Question Problems with Gigabyte RMA

[mac_angel]

So, I've had many problems in trying to deal with Gigabyte in the past (like 12 years ago) and stopped buying anything from them for a long time. I usually tried to stick with MSI and/or Asus because they at least have a semi-local office in Markham, Ontario that wasn't too far from me.
I bought a couple of Gigabyte Aorus parts, a motherboard and a Gigabyte Aorus RTX 3090 Xtreme. Paid almost $3500 for the 3090, and even though I was really wary about buying something that expensive from Gigabyte, 3090s were hard to find, and it was one of the only ones that had 3 HDMI ports on it, which I thought I needed (long story) in hooking up 3 4K TVs. Bought it several months back, been gaming no problems all this time (no mining), and a couple of months ago it died. BIOS doesn't see it, and tried in two other systems. It lights up and all, but the computers don't see it at all. I created an RMA, got approved, and tried to ship it back to Gigabyte. It got stopped at Customs, and through many, many hours and conversations, Purolator (whom I shipped it with) and UPS (whom Purolator switches to when it crosses the border, something I didn't know before), they kept saying that Customs were saying they required a Tax ID # from the recipient, Gigabyte. I never heard of this before, and called up Gigabyte. They kept insisting that Customs does NOT need it, and refused to do anything about it. They wouldn't talk to Customs, wouldn't talk to the shipping companies, etc. I had no way of getting the information that Customs insisted they needed, and I don't know of anyone ever being able to win an argument against a Customs agent, and the card was sent back to me.
I called up Gigabyte many times over all this, and apparently I was known around the office. Not because I was being a jerk, but because the customer service rep that I was getting most of the time was asking how to solve the problem (he was a pretty decent guy). Because he wasn't able to get it solved I asked to speak with a manager before the card was sent back. He also refused to give me the Tax ID #, talk to the shipping companies or Customs, so the card was sent back to me. I called the manager yet again to complain, and while he kept insisting that Customs shouldn't require that information, offered to set up a pick up from UPS for me to send the GPU back to them; he'd take care of everything and have it sent directly to him. UPS came and picked it up and the next day UPS called me up saying Customs was requiring more (the same) information from the recipient (which also included proper contact information, not just their regular customer service # where you're put on hold for an unknown amount of time. I really don't see one customer service rep waiting on hold for another customer service rep in something like that. Nor could I see a Customs agent doing that either). So, UPS emailed me the forms to fill out, which I forwarded to the manager from Gigabyte (it's a shared customer service email that apparently declines all hotmail addresses, something I found out near the beginning of this, so I was using my personal GMail) the forms to fill out, calling his attention to it again. He never got back to me, never filled out the forms, never followed up on any of the things involved with the shipping, which he said he was personally taking responsibility for. UPS constantly calling and saying they needed the forms, me constantly calling (long distance) to Gigabyte, and the manager not returning my calls or emails. And finally UPS sending the GPU back to me yet again.
So, now I'm stuck with the RTX 3090, still in the shipping box, and Gigabyte refusing to cooperate with Customs, even when they are supposedly taking responsibility for the shipping.

 

[Aeacus]

A long wall of text, hurtful to eyes to read all that. How about adding some spacing into it?

As far as your issue goes, what is your country of origin and into what country you want to send the GPU?

 

[ötzi]

The consumer warranty laws of Canada look a lot like the ones we have in the Netherlands, why not let the merchant solve this for you or did you buy directly from Gigabyte?

 

[InvalidError]

Sounds like it may be time to take your grievances to the small claims court where you will likely get a default judgment against Gigabytes. Getting warranty service shouldn't feel worse than getting teeth pulled.

 

[mac_angel]

A long wall of text, hurtful to eyes to read all that. How about adding some spacing into it?

As far as your issue goes, what is your country of origin and into what country you want to send the GPU?

yea, I talk a lot. But I was also trying to provide a lot of information about the whole thing.
I live in Canada. I bought the GPU locally at Canada Computers the end of last summer. I was trying to send it to Gigabytes office in California in the US. I've never had issues sending stuff back for warranty before, but everything I've ever tried to send back was less than $1000 CAN. For the most part I stick with MSI and Asus because they have a local depot/office so I never have to worry about shipping across the border. I was told by someone else, after complaining about this problem, that anything over $2000 value, customs requires a tax ID # from the company, or the person's social security #. I kept getting the run around from everyone saying that they needed info from Gigabyte, but were unable to reach anyone from Gigabyte for the information. My guess is that they might have tried to call, got Gigabytes customer service line, heard about how long the wait might be and said, "F*** that", then told me that I have to provide the information since I'm the shipper, even though they need Gigabyte's information. I honestly don't know, other than Gigabyte outright refuses to cooperate with customs.

 

[mac_angel]

The consumer warranty laws of Canada look a lot like the ones we have in the Netherlands, why not let the merchant solve this for you or did you buy directly from Gigabyte?

Merchant is generally only willing to do anything within the first 30 days, which is common. And with the sale of GPUs, the way they've been for the past couple of years, they are all 'final sale'. They'd take it back if it wasn't working within 30 days, but that's it.
I did have the option of buying an in-house extended warranty (they replace it directly if something happens), but it was almost another $400 on top of the almost $3400 I paid for the card.

 

[InvalidError]

Merchant is generally only willing to do anything within the first 30 days

In some parts of Europe, the merchant or marketplace (ex.: Amazon) is liable for products when the manufacturer is out of jurisdiction. I wish this was the standard worldwide as that would greatly reduce the number of people peddling junk that isn't built to any safety or durability standards.

