I sometimes wonder how companies survive

It is totally amazing how inept some organizations/companies can be. This is a short story about an ~$10 case fan.

I bought a Lian Li case from Newegg a couple weeks ago. After putting my system together and starting it I noted that top fan wasn't spinning. A quick investigation showed a fan blade sticking through its grill. I fixed that but then noted that the fan also had another blade broken off and while it now spun, it vibrated and made an irritating noise.

A quick message to Newegg got a prompt reply to return the case and provided a shipping label too. That is the type of service I've grown to expect from the Egg.

But I didn't want to take the darn computer apart again to return the case, go to town to ship it, get a new case, and then rebuild my system. I ask if they can't just replace the fan? Well, no their process doesn't allow that path (my words, not their's), they needed to replace the case.

After an email or two I say that "this in insane", just send me a new fan. They go to the trouble of checking with their warehouse but the warehouse doesn't have any Lian Li fans to send me. Surprised? Give me a break --- any good quality fan will do, get out of your box!! This ain't rocket surgery (contraction of rocket science and brain surgery).

I've wasted far more time than any fan is worth and Newegg has paid a very nice and courtesy costumer service rep to play ring around the rose with me at a cost more than a fan would cost.

I'm beginning to wonder about how any organization can survive when its employees can't or aren't allowed to think and solve problems.

Is the world becoming more stupid or am I just getting tooooo old?

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To a certain extent, my question is simply a rhetorical one.

deeppow said:

Is the world becoming more stupid or am I just getting tooooo old?

************** End RANT. *******************

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Yes.


************ End Smart-*** response. **************

lol By all means... I have pc shop by my house and they will sell you anything that you want ... But they don't buy from a whole seller ,they just buy it from newegg and have it shipped and then charge full price plus shipping and then plus 10% on top of that lol .... The had on the shelf win xp service pk 1 or 2 and I just asked them how much it was and they told me that it full price even though we win 7 and vista out lol..

I can see their point of wanting the entire case back, but I agree it is stupid.

Well, the way their stock works they can't just send you any old fan. If they had a Lian Li fan, sure, that would be ok; but sending, say, a Cooler Master fan (or whoever, pick your brand) would leave them out money when they can't get the same fan back via RMA.

If they sent you a Lian Li fan, they can RMA your faulty Lian Li fan back to them and come out with a zero sum, no loss no gain. Same with the case, if they take the whole thing back (which would be ridiculous if they expected you to pay shipping, but they sent a label so it's not that bad), they could get a replacement because of the faulty part.

So while it might be frustrating and a pain in the rear to remove your system for a simple fan, I do understand the logic. Most likely, even if the person was willing, the reps aren't allowed to go outside the box and replace with a non-identical part. So FWIW, I'd cut them a little slack, especially since they're offering to eat the return shipping of an expensive-to-ship case. What I'd do is see if they'll order up a Lian Li fan to send you to RMA the fan itself.

After hearing that I would have had to ship the whole case back, which includes breaking the system down, I would have said never mind and just bought a fan. The time involved to get a $10 or less replacement fan just isn't worth it.

MattNo5ss said:

After hearing that I would have had to ship the whole case back, which includes breaking the system down, I would have said never mind and just bought a fan. The time involved to get a $10 or less replacement fan just isn't worth it.

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That's what they where hoping he would do just to say money... It's all a mind game ...

It would be saving a lot of time, and I wouldn't buy the fan from them either.

Just buying a fan is better than spending the time to break down and rebuild the system, going ~2 weeks or more without a case, and dealing with them on the phone trying to convince them to just send a fan. Time = money, and that much of my time is worth more than $10, so I would be coming out cheaper in the end by just buying a fan. Then, buy your next few big items from another store too or boycott them altogether.

That's how I look at it.

In their eyes, you're being difficult. They probably CAN'T send you the fan, because they aren't allowed to do that or don't know how. Blame newegg, not the customer service rep. You bought a case that had something wrong with it... you must return the case. Had you bought a fan, they probably would have replaced it without even asking you to return the DOA one.

It will cost you more money to ship the case out and then wait weeks to get a replacement case that hopefully doesn't get damaged by UPS... I've been around to know that little things like that aren't worth bringing up. Where I used to work at, I'd have lots of spare parts, including fans for things like that if there was a bad case fan or missing face plate, etc. The way newegg is set up, they have to have assinine RMA/warranty processes like that so that THEY don't loose money.

Having been on the other side of conversations like this I'll give you a little insight. When a company purchases a product from the manufacturer there are certain ways the manufacturer wants things done. If you buy a product that has numerous parts and one part is either missing or faulty the manufacturer wants EVERYTHING back so the RMA process goes through without a hitch. It could be as simple as taking a fan out of a boxed case that is the same as yours and requiring you to send just the fan, but with a company the size of newegg that would be impossible because a single person would have to oversee the whole debacle. Chances are the case they took a fan from for you would have been sold and some other guy would have had to deal with that. It is much easier for them to do what they did.

