RMA deemed damaged. No damage when in my possession. Refund/RMA rejected.

[NilSatis]

Just thought I would share a similar story to a few people posting here at the moment about Scan. Im not too sure if something shady is going on at Scan at the moment in terms of these returns being damaged but i am very sceptical of the legitimacy of their "its physically damaged responses"

I bought a Seagate hard drive from Scan 21/7 that was in my opinion doa. I tested it for a good 3 hours in the afternoon in different sata ports etc and determined through testing via SeaTools and the fact that it would not complete a format in Windows that the drive was defective and needed to be rma'd. I had carefully inspected the drive on opening it and it was physically undamaged. Therefore the rma was set up and the product was wrapped up in about 5 layers of bubble wrap and sent to Scan.

I waited the 4 days for the rma to be resolved and even emailed them again describing the faults in more detail to ensure the rma would go through ( as the drive was detected in bios and only failed at the formatting stage and in Seatools) to see that my rma had been rejected. I initially thought they hadnt found a fault with it and prepared to ring them but upon looking they have described the reason as physical damage.....Immediately this set alarm bells ringing as by mistake while waiting I had been looking at the forum and Scans rma results and have been horrified by the bad experiences I have seen along these same lines. I immediately rang them and was given the physical damage reason again, and a photo was presented to me of a drive that has clearly either been bludgeoned by something hard or dropped on the floor, one corner has a massive gouge out of it and you could even see small metal filings where the impact had taken place. (Not to suggest this indicates it has JUST been done or anything of course).

I argued this was not like this when i sent it to them and basically got into a dispute of whether it was like it when i received the drive so as to throw their legal obligations at me. They were VERY keen for me to take up a warranty option with Seagate....for a physically defective drive that was not like it when i had it. My rma was for some mechanical/internal fault. Not a big dent in the side. I have been speaking with Scan about this and they refuse to budge on their idea that nothing can be done about physically damaged parts. They would not offer to do a once off refund or replacement and basically waived all liability for a refund to me via this idea that the drive was damaged. I did not take photos in my possession and it was repeatedly brought up that they had a photo of the product with the damage.

Im gonna go ahead and say it....I know this wasn't done by me, I know it was wrapped perfectly in order to be couriered...I think there is only one place this damage was done --- at Scan. Whether it was done on purpose or not I dont know but considering the outcome and Scan waiving all liability with the product due to this it means they do not have to do anything in terms of returns to their supplier and of course they keep the customers money. This is a disgraceful business practice, and it was clear from chatting to Mark, the returns manager that they are very aware of their current distance selling regulations in order to enforce these policies.

To sum up, the whole situation has been horrendous. All of this for a 64 quid hard drive. Now whether accidental damage their end has been covered up etc i do not know but a massive impact like this would have been noticed by me and i wouldnt have spent my whole afternoon trying to get it to work and another afternoon trying to dispute this unreasonably and frankly....untrue claim.

Think carefully before you purchase anything from these people, and take photos of items sent to you and maybe even a video to avoid this happening to others. I have been forced to go through Paypal to make a claim on this, as out of principle really, I do not want to accept their lack of responsibility. I will also direct Paypal to this forum and this thread and others in order to highlight what I think is going on here. I really wish there was some way of seeing all video footage (as they claimed they had cctv) of the returns process from the moment of receiving my item back to determining it was faulty. Unedited clear video footage.

Thanks for reading.

[jag272]

I'm not going to take any sides in this as I've had no issues myself so I would just be basing what I say on the reports here.

That said, as I see you mentioned at the end of your post anyway, the best thing you can do is take photos of it in the packaging before you sealed it, or video too as you suggest, as long as you are capable of encoding it in such a way that sending it online is viable. It's probably good practice regardless of who you are RMAing with, or frankly using any couriers in general.

Not pinning the blame on the couriers or on Scan because its hard to say who is at fault, but I would do this whenever you're posting anything potentially damageable anyway. Everyone has heard the stories about how due to the way courier services work there's a bad egg in a few areas, though I have faith in DPD and is one of the reasons I shop with Scan personally.

