Poor RMA experience with a USB stick

[brammers]

Hello Scan,

Sorry I had to take this public, but I'm being ignored by email. Let's hope you can sort things out for me on here and I can go back to being a happy customer.

I bought a Corsair 32gb USB 3 stick off you a while ago, and unfortunately when it arrived it started playing silly buggers. I applied for an RMA number, and was told that I couldn't use your RMA service as I was spending the winter in France. I emailed your RMA department back saying I'd return the stick upon my return to the UK (I was in France for 6 months) and left it like this.

When I got back to the UK I tried to RMA the product again, but was told that this time I couldn't do so as the RMA period had expired - despite it being a faulty product and only a few months after I bought it. I sent another (very polite!) email explaining why I couldn't accept this answer on 30th April but unfortunately I've since been ignored... Emails have been sent to queries@scan.co.uk with reference #1136987. If you have a flick through my correspondance you'll see why I feel aggrieved!

Please could you sort me out a new return procedure for my faulty USB stick and either arrange for a replacement, some credit so that I can buy another stick or a refund.

Looking forward to your response!

[flearider]

they should do somthing you do have a yr warranty...can't understand why there playing silly buggers even if you were in france you could have paid the extra postage to return a new one to you

[Mark@SCAN]

Hi,

Ok after having looked into this there are a few points I would like to clarify, the USB stick in question was a refurbished model costing £11.32+ vat and £4.16+ vat for UK delivery, supplied with a 30 day warranty.

Your original invoice date was 21/01/13 first contact to us was made via e-mail 17/02/13 to report a fault with the goods.

Please note from this e-mail there was no mention to us of you being in France. Simply that the device was presumed faulty and the steps taken by you to trouble shoot the problem.

The following day 18/02/13 an RMA was issued and a collection was offered for the device (please note the RMA provided expires within 14 days of it's issue date and this is made clear in the e-mail.

You replied the same day (out of hours) asking if we collected from France and provided a collection address in France, you asked if we did not collect from France what was the best way for you to return it to us.

We replied the following day 19/02/13 to advise that we could only collect and deliver the replacement to a UK address.

You replied later that day to say that you would return it to us and have us deliver the replacement to your parents address in the UK, (please note that you did not as your above post suggests say this would be on your return to the UK) however expressed your dis-satisfaction and asked that we cover return shipping to France.

We replied the following day 20/02/13 to advise that as the goods were supplied originally to a UK address we would only cover shipping from/to the UK.

That was our final contact till the 30/04/13 when you called and spoke to a member of our returns team who advised that as the RMA had now expired and the product was now well over the 30 day warranty we were unable to assist.

With your consent I am happy to include the entire correspondence between SCAN and yourself, as your above post and the last e-mail you sent to us is inaccurate and is distorted in the version of events as you see it.

Regards

[brammers]

Hi Mark,

Thanks for the reply. I concur with your post. My disatisfaction stems from the following:

A refusal to deliver to a French address. It's hardly Australia and it's hardly a 5kg parcel. Having delivered me a faulty product which has already inconvenienced me, I'd have hoped you'd have been looking to do all you could to rectify the situation by making a tiny gesture like spending another £ or two on postage, or even offering to take an extra charge off me to post to France!

A refusal to accept the return despite the fact that I'd flagged up its faulty status in advance of the warranty period expiring. Yes I missed the 14day RMA cutoff, but I find this all very arbitary.

Ignoring/replying very slowly to my email upon my return to the UK.

I have to say that I find the wall of straight up, inflexible 'no's quite frustrating. What would really make amends would be for you to show some flexibility and look to make right my purchase. At the moment I'm lumped with a useless piece of plastic through very little fault of my own!

I look forward to your response.

[Scarletsboy]

From a 3rd person view, I see both sides, why scan wont post it to France I don't know, and can see no reason as to why not. Why did you not post it back instead of waiting for 6 months? if it is not working you have something sitting around doing nothing, so you post it off they send a replacement to UK this does result in you having a working replacement, not with you in France. Its that not better than having a non working item with you in France ?

Can I ask why you did not post it back while you in France ?

With your quote of "I have to say that I find the wall of straight up, inflexible 'no's quite frustrating. What would really make amends would be for you to show some flexibility and look to make right my purchase. At the moment I'm lumped with a useless piece of plastic through very little fault of my own!" I think both sides could have acted in a different way to get a good out come from this with out having to result in posting on here.

It would be interesting to see what Scan have to say next.

[mike306dt]

Why would you not just use Corsair for the RMA? I'd imagine scan have fulfilled their requirements if it was sold with a 30 day warranty.