If you purchased from a local store it would be much more simple. What newegg should have done was credit you $10 instead of sending you a label and let you buy a fan at no cost to you. That is the simplest thing they could have done.

TorqueRanger said:

lol By all means... I have pc shop by my house and they will sell you anything that you want ... But they don't buy from a whole seller ,they just buy it from newegg and have it shipped and then charge full price plus shipping and then plus 10% on top of that lol .... The had on the shelf win xp service pk 1 or 2 and I just asked them how much it was and they told me that it full price even though we win 7 and vista out lol..

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I've seen a lot of smaller shops do that - trying to get all their money back plus profit on a product that's months or years out of date. I always figured it was because most people either go to a big name store like BB or shop around on line, so they are already running on a small budget.

Contact the manufacturer and see what they can do on their end.

I really don't know what you are expecting. newegg cannot just give you a fan. any faulty product they sell, they return to the manufacturer, a strict inventory needs to be kept of these things. They cannot just process a new order and send you something free. This is pretty standard everywhere... However i am sure if you talked to lian li you might be able to work something out. Or what i am sure you can do with newegg is do an advance RMA where they charge you for the replacement, then you send the faulty product back. From there they credit back your account.

edit: the fact that they looked in their warehouse for you, (if they really did or not) shows what kind of great company newegg is.

While I agree with the logic of what your saying, as well as support the idea that it's ridiculous to send back an entire case for a fan replacement, the question I got from the rant (and thread title) was

I sometimes wonder how companies survive

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And as much as I hate to say it, companies survive by not eating the cost of a fan, when they can replace the whole case at no charge.

Like others have said, say they did the nice thing, and sent you out any fan. That fan would have cost them money to begin with. They get your broken fan back, what are they supposed to do with it? Probably just throw it away, and they're down the cost of the replacement fan they sent you.

They have you ship back the entire case, they send you a brand new one, and send the broken case back to Lian Li for a replacement. No cost to them whatsoever.

So while to do the nice thing you want them to, it might only cost them $10, those $10 add up on a large scale when you have millions of customers.

Sorry for not being able to take your side

JonSimonzi said:

While I agree with the logic of what your saying, as well as support the idea that it's ridiculous to send back an entire case for a fan replacement, the question I got from the rant (and thread title) was



And as much as I hate to say it, companies survive by not eating the cost of a fan, when they can replace the whole case at no charge.

Like others have said, say they did the nice thing, and sent you out any fan. That fan would have cost them money to begin with. They get your broken fan back, what are they supposed to do with it? Probably just throw it away, and they're down the cost of the replacement fan they sent you.

They have you ship back the entire case, they send you a brand new one, and send the broken case back to Lian Li for a replacement. No cost to them whatsoever.

So while to do the nice thing you want them to, it might only cost them $10, those $10 add up on a large scale when you have millions of customers.

Sorry for not being able to take your side

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Lol I use to work in retail for about 7 yrs and anymore most company's don't except rma or returns to manufacturer they just get credit for the product and throw it out...

I think your biggest problem was that you were using email and / or chat for your support.

I have been using Newegg since they first opened, and my experience has been that if you want the full level of customer service that Newegg is known for, you should call them on the telephone. It is MUCH easier to get a point across, or to talk sense to someone, or to make sure that you are both on the same page in a discussion on the phone then it is in writing.

Any time a chat or email support didn't get resolved in a way that I found satisfying, or that I thought there might be a misunderstanding, I just called them and the problem was resolved quickly. Now I call if I need any help as the first method of contact.

As another poster said contacting Lian Li would be the best course of action just for a fan replacement.

I actually work in an RMA department here in Australia and the way we like to do Case Warranty Cases is get Re-Seller to send us the faulty Componant or Case up to them Doesnt change my process - Then i go grab a brand new case out of the warehouse butcher the part out of it that I need to do repair - put your "faulty" componant in new case put "non-faulty" componant in your case (or send it to you) - and then do manufacturer warranty on the case i butchered for parts as "Builds DOA case".

That being said i can see why they have asked for the whole case and I can also understand your frustration. Maybe their service system that they use wont allow for doing Spare Part RMA's or possibly Lian Li doesn't offer any kind of spare part procedure for their Disties

The main issue as I see it, and in agreement with the OP, is that the cost of return shipping, customer's time, rma handling, and customer service agent's salary all exceeded the value of a replacement fan tenfold. Just the return shipping cost alone would justify sending any brand fan. Newegg loses because of its inflexibility, and passes that inefficiency and shortsightedness on to us though increased costs somewhere else (like going with ****ty dhl/usps handoff free shipping instead of the once stellar fedex or ups free 3 day ). This is precisely what happens to companies as they grow and become more and more reliant on automation, whether in product delivery or processing. Common sense is thrown out the window in lieu of having a rigid process for every single thing.