[NilSatis]

I agree completely, I have well and truly learned a lesson here; I buy many pc products and some have had to be rma'd and have never had this situation happen as am very careful with the goods in my possession being that they are delicate items. I am in no way suggesting that this is a deliberate scheme but I am suggesting that in my point of view this has happened outside of my control. I can somewhat understand Scans point of view also that it cant be proven that I didn't do it, which is why I would suggest to them the following:

With how it was packaged that sort of damage simply could not have been done during transport and I wish that these problems could be investigated a bit more thoroughly by Scan before deciding that there is no comeback from the customer at all. I.e. when it was mentioned that they have cc tv footage, as there is a dispute over this, the footage could be investigated. As the customer losing money because of this I think these results should also be made public to the customer.

It seems in these cases the customer is always going to lose out unless it is made public what actual "investigation" took place to deem the problem was not caused at the retailers end. I know for a fact that this wasnt done by myself due to the care that was taken in handling the product and am 100% certain this physical defect was not apparent when initially receiving the drive so surely these things should be looked at further. I will add I had one prior dealing with Scan buying a graphics card and it went very smoothly and was planning on buying a whole system from them in component parts in order to build a new rig for someone so there is no bias or animosity there.

[Will01]

http://forums.hexus.net/scan-care-he...under-rma.html

I know the delete these posts as they did with the previous one but ill ensure I keep posting it.

[joncre]

Hahaha Will, there is tighter censorship on this Forum than in North Korea!

[Mark@SCAN]

This thread has been moved to the after sales section, please respect the rules of the after sales forum:

http://forums.hexus.net/scan-care-he...ease-read.html

For the new members amongst us a polite reminder:

The rules for the post sales support:
- Only Members who have an order number can start a thread
- SCAN will be able to see the order numbers but they wont be on public view
- SCAN moderators will deal with the responses
- Opening Poster and Scan Members ONLY to post in each thread (occasional Mod intervention accepted)
- This forum is for advice, please still log an OLQ request with Scan directly

[NilSatis]

Hi there Mark, I see you have read this thread, and moved it. It would be nice if then; considering it was moved to aftersales support, that your company actually offered "after sales support" and instead of moving the thread and not replying, why dont you explain publicly why Scan takes this stance with items returned to you and yet has no investigation of the internal procedure offered to a customer, yet they are expected to agree to a decision made by a company that has got their money that "there is nothing that can be done as there was physical damage to the product". I want people to see this thread, and the others posted on here. What is happening to your company?
I should also like to suggest that it is not good policy to pass the buck so to speak to Seagate and advise me to return the item to them via a warranty claim all while this mysterious physical damage is on the item. Why would they be more likely to accept a product that is physically damaged? Why should i approach them and not you where the damage occurred? Shockingly bad customer service and returns policy. Personally wont be giving this one up and will follow it until I get my money back. This sort of Scam, which is what it is...no mistake...cannot be allowed. It may not be an intentional scam but it certainly is scamming the customer out of their money using a grey area of the law to do so. Disgusting.

[Chris P]

H'mm joncre...... with one post you could be a friend of will.

I could be, but I am not. Regardless, what I have said still stands.

So can we ask why you (joncre) and Will01 have exactly the same IP address, either you are the same person or you are another person posting from the same connection?

Regards

[Mark@SCAN]

Hi,

We have at great length during our conversation yesterday explained our reasons for rejecting the item that has been returned.

A PayPal dispute has been raised against this transaction by yourself. We will of course comply with any requests from PayPal during the course of the investigation.

We refute entirely the unfounded suggestion that the drive in question was damaged upon it's return to SCAN.

[NilSatis]

@NilSatis, the good news is that you are covered by Paypal in this case. Thankfully, 9 times of out 10 they will sympathise with the buyer and you should receive a full refund, in saying that you can expect it to be a long drawn out process and I can expect it to end with Paypal stepping in and making the final decision on your behalf.

I dread to see Scan's track record of compaints via Paypal and Credit Card companies.

Indeed Jon, I would hate to see how much has to get sorted out via Paypal due to these disputes, with customer service like this. Anyway, thanks for the reply Mark; I notice that you havent replied to my request to post the item back to me as part of my own investigation, but since i have now filed a dispute with Paypal I guess the best thing is for Scan to keep it, so don't worry about that. Hopefully I will get my money back and I can look more carefully as to where I shop in future. Should I lose this claim with Paypal, I will be asking for the item to be sent back to me so I can further investigate this. Thanks. Luckily, they are usually very fair Paypal and hopefully make the right call here.