 

[mac_angel]

Sounds like it may be time to take your grievances to the small claims court where you will likely get a default judgment against Gigabytes. Getting warranty service shouldn't feel worse than getting teeth pulled.

yea, it's starting to look like that's what I'm going to have to do. I've already started the steps for it in sending a formal letter to the legal department for Gigabyte in the US. But I honestly don't even know if they actually have a legal department in the US. It sounds very much like just a depot office for North America, and everything is mostly run out of their Taiwan office.
It's really quite sad and pathetic that there are so many companies that are taking advantage of the whole pandemic is such sleazy ways. I know of a lot of these big tech companies that have laid off parts of their customer service staff, and won't hire them back even when they are able to (many were, or are still working from home), and then just keep the excuse of the pandemic being the reason for crappy customer service.
I have another older fight that has been put on hold for the past 2 years with Corsair over the difference between quad channel memory and dual channel memory. I had a couple of quad channel kits in an X299 system. One chip went bad, I found out which one (two sets of 4 x 4GB), and Corsair said I had to send the whole kit back, which I did. They wrote back that they don't make 4GB sticks any more, so would be sending me back a 2 x 8GB set. I fought with them for 3 months about the difference between dual channel and quad channel, but they refused to acknowledge the difference and insisted that 2 x 8GB was comparable to 4 x 4GB.

 

[Aeacus]

Merchant is generally only willing to do anything within the first 30 days, which is common. And with the sale of GPUs, the way they've been for the past couple of years, they are all 'final sale'. They'd take it back if it wasn't working within 30 days, but that's it.

I would've suggested to return the card to retailer since they should deal with retail vs manufacturer shipping.

I live in Estonia (EU) and here, the law is (EU wide), that regardless the product (except foods), they all have minimum of 2 years of warranty and retailer (point of purchase) has to accept all and any warranty claims, whereby they deal with manufacturer (shipping etc).
And in Estonia, there is another law, whereby within first 14 days of purchase, i can return the item to get my money back, without giving any reason what-so-ever.

In that note, 4 days ago, my new Samsung 970 Evo Plus (2TB) died on me, and that drive is only 1 month old. All i need to do, is let retailer know that drive has died on me and return the drive to them (which i do tomorrow). The rest is taken care of by retailer.

In your case, it's hard to say what to do. If applying in small claims court is easy/fast, you could go with that.

I have another older fight that has been put on hold for the past 2 years with Corsair over the difference between quad channel memory and dual channel memory. I had a couple of quad channel kits in an X299 system. One chip went bad, I found out which one (two sets of 4 x 4GB), and Corsair said I had to send the whole kit back, which I did. They wrote back that they don't make 4GB sticks any more, so would be sending me back a 2 x 8GB set. I fought with them for 3 months about the difference between dual channel and quad channel, but they refused to acknowledge the difference and insisted that 2 x 8GB was comparable to 4 x 4GB.

When you have EOL (end of life) products, that aren't manufactured anymore and manufacturer does not have stock of it either, then they can't fulfill your request of 4x 4GB set.

Though, overall, 2x 8GB is comparable to 4x 4GB, with four differences: More physical DIMMs, quad vs dual channel (if MoBo supports quad channel), 4x 4GB set is more responsive and 4x 4GB set puts higher load on MoBo's memory controller.
I'm also running 4x 4GB set in my desktop PC (dual channel), but mine are Kingston Savage RAM, which too, is EOL as of this date.

 

[ötzi]

Even though it's a sad given that this works but call them out on their socials @mac_angel

 

[mac_angel]

I would've suggested to return the card to retailer since they should deal with retail vs manufacturer shipping.

I live in Estonia (EU) and here, the law is (EU wide), that regardless the product (except foods), they all have minimum of 2 years of warranty and retailer (point of purchase) has to accept all and any warranty claims, whereby they deal with manufacturer (shipping etc).
And in Estonia, there is another law, whereby within first 14 days of purchase, i can return the item to get my money back, without giving any reason what-so-ever.

In that note, 4 days ago, my new Samsung 970 Evo Plus (2TB) died on me, and that drive is only 1 month old. All i need to do, is let retailer know that drive has died on me and return the drive to them (which i do tomorrow). The rest is taken care of by retailer.

In your case, it's hard to say what to do. If applying in small claims court is easy/fast, you could go with that.



When you have EOL (end of life) products, that aren't manufactured anymore and manufacturer does not have stock of it either, then they can't fulfill your request of 4x 4GB set.

Though, overall, 2x 8GB is comparable to 4x 4GB, with four differences: More physical DIMMs, quad vs dual channel (if MoBo supports quad channel), 4x 4GB set is more responsive and 4x 4GB set puts higher load on MoBo's memory controller.
I'm also running 4x 4GB set in my desktop PC (dual channel), but mine are Kingston Savage RAM, which too, is EOL as of this date.

doesn't work like that here for warranty. 30 days, that's it. Then all warranties go through the company themselves. Not just graphics cards but everything. Cell phones, TVs, all computer equipment, etc. Unless you buy an extended warranty from the place you purchased it.

as for the RAM from Corsair, again, their warranty says differently for RAM. End of Life products are replaced with similar performance items. Dual channel is not comparable to Quad channel in performance. You can't give an example of 4 chips being a bigger strain than 2 chips on a dual channel system. X99, X299, and Threadripper motherboards are a different class of computers. A dual channel CPU might top off at $750 CAN where the HEDT class CPUs go up to $3000 CAN. And you usually pay a premium for a matched quad channel kit (a quad channel kit costs more than two dual channel kits)