Newegg and "Limited 30 Day Return Policy" on the rise!

[muddocktor]

Has anyone else noticed this very disturbing trend with Newegg the last several months? I've noticed over the last few months they have been steadily doing away with the "Standard Return Policy", which is return for refund for 30 days and return for replacement for 1 year with this "Limited 30 Day Return Policy", which is return for refund for 30 days and return for replacement for only 30 days.:confused: I went to look at hard drives just a little while ago as I have a hard drive that I think is crapping out on me and saw that just about every internal hard drive they sell now has this new policy. The only drive I saw in the 250 gig sata category that actually was covered under the Standard Return Policy was a recertified Western Digital model, oddly enough. The rest all had this 30 day junk policy. And I've noticed that it looks like they have also implemented this with most of the motherboard manufacturer's wares too.:bang head I bought a Gigabyte P965-DS3 board around 4-5 months ago and it had the Standard Return Policy on it when I bought it, but the Gigabyte P35 DS3R I bought last month was covered with this new, crappier policy.:bang head

It's a damn shame to see my favorite vendor going downhill on customer service. And I qualify this matter as a big part of customer service too. One of the reasons I shop so much at Newegg was due to the fact that if you did run into a problem with a component within the first year, you could get a replacement through them instead of having to muck around with the manufacturers, which with some of them can be a real PITA. Now, it looks like you are just SOL with Newegg with more and more parts coming under this policy. IMO, if Newegg can't provide service above and beyond what the other vendors out there can, you might as well deal with the cheapest vendor that is reliable as far as shipping parts out.

Anyways, I guess my morning rant is now over. :D Come on Newegg, quit phasing this policy in on more and more components.

[UnrealAlex]

What is it about vendors that makes them worse as they become larger? (not railing on newegg here, just in general). It's strange.

[curtis1552]

What is it about vendors that makes them worse as they become larger? (not railing on newegg here, just in general). It's strange.

It's the American philosophy; how can I make more money with less work?
It can be seen in many different examples:
Corperate
Layoffs to reduce cost while not reducing the companie's work load
Pennypinching thins that you shouldn't
Cutting out employee heath care
Reducing employee retirement
Personal
Fake worker's comp claims,
Frivilous lawsuits

It happened at my work; PennStation
When I started 6 years ago their standard of quality was very high; custom bread, EVERYTHING fresh, etc.
Now they use cheaper bread (it dosn't tase as good), several of the items are prepackaged as opposed to fresh, and my current store manager dosn't require the quality that my old one did.
IMO they could just reduce the waste in product shippingg; we pitch several dozen boxes twice a week. I each box cost a quarter (they are big; similar boxes were sold for $6 from a boxfactory.) and they were eliminates the price of shipped goods cuttin 20$ a week or 1000 a year,

I recall having heard about a memo a corperate airline distributined among thier employees; It was a competition of ideas to have the compalny make more money/reduce costs. THe winner would win a large sum of cash.
The winning idea for this was to reduce the number of olives in a martini from three to two, and it would save 20k in a year.
(i could be mistaken, as I heard it a long time ago)

[OcX]

What is it about vendors that makes them worse as they become larger?

The overall cost of RMA support.

Given the common practice "It won't POST, time to RMA!", I think you'll understand the policy directive.

[Moto7451]

The complexity of increasing business and the effectiveness/efficiency of your ever increasing staff usually do not scale at the same rate, unfortunately Alex.

Also HD manufacturers could be making more and more duds and it's becoming hard for Newegg to have such a great warrantee for hard drives. I have noticed a decrease in the ratings for the HD makers, even including Seagate who was untouchable the past few years...

[CGR]

30 days is a lot better than some places that only give 7 or 15.

In any case even after the 30 days is up its still RMAable with the manufacturer.

[Mpegger]

Theres also the little fact that most forget, that retail products carry thier own manufacturers warranties. Yet most people wont bother with those warranties and instead, hold the entity that sold them the product in the first place liable for thier item not working or breaking down early or late in its life.

There's also OEM items that again, most people buy with the expectation that the seller be liable for the item failing after some time, nevermind the fact that its a OEM item that carries little or no warranty from the manufacturer for the retailer to recoup thier cost.

[aaronjb]

Theres also the little fact that most forget, that retail products carry thier own manufacturers warranties. Yet most people wont bother with those warranties and instead, hold the entity that sold them the product in the first place liable for thier item not working or breaking down early or late in its life.

For decades, retailers have held the burden of product replacement for the consumer. These same retailers factor in costs associated with returns and replacements (product, shipping, employee time) in their negotiations with manufacturers and distributors when purchasing new products. It's not surprising to see the trend shifting towards manufacturers with regards to product warranties, particularly in an industry with very fine margins.

