Question Dead card from water damage?

Mar 10, 2022
2
0
10
Hi Everyone,
Just wanted to update anyone interested as this graphics card matter has finally been resolved (almost 3 months later)
It is full of fraudulent actions that has since been proven to be 100% true and a small twist.

I had a 1660s Gigabyte Card, It died 18 months into it's 3 year warranty. I took the card into MEGABUY(Australia) where I had originally purchased it for warranty. The card was allegedly sent to Gigabyte for their tech's to assess and it came back denied. Megabuy directly blamed Gigabyte for the refused warranty and was determined to be water damaged causing corrosion - with heavy insinuations I had actually spilt something on it.

Megabuy however, never intended to send it to Gigabyte as claimed, rather they had their own staff rip it apart, breaking the back plate screw threads in the process not knowing there were extra (somewhat hidden) screws and actually voiding the warranty within their own faked warranty process. Their own staff, whom I have no idea are even qualified to be doing such work, falsely told me they sent pictures to Gigabyte and the warranty was determined from these pictures by Gigabyte themselves - This was later discovered to be a complete lie with Gigabyte confirming they never received anything regarding my card at all.

At every single opportunity Megabuy wanted to E-Waste my card, to such a degree the situation became a little suspicious to me. I wanted it back to potentially have a professional PCB repairer assess it, not fix. I later did just this.

I walked into the Megabuy store, in person, to retrieve my card and further investigate the true cause of fault. They initially refused to give my own property back. I insisted and they oddly kept refusing so I was unfortunately forced to become rather firm with them until they finally decided to give the card back (knowing I was about to simply walk into the back and take it back with force if needed) - this unreasonable resistance only further added to the suspicious behaviour.

Once I got the card back and took it out of the box, it practically fell apart in my hands, 6 out of 9 screws where missing or put into a wrong location for their size (2 different types on this card). The backplate threads had been snapped off or damaged to the point they didn't hold screws splitting apart. This was very likely from Megabuy staff ripping off the backplate with force not knowing there's hidden/difficult screws or using the wrong screws for those particular area's.
I then later find out Megabuy removed the serial barcode sticker - I have since found out dodgy people/companies reused serial barcodes on other refurbished cards or non legit cards for resale black market style or something- I'm not sure if this is what happened in my case but Gigabyte have since told me - not only is there is zero reason to remove the serial barcode, their on-sellers are specifically not allowed to do exactly that. Gigabyte directly instruct their on-sellers to never touch them for the above black market reasons.
If one was to remove the serial number and completely fake the warranty they could essentially put that serial on an older card that is out of warranty and go on to scam themselves a warranty replacement, later selling for profit, otherwise know as fraud.
I am not necessarily saying this is what happened... actually i am, it walks like a duck, talks like a duck and with the added context thats too vast to list here, at some point we need to call it a duck right? ;)

Upon investigating the card myself, the card clearly didn't have liquid spit on it but rather had excessive solder flux residue and i sent it to a professional for their assessment - exclusive to every single selective wave soldering point was excessive solder flux residue whilst leaving everything else untouched, not very characteristic of spilt liquid.
This flux residue was rather bad, an extreme case - so most people dont need to worry with their own in this regard. however flux residue is hygroscopic - pulling moister from the air.
If you have lots of flux residue and live in a humid area please consider cleaning it off or having it cleaned off professionally

I was literally 20 minutes away from driving to the courthouse and filing a consumer guarantee case when I was either called by Gigabyte or I was given a direct number and called them(i cant recall).

When I spoke to Gigabyte directly, to my surprise they knew nothing about my card, they never received any reports or pictures from Megabuy in any capacity at all.
Gigabyte were actually very fair and reasonable, they had good logic. They said they would investigate Megabuy because they should not be making warranty decisions on their behalf, let alone fraudulently claiming to be them.
They would be more than happy to look at my card, legitimately this time.
They would treat it as urgent and actually did so.
I sent the card to Gigabyte and less than a week later in total they accepted the claim and sent a replacement without any resistance or hassle at all, clearly it was a legitimate warranty claim - Gigabyte were certainly not the unreasonable monsters I hear stories of, at least in my case and I genuinely found them one of the better companies in my life to deal with.
Thank you Gigabyte for being so professional, despite the cowboys who's selling your products.

Now for the twist......
I am studying Graphics design, as you can imagine not having a graphics card makes things very difficult and significantly slower in this regard, I was not in a position to simply buy a replacement as i am studying full time(not working). Unfortunately as a direct result of Megabuy's wilful negligence/deceit or outright fraud I will be failing my course due for completion shortly
This course cost me $14,000 for reference.
Megabuy, I hope it was worth chucking me under the bus for what turned out to be a very legitimate warranty case. You wasted the last year of my life, put me back for who knows how long in my chosen field of study and the income that would have provided.......all so you can make $200 or something...absolute astonishing greed.
Considering the shear amount of intentional deceit on record now, also after having a very interesting set of conversations with Gigabyte. I'm sure we are going to be hearing a lot more from each other very, very shortly.
;) See You In Court ;)


I wasn't going to add this, but i personally find it hilarious so why not.
I actually have a mental disability(doesnt stop me though), disregarding the outrageous morals behind this you attempted to scam and outsmart someone with a freakin mental disability..... and couldn't even do that. Perhaps you're not a clever as your ego gives you credit for Nick(the Director).
 
Last edited: