Outrage at my Scan.co.uk return experience so far...

[Stormsys]

Edit: I have updated this post to reflect some positive outcomes of my discussion with scan. as the first half is really negative i thought i would add a headnote to draw attention to this. I'm glad we were able to co-operate.

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So i'm going to try and present the entire story in chronological order in the following post so bear with me, i wouldn't normally go to this length to share my experience but this has really ticked me off and i need to vent it.

6 October 2015
I placed my order with scan for delivery on Friday 9th October 2015, the order consisted of 512gb nvme M.2 drive, 2 980 tis and components for a new 6700k system, it wasn't a small value order lets say that much.

9 October 2015
I build the system, get everything installed all seems fine apart from having received a bsod which i shrugged off at first.

10 October 2015
I got three more consecutive BSOD related to NVMDDLM, this worried me. anyway i downloaded again the nvidia drivers and performed a clean installed of the drivers. originally i shrugged this off.

after this i ran 5 hours of Aida64 and overnight 9 hours of memtest86(minus the hammer test) 4 passes, no failures.

11October 2015
Playing starcraft 2 i experience some graphical glitches, several times which begins to worry me. i immediately raise a support ticket on scan to make sure the issue is documented. i also ran various memory tests on the video cards which proved inconclusive. i see some errors relating to nvmddlm in the event log i forward the bsod and event logs and videos to scan. please see the following links for evidence:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcQ3TCpCCbA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQHIuwkfMK0
photo 1
photo 2

by the way it was rare for the flickering to happen, it showed maybe every 50+ minutes of gameplay on very random models/textures. and would be working consistently before then


12 October 2015
I go on chat with scan they ask me to fill out a form with as much detail as possible on an rma form, they promise me a shipping label tell me to send both cards back as i do not have time to test them to find the faulty card.

I did not receive a ups label.

later that night i ran 4 hours of heaven benchmark at 4k, the gpus were at 83 degree and 71 degrees respectfully. i pointed my gopro at the screen and recorded all 4 hours to review in fast forward when i returned. this showed no issues within the benchmark, HOWEVER i saw the following issues within windows(i also sent this to scan):

photo 3
photo 4

13 October 2015
I went on live chat again. i told them my label had not arrived, i also told them about my findings that in benchmarks the issues did not show from my testing so far. one of the employees has told me he has seen the evidence i submitted and to send it over anyway.

I also tried to bargain with the manager, asking for them to send out the new unit as soon as the current one arrived. i explained that there couldn't be any loss to scan as im covered for any shape/form the card arrives in. if NFF i can return unwanted, if found faulty its going to be replaced anyway and if ive damaged it i have insurance to cover it. scan couldn't lose to give me a better turnaround time and customer service. they refused to bargain and i gave up that avenue.

by the way the shipping label was not sent again...

This night i tracked the issue down to a specific gpu rather then it being one of two. i installed a freesh copy of windows, sha1 validated the drivers install and was doing nothing special but using windows. my sli was enabled and one of the first artifacts i got was this:

photo 5


i then disabled SLI, and rebooted windows only to find after another 20 minutes the following atrifact(only the top card was plugged into the monitor and sli was disabled):

photo 6



Finally i removed the bottom card and left only that card that i thought was faulty in, after another half an hour i got the following aritfact:

photo 7

i forwarded all this evidence to scan, told them to take off the good gpu(and that before i sent out the faulty one i was just going to run the non-faulty one a little longer).


14 October 2015
I finally got my shipping label, prepared the package and took one last night of playing with the system to ensure the remaining gpu did not display artifact. and so far so good(even until this date i have seen no further conclusive artifact);


15 October 2015
Shipped the return out, i should mention i also sent back my m.2 ssd as scan stupidly puts flammable warranty post-factory stickers on chips that reach 70 degrees + and i wanted to exchange for a non-oem variant coming later this month.

19 October 2015
I notice that my gpu model is showing low stock(with stock overdue for 3 months) on the website, in order to reduce the potential for me sending back my remaining gpu so that i can keep 2 of the same model of card i ask them to either reserve me a model of the card or process my rma faster. the agree to process the rma faster. 4 hours later i get back a email saying "we ran a set of benchmarks for 4 hours including heaven and we saw nothing" NFF... please contact us

immediately i head to chat and here is the interaction which absolutely disgusted me and got my blood as hot as it could be:

Me
Hi so lets discuss, it came back as NFF but i could have told you that with the benchmarks yiou guys ran -> i ran the same with a gopro pointed at it and it showed nothing however in lower-powered games and windows ive submitted several screesnhots displaying the issue


Scan
Hello how can i help?

Me
Hey
RMA Number: xxxx
if you recall i discussed this with you last week
i ran heaven for more then 4 hours while i went out for the gym and saw nothing but saw artifacting in a clean install of windows the next morning
its easier to spot when the stuff isnt refreshing a lot i guess


Scan
I do remember,
The testing notes are as follows "no issue, benchmarked for over 4 hours with heaven, OCCT and ati tool, no crashes, bluescreen or any flicker"

Me
exactly
i read this, where do we go from here?
i suspected that would happen even though i pinpointed this card
and ive been using my other card without issues so far

Scan
The next stage would be to send you back your card

Me
erm no
thats not happening unless you want my whole order back

Scan
We can offer a refund under the 14 day return policy however you would be charged for the testing

Me
No
ive submitted evidence of the fault
please up your customer service game a bit
i spent 4 days to make sure i sent you the right card
with tons of evidence
i really dont like this treatment from scan
Do you want to call me?
I actually furious at your response no offence

Scan
We have issued an rma and tested your items within 2 working days of receiving your items, myself and my manager have prioritised your RMA for you and have tried our best, we have been unable to replicate the fault you have reported.