[thideras]

Hmm....*waits for the newegg rep*

[Goonda]

Hmm....*waits for the newegg rep*

Forum admins, please ban this gentleman. :beer: :santa:


Perhaps this policy is in force because of people who break stuff and return it. ;)

[SteveLord]

NetZero wasn't going to be FREE forever

Online Roleplaying wasn't going to be FREE forever

Napster wasn't going to be FREE forever


Times change. Companies change. Even NEWEGG's god-mode will wear off eventually.

[Newegg Support]

Has anyone else noticed this very disturbing trend with Newegg the last several months? I've noticed over the last few months they have been steadily doing away with the "Standard Return Policy", which is return for refund for 30 days and return for replacement for 1 year with this "Limited 30 Day Return Policy", which is return for refund for 30 days and return for replacement for only 30 days.:confused: I went to look at hard drives just a little while ago as I have a hard drive that I think is crapping out on me and saw that just about every internal hard drive they sell now has this new policy. The only drive I saw in the 250 gig sata category that actually was covered under the Standard Return Policy was a recertified Western Digital model, oddly enough. The rest all had this 30 day junk policy. And I've noticed that it looks like they have also implemented this with most of the motherboard manufacturer's wares too.:bang head I bought a Gigabyte P965-DS3 board around 4-5 months ago and it had the Standard Return Policy on it when I bought it, but the Gigabyte P35 DS3R I bought last month was covered with this new, crappier policy.:bang head

It's a damn shame to see my favorite vendor going downhill on customer service. And I qualify this matter as a big part of customer service too. One of the reasons I shop so much at Newegg was due to the fact that if you did run into a problem with a component within the first year, you could get a replacement through them instead of having to muck around with the manufacturers, which with some of them can be a real PITA. Now, it looks like you are just SOL with Newegg with more and more parts coming under this policy. IMO, if Newegg can't provide service above and beyond what the other vendors out there can, you might as well deal with the cheapest vendor that is reliable as far as shipping parts out.

Anyways, I guess my morning rant is now over. :D Come on Newegg, quit phasing this policy in on more and more components.

Dear muddocktor,

Thanks for taking the time to post your informative review. We greatly apologize for any inconvenience you have experienced due to your situation. Please go ahead and email me at alex.a.villarino@newegg.com so I may further assist you in this matter.

Thank you very much

Newegg Support.

[muddocktor]

Dear muddocktor,

Thanks for taking the time to post your informative review. We greatly apologize for any inconvenience you have experienced due to your situation. Please go ahead and email me at alex.a.villarino@newegg.com so I may further assist you in this matter.

Thank you very much

Newegg Support.

Thank you for replying, Newegg Support. You guys still are the best big electronics e-tailer on the net. I just don't want to see you start backsliding on the support.

And I will state this also: I had to RMA a Gigabyte mobo today that I bought last month due to the board having issues with the disk controller. And when I called up for the RMA I didn't wait more than 15 seconds before a nice lady took the call and handled the whole RMA procedure with courtesy and professionalism. And another thing she did above and beyond the call was that she also gave me a prepaid UPS label along with my RMA number and all without me asking for anything such as that. Your company is still a class act and I appreciate the little things like this that you do. :thup:

[thideras]

Thank you for replying, Newegg Support. You guys still are the best big electronics e-tailer on the net. I just don't want to see you start backsliding on the support.

And I will state this also: I had to RMA a Gigabyte mobo today that I bought last month due to the board having issues with the disk controller. And when I called up for the RMA I didn't wait more than 15 seconds before a nice lady took the call and handled the whole RMA procedure with courtesy and professionalism. And another thing she did above and beyond the call was that she also gave me a prepaid UPS label along with my RMA number and all without me asking for anything such as that. Your company is still a class act and I appreciate the little things like this that you do. :thup:Everybody WINS!!!

CAKE FOR EVERYONE!!! :D:D

[MadMan007]

Does anyone else wish that Newegg Support would post something other than the same exact message whenever replying to topics like this? It's one thing to say 'contact me' when it's a one-time specific concern for one customer. It's another when it's to address a general concern like this topic. The fact that there's a rep who replies at all is nice but the generic reply just doesn't address any of the concerns raied in the OP.

I understand why Newegg may have to cut back on some replacement or exchange warranties, especially if they end up getting back good items that just have to be resold as open-box. At the same time Newegg's size should give them some clout with manufacturers to where they can get replacements for defective items after the customer returns them for exchange. For non-defective items the customer should probably have to pay the restocking fee, however this incurs additional testing cost and someone at Newegg may have already figured out that it's easier to resell it as open box rather than set up a testing department. Newegg acting as the intermediary with the manufacturer would be the ideal situation imo and maintain a high level of customer service. In online tech sales customer service is one of the few ways a shop can stand out.

