RMA experience

[Silver7]

I decided to treat myself to an upgrade a couple of weeks ago, and purchased a few bits from Scan. Amongst these was an Asus motherboard. After getting it out and onto my workbench, first job was to gently drop the CPU into place. An hour later, my new build was complete and we we're ready for action. A little tap on the power switch and...nothing happens.

I stripped the PC down to a minimum of components, replacing most with spares I have sitting around, but after lots of fiddling it just wouldn't come to life. So I contacted Scan explaining the problem, and let them know that I thought the board was DOA. The only other part I couldn't be sure of was the CPU as I didn't have another handy, but that seemed far less likely to be the cause of the problem.

The board subsequently made its way back to Scan HQ, and after a little while I received an email notification advising me that the RMA had been rejected. Quite surprising but I figured that they'd managed to fire it up. The online status told a different story though, their technician had discovered a bent pin in the cpu socket.

Scan advised me that this wasn't covered in the terms of the warranty, and they could only return the board. As for the damaged pin, they claim that this could only have been caused during installation or removal of the CPU. I disagreed with this. The pin isn't slightly misaligned, but bent all the way back on itself, yet all the pins surrounding it, and those within the rest of the socket are sitting perfectly. Impossible to see how this could occur when gently dropping the CPU in the socket and securing it into place. If one pin was so badly bent I'd certainly expect to see a few more sticking out at funny angles.

I don't follow tech forums much these days, so couldn't be sure whether this was a unique situation. With a quick bit of googling, however, I notice other incidents where people have had the problem of bent pins on new motherboards. So not an isolated problem.

After explaining my views to Scan, they replied stating that any damage on receipt must be reported immediately. I quote "It is an express requirement in our Terms & Conditions that any damage on receipt is immediately reported to ourselves, we note that on this occasion no damage was reported on receipt as such we are unable to pursue a damaged on receipt claim." and "goods should always be inspected upon receipt for damage and any damage reported, this did not happen." The part about inspecting goods did actually happen, but quite simply I didn't spot it, so even though a faulty item was supplied, the loss will be mine to incur due to not being more eagle eyed.

Really not the attitude I expected from Scan, as they have an outward appearance of being committed to customer care and satisfaction. The rigid adherence to this condition appears to be at a complete odds with this. Lets say their technician had tracked down the fault and it was instead a shorted circuit, something that can be almost imperceptible. Is this still fair grounds to tell the customer that while we may have supplied a faulty product it's for you to have noticed and therefore not our problem? I'm not convinced. One of my reasons for using Scan has been to avoid this kind of stuff. Right now it's hard to buy into "A Customer is not simply an invoice but a welcome addition to the Scan family"

I'm pretty busy so I decided to simply pay to get the board serviced through Asus directly, place Scan alongside OCUK on the list of suppliers I'd rather avoid, and chalk this all up to experience. Unfortunately the Asus website refers you to the reseller for repairs, and Scan inform me 'as a reseller we do not offer a chargeable repair service with the manufacturer'. So I'm not having the best of luck here.

My last email to Scan set out that I consider their stance to be unreasonable, and asked for clarification on their terms. I guess there's a chance this email may have took a wrong turn when travelling to them, but I've received no reply and I suspect they've given up talking to me.

So there we have it. I'm currently in possession of an expensive paperweight. Am I the annoying customer with clumsy fingers that is no longer worth responding to? Or are they disregarding customer care, while rigidly sticking to what can be unfair terms and condition according to how they are applied. I guess the lesson is, if you're returning something to Scan then break out the magnifying glass to examine it well beforehand. Just keep those fingers crossed you didn't miss anything!

[wesleyaldred]

Silver7,

Welcome to the forums !

I have explained in depth the reasons for the rejection, due to physical damage being present on the item when returned to Scan and no notification being made of the item being delivered to yourself with physical damage.

You also opted out of Scansure, our installation insurance and as such we had no alternative but to reject the item following receipt at Scan due to non reported physical damage.

[Silver7]

Thanks for the welcome Wesley.

The Scansure insurance isn't really applicaple here, as we can be pretty sure the board was damaged upon receipt. I guess we both wish I'd taken it now so we could have avoided this hassle though!

My argument is that I'm now the one being left at a disadvantage after being supplied with a faulty board, simply because I didn't spot the problem. While you may refer to and be covered by your terms and conditions, I don't think they're particularly fair or reasonable in this instance. We're not talking about an obvious problem like I opened the box to find the board snapped in half. As such it's been disappointing to see Scan take such a hard stance. As I've said, damage may be almost imperceptable, where does Scan draw the line? As a propspective customer I'd be worried by such a rigid policy.

Did someone edit the thread title?