Also Mark; there is no "unfounded suggestion" here for you to refute, rather a statement: that I didnt damage the thing, it wasnt damaged upon receipt or sending back, and that the courier company didnt damage it as far as we both can tell as you mentioned yourself packing was adequate. I will let people draw their own conclusions on that. Customers dont usually go to this much trouble of sending back something they knew was physically damaged and common sense dictates where this happened. To reject this notion without proper investigation of your own staff and the activities that surrounded this return stinks.

[Carlh]

Hi there Mark, I see you have read this thread, and moved it. It would be nice if then; considering it was moved to aftersales support, that your company actually offered "after sales support" and instead of moving the thread and not replying, why dont you explain publicly why Scan takes this stance with items returned to you and yet has no investigation of the internal procedure offered to a customer, yet they are expected to agree to a decision made by a company that has got their money that "there is nothing that can be done as there was physical damage to the product". I want people to see this thread, and the others posted on here. What is happening to your company?
I should also like to suggest that it is not good policy to pass the buck so to speak to Seagate and advise me to return the item to them via a warranty claim all while this mysterious physical damage is on the item. Why would they be more likely to accept a product that is physically damaged? Why should i approach them and not you where the damage occurred? Shockingly bad customer service and returns policy. Personally wont be giving this one up and will follow it until I get my money back. This sort of Scam, which is what it is...no mistake...cannot be allowed. It may not be an intentional scam but it certainly is scamming the customer out of their money using a grey area of the law to do so. Disgusting.

Just for reference its wasnt Mark that moved the post - I did as after all it is a aftersales issue is it not? It wasnt anything personal as most recent issues which are aftersales have also been moved to the correct section of the Hexus forum - as this way its quicker for users to get responses and also means we can ensure we have the correct members of staff dealing with aftersales and also sales enquiries.

I can appreciate your annoyed at the way that this has been handled however on checking the logs, pictures etc it has been deemed as warranty void due to user damage, as there is damage to the hard drive corner as previously advised by Mark.


Regards,

[NilSatis]

Just for reference its wasnt Mark that moved the post - I did as after all it is a aftersales issue is it not? It wasnt anything personal as most recent issues which are aftersales have also been moved to the correct section of the Hexus forum - as this way its quicker for users to get responses and also means we can ensure we have the correct members of staff dealing with aftersales and also sales enquiries.

I can appreciate your annoyed at the way that this has been handled however on checking the logs, pictures etc it has been deemed as warranty void due to user damage, as there is damage to the hard drive corner as previously advised by Mark.


Regards,

You mentioned "user damage" in this reply. So it has changed now from physical damage that cant be proved either way, to "user damage"? I have stated many times to Mark on talking to him about this that there was 100% no USER damage to speak of and this is the whole problem Carl, so to use those words is the reason why your customer service fails.
It is also interesting you chose to use these words, as this is something that has either happened with the courier (doubtful due to the care I took packaging the item) or at Scan (much more likely). I will post back the result of this from Paypal so other people know their rights when this sort of thing happens. To be honest there needs to be a criminal investigation if this sort of thing keeps happening as it has all the hallmarks of a scam.

Had I "stolen" 60 quid from someone I think there would be. Scan have, in my mind...stolen this money from me, and blamed what I can only hope to be their incompetence on the customer in order to avoid a refund. Bear in mind this initial product was FAULTY. I wonder how many of that same batch have the same fault as I found. I'm genuinely interested; also as to how many customers received said replacement from Scan for that drive. I would also like to add that the photo shown to me had small metal particles all over it next to the gouge caused by what looked like a RECENT heavy impact which would have surely been removed/fallen off or even brushed off during packaging/postage if it happened my end. Im no forensic scientist, but this fact was pretty obvious on looking at the photo.

[NilSatis]

I will post back the result of this from Paypal so other people know their rights when this sort of thing happens. To be honest there needs to be a criminal investigation if this sort of thing keeps happening as it has all the hallmarks of a scam.

I have received back an email from Paypal today stating that they will refund me my money in this case so long as Scan prove they still have the item in their possession. Im happy that Paypal will do this for me but it doesnt take back the few days of frustration this caused me. Think about your customer service Scan and also think about the way you determine these cases.

I have bought a better hard drive from a competitor and have since installed it and it is working with no problems.