ASUS Scammed Us

[Kenrou]

"This undercover warranty investigation is a one-year follow-up from our series that investigated ASUS for motherboards incinerating AMD CPUs, at the end of which ASUS promised a number of improvements to its then-anti-consumer warranty processes. Spoiler alert: They're still anti-consumer. We sent our ASUS ROG Ally Z1 Extreme in for warranty repair for issues with the left joystick ("drift"). The device also had a broken microSD card. ASUS then pointed to the world's tiniest scratch and tried to charge us $200 for it under threat of sending back a disassembled device if we didn't pay within 5 days. It felt like extortion. If you're wondering whether ASUS is worth buying, the answer for anyone who values support should be "no." We have now tested ASUS' motherboard and ROG Ally warranty and RMA processes. Both have been anti-consumer experiences."

00:00 - Steve Loses It
01:57 - Evidence of Others
04:38 - Defective ROG Ally Details
06:22 - The Timeline (ASUS Warranty Investigation)
11:28 - Scumbags
19:26 - EVEN MORE SCAM CLAIMS
20:50 - Conclusion: Stop Buying ASUS if You Want Support

 

[mackerel]

Horror stories about Asus RMA have been going around forever and does put me off buying anything high end off them.

 

[Woomack]

It highly depends on the country and support itself (some countries use third-party support). I hear mainly problems in the US. It doesn't mean it doesn't happen in other countries, either. I had problems mainly with some single support employees. In most cases, after 1-3 emails, they accepted RMA. In one case, I had to make some noise on ASUS forums, and the ASUS rep helped (I have no direct contact with ASUS).

GN makes a lot of noise and claims "ASUS scammed us"... because of a single RMA problem? To make it more dramatic, they add various cases of other people. At the same time, they don't know details about other cases, but it looks good when they just stack all the various problems, so it looks much worse.
I'm not defending ASUS in any way, but GN's actions aren't right, either. They made multiple videos about how ASUS is bad, even though multiple of them were personal matters (faulty review samples or other things like that). Instead of solving some of these issues, they were making videos about them. Now, they expect ASUS to help them ... and again, if they have good contact with an ASUS rep, then one email and the problem is solved. Instead of that, they make noise on the internet like some dumb kids.

I see various cases on ASUS forums or LinkedIn where people post problems with ASUS support. In most cases, someone reacts quickly and solves the problem. One time, I saw that someone was still fighting over a broken laptop a month later.

ASUS support is far from perfect, but their clients are either, and every case should be checked separately. On the web, I see only one version: ASUS support is bad, no matter what. Most people don't even know how many RMAs are because of " user problems" or mechanical damage by users. Here is the support employee problem, which is rejecting RMAs automatically without checking them deeper, as they are used to repetitive RMAs without a proper reason. Another thing is rejecting for little scratches. However, it's more like a single support employee problem, as the general rule is that if electronics inside don't have mechanical damage, then the RMA can't be rejected. The same is for every device with removed warranty stickers or scratched/heavily used enclosures. I have no idea how it looks in the US, but it was forced by EU law a couple of years ago.

Even if GN gathered all the complaints from their viewers, then it is like 0.000001% of ASUS sales. Now how many people still buy ASUS and are fully satisfied? Another point of view is how many people buy competitive devices and are as much unsatisfied? I can't see it much better for MSI, Gigabyte, Lenovo, or other brands. The web is flooded by every single brand RMA problems.

 

[BugFreak]

I wouldn't call RMA problems new or a scam. RMA's in the tech world have always been iffy. But this guy went from a review/news channel to trying to create news controversy channel just like the local TV news so he'll make a big deal of it for the clicks. I stopped watching him a while ago because he became so negative.

 

[EarthDog]

Horror stories about Asus RMA have been going around forever and does put me off buying anything high end off them.

Not me.

I believe the chances of having one of these horror stories, as 'frequently' as we hear them (which, let's say there are 1000 issues on the web.....of 50,000 RMAs?), are still, IMO, rare. Now, ZERO issues are the only acceptable answer, but nobody is perfect... and surely some less than others.

I gamble against odds exponentially worse than this at the casino.

 

[Nebulous]

Every brand has their share of horror stories. I've been burned in one form or another by some brands, which I continue to boycott and refuse to use any of their products. Asus is just one of many. Brands I stay away from are, in no particular order to name a few:

Asus
Corsair
Gigabyte
Thermaltake

Asus burning people is nothing new.

 

[Kenrou]

I would add ASRock to the list, had nothing but issues with their motherboards, but to be fair, they were the cheap/expendable types, I would rather buy a new one than waste time/patience on an RMA

 

[Woomack]

I only wait for JayzTwoCents to make a similar video about his "horror stories" with ASUS He adds his videos about similar topics each time GN "shocks" people and grabs a lot of views.

 

[freeagent]

I will still buy Asus boards. Its pretty much all I buy. No problems in the last 15 years with having to send something back.. The last time I had a Gigabyte board, I swapped it out with it Asus counterpart and was not disappointed. I have not owned an MSI board yet. I do have an Assrock, it is awesome, but also ancient. It was used as a review board here actually. Its still alive

 

[Janus67]

I wouldn't call RMA problems new or a scam. RMA's in the tech world have always been iffy. But this guy went from a review/news channel to trying to create news controversy channel just like the local TV news so he'll make a big deal of it for the clicks. I stopped watching him a while ago because he became so negative.

Honestly I think it's a bit of both. They still do in-depth reviews (and I'm some cases more depth than anyone cares about, but some may care about a baseplate at the micron level).

I can understand using their platform to be the voice of the minority or to get action when normal people are ignored. In fact I applaud them for doing so in some cases. Multiple companies have changed policies to be more consumer friendly after GN spent a lot of time and money researching and publicizing issues that would otherwise die as a random reddit post or a YouTube video with 3 views.

