAVE mine, so how about we stop pretending like we don't both know that and that you can not clearly see that the one YOU sent me is broken, Visually, obviously, broken.

In light of the fact that I am a highly participatory member of the largest tech site in the world, it would be in both of our interests for you to make this right as soon as possible. I'd hate to have to start telling people how badly I was treated on a routine warranty replacement.

 

[Rogue Leader]

"Upon receipt of the unit"

You already GOT my unit, and sent me a piece of crap in it's place. I'll send yours back, but you already HAVE mine, so how about we stop pretending like we don't both know that and that you can not clearly see that the one YOU sent me is broken, Visually, obviously, broken.

In light of the fact that I am a highly participatory member of the largest tech site in the world, it would be in both of our interests for you to make this right as soon as possible. I'd hate to have to start telling people how badly I was treated on a routine warranty replacement.

Yeah the guy on the phone from "Indiana" didn't seem to give a hoot when I said that last part.

 

[Darkbreeze]

That's because of reason one, in the previous post. LOL.

I hope they get this fixed for you. I'd hate to have to read in the paper that "Disgruntled tech enthusiast kills 50 at ASUS warranty claim center. Claims frustration with support agents made him snap".