[Jon]

Does anyone else wish that Newegg Support would post something other than the same exact message whenever replying to topics like this? It's one thing to say 'contact me' when it's a one-time specific concern for one customer. It's another when it's to address a general concern like this topic. The fact that there's a rep who replies at all is nice but the generic reply just doesn't address any of the concerns raied in the OP.

It's a generic reply because it's a private purchase matter that is handled via PM/email.

What is addressed in public is not Newegg's prerogative...it is the purchaser's. Muddocktor can post about his experience after the issue is dealt with, if he chooses.

[MadMan007]

The majority of his post deals with the 'general decline' of the exchange timeframe. In fact I can't see where he has a current specific problem that moved him to make this post, he mentions the DS3R he purchased has the new exchange policy but not that he has a specific issue with it, yet.

The recent thread about the gift card issue and Newegg user accounts get deactivated because of it was defintiely a one-time case specific concern that should be dealt with via PM. This post brings up a general customer srevice concern and as such could be dealt with more positively with a non-generic public PR response. Then again a generic response that doesn't address the general concern at all just kind of reinforces what mudd said.

[g0dM@n]

I recently noticed the shortened warranty period too!! I had to do a return and I was like 1-2 weeks over the 30 day policy, but I SWEAR I used to do returns for replacement ALL THE TIME with bad parts if it was within 90 DAYS!! 90 days is a great warranty period, and I could probably deal with 60 days, but 30 days is just way too short...

Anyway, I'm still gonna shop them until I just can't bare anymore... for now, they're still doing better than the majority, but no longer can I say that "NewEgg's the best place"... it's no longer THE BEST OF THE BEST.

By the way, NewEgg did take my return for refund even though it was out of 30 days, but b/c I replaced the product with something similar that cost over twice as much (even they said "I think we can do this since you bought a replacement that was a lot more expensive.")

Don't let the power and greed take you over Egg... don't let the empire crumble!!

[MasterCraft]

Everybody WINS!!!

CAKE FOR EVERYONE!!! :D:D


It's a trap!


The cake is a lie!


:eek:

:D

[muddocktor]

The majority of his post deals with the 'general decline' of the exchange timeframe. In fact I can't see where he has a current specific problem that moved him to make this post, he mentions the DS3R he purchased has the new exchange policy but not that he has a specific issue with it, yet.

The recent thread about the gift card issue and Newegg user accounts get deactivated because of it was defintiely a one-time case specific concern that should be dealt with via PM. This post brings up a general customer srevice concern and as such could be dealt with more positively with a non-generic public PR response. Then again a generic response that doesn't address the general concern at all just kind of reinforces what mudd said.

And I will state this also: I had to RMA a Gigabyte mobo today that I bought last month due to the board having issues with the disk controller.

Read the post; I did state what problems I was having with it in general terms. As a matter of fact, the board was having issues with reliable communication with any hard drive attached to it. It started from the first time I tried running it with an OS installed on the machine and happened whether the machine was overclocked or not. I dropped in the hard drive from the previous install of that machine (on different hardware) and let it upgrade itself to the new hardware and installed all the required mobo drivers. After the upgrade, I started having a balloon tip pop up out of the systray about a delayed write failure and some other minor weird stuff. I then figured that the swapover from the old install went bad, so I install XP Pro fresh on another hard drive I had. I then started having some weird anomalies happen, as well as random bsod's. Now this is with components that I had previously tested in other machines to be totally stable at the speeds I was running them at in this new board (processor, ram and vid card was a non-factor because it's a temp pci card while I get a replacement fan for the X1950 Pro that will eventually go in it). I even tried running at totally stock speeds, with the same problems encountered. Also, around this time the board also started exhibiting some other strange behavior too, with the reset button totally wiping out all the settings in bios back to default and also having problems being shut down from the power switch (would reboot itself after a hard shutdown 3 or 4 times before it would stay off). I also saw the appearance of the delayed write failure tooltip ballon out of the systray again at this time. I also ran hard drive diagnostic software and the drive passed, but had found 6 errors, which it fixed. I then decided to try another hard drive in the machine to see if it was something hardware related; went and bought a brand new drive at Office Depot (for noticeably more than what I would have paid if I could have bought it from Newegg, but was rushed due to this 30 day return policy) and installed it along with the drive that I was presently running on. My intentions were to try to clone the drive, but the software puked during the cloning operation and then the software couldn't find the new drive. I then decided to say screw it and reinstall the OS on the new drive from scratch once again. I removed the old hard drive I had previously installed on from the machine and after the setup went through copying the files to the brand new hard drive and rebooted, I got a message stating that the files were corrupted and couldn't boot right after the post messages came onscreen. I then checked the drive with Seatools and found no errors on the brand new drive and S.M.A.R.T. wasn't tripped either. I then knew beyond a shadow of doubt that my problems were board related.