I think this video is slightly misleading, although I agree with their premise that they send in RMAs as regular folks without having their channel and site linked (which can lead to special treatment that we can all imagine)

 

[BugFreak]

The videos I watched back in the day had Asus products and boxes plastered all over so I find it hard to believe they send in RMAs as regular folks. Unless I'm mistaken they had a video about a year or so ago where they poo-poo'd a brand because they were cutting them off after a bad review. I thought it was Asus but I may be mistaken and if it was then this seems like a payback hit piece to me.

 

[Janus67]

It was MSI that cut them off from review samples. Now if they want to do anything with them they buy the products themselves.

I'm sure @hokiealumnus and @EarthDog can talk all about how that may or may not have happened here with some companies after a middling review.

 

[Woomack]

Most "leading" brands won't send you samples anymore if you make "too honest" reviews. I remember that Bobnova had problems with Gigabyte for over a half year because of that.
ASUS is almost not sending anything for review for some longer to most websites or YT channels. They picked a couple of websites and send them review samples that they expected to be returned after tests. They barely ever let to keep products after reviews. You can also see that most of ASUS "partners" always give ASUS top awards and never point out design flaws. Most, as there are still some, few that do it right.
MSI is different. We cooperate with them without bigger issues (at least Joe does). Gigabyte right now seems fine too. I don't know if there is any feedback (most vendors barely ever say anything after reviews), but they keep sending samples, so they seem happy.

As I said, I guess that GN doesn't have good contact with ASUS anymore after their multiple videos with complaints about ASUS products. I guess this is why they RMA products in the standard way and not via ASUS rep (or at least send it in a regular way, but with support from their main contact). Another thing is that they actually bought that Ally console as samples don't have a warranty. It also suggests that they don't have good relations with ASUS, as they would get a review sample without issues. It looks more like "ASUS is bad because it doesn't want to send us samples anymore, so we are free to trash them all the time".

 

[mackerel]

I believe the chances of having one of these horror stories, as 'frequently' as we hear them (which, let's say there are 1000 issues on the web.....of 50,000 RMAs?), are still, IMO, rare. Now, ZERO issues are the only acceptable answer, but nobody is perfect... and surely some less than others.

I agree, it might just be a few noisy cases. As said, it doesn't stop me from buying Asus, as I still chose them for the mobo in my latest build. I'd just be more cautious the higher end or expensive the part is compared to alternatives.

In the bigger picture, mobo RMA is probably extremely rare. I've never had to RMA a mobo, ever. Or GPU. I have had to RMA SSDs, HDs and ram.

Post magically merged: May 11, 2024

GN makes a lot of noise and claims "ASUS scammed us"... because of a single RMA problem? To make it more dramatic, they add various cases of other people.

Good points too. I rarely watch his content as I don't like his style. About the only stuff I do watch is when he interviews technical staff from other companies since they're delivering the facts.

(will let forum auto-merge posts as too lazy to edit other one now)

 

[Woomack]

I agree, it might just be a few noisy cases. As said, it doesn't stop me from buying Asus, as I still chose them for the mobo in my latest build. I'd just be more cautious the higher end or expensive the part is compared to alternatives.

In the bigger picture, mobo RMA is probably extremely rare. I've never had to RMA a mobo, ever. Or GPU. I have had to RMA SSDs, HDs and ram.

I had maybe 10 ASUS RMAs (I'm not really counting them), but I also replace hardware (or used to) way too often. I still find their products less problematic than ASRock, Gigabyte or MSI, so let's say it's just a lesser evil. Their motherboards at least have good BIOS support, what is hard to say about others. They also don't do things like Gigabyte, release a new PCB revision, and ignore all users with hardware problems. If they have a design flaw, then they usually replace faulty products. Gigabyte simply says that everything is fine and releases a new revision.

Again, I'm not defending ASUS as they made me a lot of problems too, and I see they more often assume that the user damaged the hardware than it was some years ago. One example is when they wanted to reject my motherboard RMA because they said I damaged socket pins. In the photo they sent as proof, there was a shadow that covered 2 or 3 pins. The RMA was for a faulty M.2 socket in the "sandwich" type mounting. I actually had a couple of RMAs for problems with CPU sockets or RAM slots. ~6-7 years ago, they were replacing sockets in every ROG motherboard without asking why it happened (even when pins were bent by the user, but only slightly, not like serious socket damage). Now, they start by checking the socket before anything else, and if they don't like what they see, they reject the RMA.

 

[mackerel]

let's say it's just a lesser evil. Their motherboards at least have good BIOS support, what is hard to say about others.

That was a significant factor in my going for an Asus board.

Many on this forum probably update far more often than average. I haven't gone though as many Asus mobos as you but it is still more than a handful. At the least in Core era: Z97, Z170, Z270, X299, B660, a few AM4 mobos I forget what exactly, and now B650. That doesn't include non-Asus boards mainly from MSI, Asrock, Gigabyte.

 

[MaddMutt]

I have a ASUS board from the x58 <-> z690 (minus the z170 it’s an AsRock OC) BUT I only buy used. I grabbed the used boards after they have become cheap except last month. The wife let go hog wild for my birthday I will pay extra $$ though if it comes with its mb box and accessories.
I still only paid $250 for a z690 Hero (msrp $599) and then $250 for a z690 Apex (msrp $699) as I seem to kill a board when benching

 

[Nebulous]

And the hits just keep coming. Here's Gigabyte's version;

 

[Kenrou]

Oh, I'm just waiting for Louis Rossmann to chime in since supposedly GN contacted him about this whole mess

 

[Kenrou]

Doesn't disappoint