Me
oh whao
your boiling my blood now
listen sort it out or il be going through my card issuer to sort it out seriously
good thing i paid by mastercard
ive been more then paitent after spending soo much money
whao i dont think a retailer has got me this rattled up in while
what the hell
oh man
please put me through to your manager or your managers manager
this is not on

Scan
Bare with me a moment, my manager is not at her desk at the moment

Me
ok
How can you just give your customers the dont care attitude
after i passed you sooo much evidence of the fault
and explained that it doesnt show in benchmarkign software
thats totally not cool

Scan
I understand your frustration, my manager should be back at her desk shortly and once she gets back i will discuss your issue with her

Me
okay il hold the line then

Oh man, even reading back through that im soo offended at scans approach to this situation.... so i didnt save the chat with the manager but in short this is how it went down:

Either take the refund or we send it back to gigabyte and you wait more. i told them that i am not happy eith either i just want a replacement card, and would send back my 2nd card under the 14 day return if we did not reach a conclusion as i was not willing to 1. buy a new card from scan and 2. have 2 cards from two separate retailers.

The issue is now being escalated further and i should hear back tomorrow, when i do i will post the updates and outcomes.

but i am outraged, how can they be treating their customers like liars?

end of rant for now.


Updates 1:
20 October 2015
Scan has put the card under load over night, and had engineers look at it this morning and the issues has not shown. which is fair i have suggested they leave the card and perform generic tasks within windows rather then putting it under heavy load to replicate - il leave it with them if they want to carry out further testing.

They have offered a replacement card, as a "good will gesture". anyway this is a desirable outcome i just shouldn't have had to get so worked up get obtain it. After the initial incident - so far, scan is acting professionally about the issue without causing further insult.

for now over and out, will post any developments past this but hopefully the case is closed.


Updates 2:
Today has been a much better experience talking with scan, they were willing to cooperate and i have also done my best to give them more details about the issues. it seems that there is a small chance (and this came to light today) the ssd which was also sent back could have been contributing to the issues. However i'm going to now commend scan for being willing to send out the replacement unit regardless on this occasion. totally different experience today!

In summary (the positive side of the story):
-Scan Provided Return Shipping
-Scan prioritised the rma when issues that could impact the resolution arose.
-Scan threw extra resources at the issue when things went sour.
-Scan issued a replacement without replicating the fault.
-Scan was willing to honour the games offer that was not advertised at time of sale.

[malfunction]

Weird one that - my first suspect would be a driver issue if the cards (and the rest of the system) are fine under high load. Did you monitor the GPUs during testing? I'm wondering if there's a combination of clock speed, voltage and fan speed that just doesn't work for your system. Presumably you backed off any overclocks (CPU, memory) while testing?

(also that's a hefty spec to play Starcraft 2!)

[Stormsys]

Weird one that - my first suspect would be a driver issue if the cards (and the rest of the system) are fine under high load. Did you monitor the GPUs during testing? I'm wondering if there's a combination of clock speed, voltage and fan speed that just doesn't work for your system. Presumably you backed off any overclocks (CPU, memory) while testing?

(also that's a hefty spec to play Starcraft 2!)

Yup xD it wasn't built for SC II it just happens to be the game i was playing on the day. i had nothing overclocked on the system at this stage(and still have not messed with overclock). So everything is at optimised defaults + XMP profile enabled for the ram.

[valentas]

Nvm.

[Stormsys]

Maybe SLI issue with this game ? Did you try playing game with a single card ? Does this happen with other games ?

Read further down, 13 October 2015. I got the issue in windows, sli enabled, disabled and 1 card only.

[Herbtree]

imo , if scan aren't willing to help you further , return everything with a cover note explaining that if you do not get a full refund you will initiate a charge back with you credit card , wait for refund to be processed if the amount differs call credit card company don't waste your time arguing with scan

[Stormsys]

That's fully my plan if we don't reach a reasonable conclusion tomorrow. I don't want to have to do it as its an inconvenience to me also but I would like my consumer rights to be honoured, the least you expect from store which you spend this much money in one go is for some decent customer relationship!

Honestly i only see two conclusions that will prevent this, they issue a new card or they collect this reaming card and refund them.

[herulach]

To be fair to scan, theres a huge range of issues that could cause those faults, I've had similar things caused by disk issues, weird power saving settings on both GPU and CPU etc.

Not saying its not the cards, but you can conceive of situations where a card would show an error in SLI (even with SLI off) and not on a standalone basis, or it could be a weird interaction between motherboard drivers and scan are using a different one for example.

As far as your consumer rights go, I'd reckon you're SOL, scan appear to have demonstrated that the card isn't faulty, and the order was for parts, not a system. If each individual item works but they don't work together then you have no comeback.

[Stormsys]

Actually I'm in my first 14 days of delivery, so I'm not SOL. If you read the entire post I've explained to scan that they're specific testing methodology does not trigger the issue as frequently(or at all in my testing) as other usages of the card.

In any case good customer service dictates that the customer should be given the benefit of the doubt.

P.s. I also listed an artefact with the card in solo. Why is my system performing well and as expected since this card has been removed?

[Mick@SCAN]

Stormsys ,

I am sorry to hear that you are unhappy how our agents have handled your query, the graphics card in question was extensively re-tested using Heaven Benchmark, Battle Field 4 and Nvidia New Dawn all using a triple screen configuration and no faults could be found.
However I understand that on this occasion the returns Supervisor authorised a replacement graphics card to ensure that the issue was resolved for you.

Kind regards,

[ceejays88]

I am really suprised with this post. I have never had an issue with Scan, Infact they have been one of the best suppliers I have dealt with, Ebuyer being alot lower! ha