Furthermore, after all this transpired and I sent the DS3R back for RMA, I decided to use the brand new drive as a replacement on one of my dedicated crunching machines so I could reclaim the drive being used in it for my external drive enclosure once again. On that machine, the cloning software worked without hitch and the drive cloned successfully, validating my premise that the hard drives were not at fault on the DS3R.

[thideras]

Mudd...I really hope you get this problem solved quickly (hint hint newegg).

[muddocktor]

Oh, the problem should be solved as soon as the replacement board is sent to me. It's just that this 30 day policy has cost me an extra $15-20 for the new hard drive I had to buy locally instead of online for troubleshooting due to the short return time period of their 30 day return policy. Like I stated previously, the actual RMA procedure I went through yesterday was more than satisfactory so they aren't falling down on the actual customer service end, just the time limit end of their policies.

I would like to see them extend this 30 day policy out to 60 days instead. That would be a good compromise IMO to limit the amount of coverage they will provide balanced out with our need for a longer time period for Newegg to cover the products. I don't like to RMA anything unless I can prove through testing that the part is bad beyond doubt.

[g0dM@n]

I don't like to RMA anything unless I can prove through testing that the part is bad beyond doubt.

For this reason, in my description, I tell them literally everything that I did to diagnose the issue. I always mention how I pinpoint the problem to the one specific part... this also makes them feel comfortable in issuing the RMA too, especially if you're out of the warranty period. They usually have leeway with me at least, when I'm thorough in explanation.

[muddocktor]

Yeah, and I did so orally because I would rather talk to an actual human being when I RMA a part if possible. ;) I've called Newegg for all my RMA's I've had to do with them except once. And I was satisified with the way my RMA's were handled every time with them.

[MadMan007]

...Read the post; I did state what problems I was having with it in general terms....

I read the OP again 5 times very carefully. From the actual post I don't see how one would could conclude that you were having the specific problems you later outlined without already knowing the details. In a nutshell you wrote that you've noticed the exchange time has decreased on a number of items, specifically hard drives and motherboards, if you posted elsewhere to troubleshoot the specific problem there wasn't a link and I don't read every thread on the entire forum so :shrug: but it's not clear that's the case to me based upon this thread alone and there is no mention whatsoever or even an implication of currently having a problem...to say that it was 'in general terms' is putting general terms out in the realm of clairvoyance :D I think you could agree with that if you look at the OP without knowing there is a problem.

...Anyways, I guess my morning rant is now over. :D Come on Newegg, quit phasing this policy in on more and more components...

This is the important part here. If Newegg wants to become 'just another etailer' that's up to them it just means I won't be willing to pay a bit more for the same thing if the support is nothing special although Newegg also does often have the best or good enouh prices. One thing I do like about Newegg is the availability of live contact, they have much better hours for that than most West coast companies which are often a pain for me to contact live due to time zone differences. All I was suggesting is that rather than the usuall canned response Newegg Rep post some kind of PR explanation. Even if he can't say 'yes we will reverse this trend' a simple explanation such as 'too many people return good items' or 'support costs for extended times are too high' at least that would give us a solid and understandable answer. I don't see how Newegg Rep could clearly know you are having a specific issue at this time either unless he's an Internet psychic ;) (side note: I get lots of canned responses from Live chat in the last few months as well and it's kind of annoying when you type a few hundred words only to get a canned response :p The reps say they're still in CA but it feels like chatting with someone from overseas)

I will write this again because I think it's a possible solution: Newegg should use its clout with the manufacturers to work out some kind of RMA, return, or exchange program that helps the sutomer avoid time delays and hassle. Or maybe they are cutting down on the exchange policy because of the extended warranties they've been selling, but if that's the case and there's a bit higher price PLUS an extended exchange price then that's a double cost.

[palesicklydwarf]

I don't like the 30-day policy either and have been voting with the only thing that matters to them- my money. I no longer buy products from Newegg that has that type of warranty (like motherboards, video cards, hard drives, and memory). I'd rather pay a few dollars more at other stores that still offer at least a one year store warranty as dealing with most manufacturers for warranty replacement can be a very time consuming and long drawn out process.

[Douken]

Yea I just saw it and went like.. eh? wow they had 1 year warranty... too bad is 30 days now. 90 days would still be awesome.