Gigabyte WarRANTy experience

[piechockidocent9]

Hey yall,
I'd like to share with yall my recent experience with gigabyte "warranty" that while still undergoing has left me with quite sour aftertaste.

After great dose of thought and money related calculation I decided to finally upgrade my gpu to newer model last year (last one was 1080ti aorus waterforce extreme) given that I completeley skipped the 20xx serries and 40xxwas right around the corner.

I choose gigabyte as the new gpu manufacturer as (by chance and luck) I have never had any single issue with numerous gigabyte product on the span of around 15 years.

I purchased the 3080ti gaming oc and have been enjoying the improved performance for about a year. Somewhere around last week however new gpu suddenly died on me, black screen with no singal no matter what I tried to do.

After confirming my suspission that it's the gpu (swapped back the 1080ti in the same motherboard pci-e slot wth same psu cables and working fine) I set up to get it repaired via warranty, I didnt think of it at the time, after all it's august 2023 and the card was purchased aprill 2022. Surely warranty period(default 3 year) is still in place plus I did purchase it legally, have a valid proof of purchase and even registered the card at https://member.aorus.com/ which prelonged the warranty period by one year (4 year total). What could go wrong? As it turns much.

By chance during the time between my purchase and the gpu failure the shop I have purchased the gpu (along with practically any other hardware for myself or other ppl by proxy for the last 15 or so years) have gone out of business. It saddened me but still surely it can't affect my case right? Wrong.

While trying to find any way to rma my product I encountered the first walll. That being there was absolutely no way to start the rma process anywhere, except for aforementioned member.aorus where my product was denied attention bacause "duh" it's not a aorus line product so it does not qualify for aorus monitor service.

I wrote a ticket on https://esupport.gigabyte.com/ not rally knowing what to do at this point but after 3 days of 0 replies I went further. Managed to find a contact to my country's gigabyte service center at https://www.gigabyte.com/Support/Laptop/Common-Warranty/ and plead my case there. Fortunately (as I thought then) I got a reply the next day.

I though at first I was getting an automated reply from a bot the first couple of tries. Replies were nothing but constant demand that I contact my supplier and attaching warranty regulations at https://member.aorus.com/pl/productwarranty which I knew all to well without them, pinting it out.
After third reply I got quite angry and again explained that I'm unable to "contact my suppliers" because they are no longer existing and provided yet again proof of purchase, pictures of my products, serial number, information from members.aorus that my product is redistered and has a valid warranty untill 13.04.2026, this time listing paragraph by paragraph that my case is in terms of the warranty . After that they graciously accepted my claim.

Not without exceptions mind you, that would be too simple, human, reasonable and many other words I could find. No, they said they will accept my claim giving it an rma number but not on the warranty terms. My claim will be revised via cob procedure (I've no freakin' clue what that means) and questionable product will be repaired or replaced free of charge and sent to me on the servicer's cost.

Little thing I didn't mention to yall and I didn't rly argue about it with the service point (I saw "it will be done free of charge" so I stopped asking questiuons) is that on the last reply I got from the service point they stated and I quote "due to problems with rma'ing the product via supplier we accept the claim via free of charge cob procedure. It will not however be a warranty repair procedure as the warranty is always given the the supplier-shop".

Well strip me naked, slap my bare buttcheeks and hand over to mommy I gues 257 shops in my country (258 counting the shop I made purchase in but can't prove that one since their site is offline) are selling false advertisement since each and every gigabyte products on their websites lists "xx months MANUFACTUER'S WARRANTY". I'll be da%ned ...

 

[MajorPager]

Well that really sucks that you went through all that. I myself haven't had any problems with Gigabyte in the past 25 years, but usually I don't get anything with an included warranty unless it had a screen attached to it. Anyway, I thought that Gigabyte went out of business ages ago, apparently not.

 

[Rokinamerica]

Pretty sure CoB in this instance may mean "Coordination of Benefits" because they can't use the supplier. If it is free of charge, what is the real concern?

 

[piechockidocent9]

Thx for kind words Major, regarding them going out of business nah I don't think so. I think they did have some problems at some point in the past but currently they seem rather well.

Shifted their priorities a bit now mainly focusing on gpus, motherboards and overall their aorus line while simultaneously and quite succesfully from what I see attacking the gaming monitor segment.

Pretty sure CoB in this instance may mean "Coordination of Benefits" because they can't use the supplier

So that's what it means, thanks I really had no idea. You are right about everything ending up happily and maybe I'm overreacting, though I'll know that for sure once I receive fixed or replaced gear back.

My concern is mainly with misleading information and how unncessarily convoluted what should be a simple rma process is.
Why there is no rma form to fill anywhere on their website (only for aorus line at membe.aorus) except for writing ticket that takes a week to get noticed?

Why did the authorized service center said it's the shop that grants warranty and I have to make my claim through supplier if the product is described as having a manufacturer's warranty and not supplier/shop warranty?

How would the supplier react for example if my old 1080ti would fail 4 years after purchase when on their site it had 36 months warranty but I extended it by registering on gigabyte's own, not related to supllier member.aorus page to up to 5 years?

Why is the supplier needed at all If you have manufacturer's warranty on product? Cutting unlawfull claims? That's what serial numbers, registering the product online and verification of proof of purchase are for.

I just do not understand and it makes me quite mad that I had to go through so much hassle to rma a legally purchased product, costing a heap of gold, that failed without my input, well within warranty period and still being denied proper warranty repair and some alternative compromise instead.

That last bit is a technicality I agree, like said as long as it gets fixed repaired I don't mind, but still it's a bit dissapointing after all this.

 

[ohio_buckeye]

Doubt I buy much from gigabyte anymore . They were a great manufacturer for years. A friend of mine recently bought a 7900xtx. For a few months all was well but he said it started artifacting. He contacted them, they did a return and rma. The card they sent him back was kind of beat up and had the same or more issues than his original. He ended up buying one of a different brand, and sent the 2nd back asking for a refund.

From what he said they’ve had the card a week or more and are still processing it. So who knows what they will do. But for a 1,000 dollar card, gigabyte should treat customers better.