[brammers]

Hi,

In response to the other users' questions:

I didn't post it back from France for a few reasons. Firstly, I'm a ski resort manager - I live in some pretty remote places and I'm very busy in the winter. Taking the time to sort things like this out isn't really a priority. Scan also weren't offering me any resolution other than sending a replacement to my parents, which would then inconvenience them on top of me. They've got their own jobs away from home and don't really have the time to be waiting around for a courier delivery then forwarding that on. Finally, having flagged up the issue I'd assumed we'd be good to sort it out when I got home - I ordered the stick towards the end of my contract and home was only a month or so away. I honestly didn't expect all of this hassle - otherwise I'd have certainly sent it back. I anticipated Scan sorting me out a new RMA number when I got home, or extending the old one, and that being that.



Mike - that didn't occur to me - may well do that if I can't sort this out through Scan.

[Brewster0101]

Why would you not just use Corsair for the RMA? I'd imagine scan have fulfilled their requirements if it was sold with a 30 day warranty.

+1 - do this, although you'll be sending it further away than France.

[Scarletsboy]

Thanks for the update brammers, i do agree with some of your points but not all, and for the price I would thought it be easy for Scan to replace it after the 30 days less hassle all round, but I think you will end up using corsair as Scan have upheld there side, but not in the best light.

[Mark@SCAN]

Ok so...

Firstly sorry for the delayed response, due to the weekend and being out of the office on holiday yesterday.

I asked DPD to provide a quote for collection/delivery to the address provided in France: £34.20 was the answer.

As I am sure you can appreciate as a company we simply cannot justify these costs, and I'm pretty sure you wouldn't be willing to pay them either (I wouldn't blame you)

We provided an RMA number, offered a collection and fulfilled all of our obligations to you in this respect.

You may feel the 14 days cut off is arbitrary, that is your opinion and you are of course entitled to it, however the facts remain that you failed to return the goods within the required timeframe and the warranty has now expired.

Thank you for also acknowledging that the details of your complaint are not quite as you made out in your initial post, which suggested that SCAN were somehow not fulfilling our obligations, this resulted in other members of the forum posting based on an inaccurate version of events and I feel this was a little unfair both to SCAN and other members of the forum.

As mentioned in my previous post I am happy to provide a full transcript of all communications between ourselves which I would argue paints a slightly different picture to the one portrayed in this thread.

Regards

[Scarletsboy]

It be nice to see what brammers has to say to mark reply.

As by the looks brammers may not be telling us the whole story here, or is he I dont know ?

I guess the only way would be to see if he agrees to let the email be shown or he will not reply to this thread again which would say it all.

On the note that Mark has given a price for collection & delivery which I say is about right after looking it up that it not that cheap, why should scan have to do that?. At the end of the day scan have done all they should have, but may be could have done more if it was only 2 more weeks later he was back in the UK.

Brammers could have taken the time out to return it and if the item was not working.

To say that they have not got the time (The parents) as most of us know the items are left at the door, would cost them nothing in time, would they really object to taking a item in for you ?

So you now have to return it to Corsair as your only option.

Some times you have to put yourself out to get things fix.

We cant always look for a reason to blame someone else, it was not scan fault the item did not work, they offered a solution as these things happen, but you did not take it up. So we have to take account for our own actions.

[brammers]

Hi,

Nothing much more to add. While I'm not going to allow the full transcript to be posted on here, I certainly don't have anything to hide - as I said, I agree that Mark's post is an accurate reflection of events. Nothing more to add to this.

I guess I have my answer, but I'd also like to point out the following:

1) I was never informed of postage costs to France - only given a no. If I'd known it was that much and that was the reason you wouldn't post to France, I'd have done a lot more to get it back to you - as I said, I honestly didn't think this was going to be an issue. I certainly wouldn't have paid £35 to get it from France to you, maybe you need to look at your couriers.

2) I never knew I could claim under Corsair's warranty, and have now started this process. Call me ill-informed, but I've always taken faulty products back to the retailer and was not aware that there was another option. Thinking Scan's returns process was my only option certainly had an effect upon my actions - once again, no communication, no offer to supply me with Corsair's details, only a 'no return possible'.

3) My final email was still ignored/replied to very slowly, hence bringing this issue up here.

Thanks for your replies Mark, and I'm sure I could have acted differently, but I'm equally confident there was room for better communication and customer service on your part here, and as such my estimation of Scan has suffered.

[brammers]

Finally - scarletsboy, I was not under the impression that items could be left, thought they'd have to be signed for. As my parents work, that would have involved them taking a trip to a depot in their spare time. I trouble them enough as it is...

[Scarletsboy]

thanks for the update brammers hope you get it sorted out

[rabbid]

I would have thought you could send it from france to scan or to colleagues/relatives in uk and ask them to forward it.
Scan should be able to deliver the replacement to any mainland uk address, home or workplace, without issue, just need to make them aware of it.

as i recall the refurb usb drives had much lower warranty, i decided against purchase for his reason and a few questionable performance reviews of those drive elsewhere

anyway perhaps you will get it sorted direct