Absolutely shocking RMA service.

[Predator]

Firstly, I'd like to say I wasn't going to post, complain or mention anything, let alone do so on a public forum. However the latest email I have received has pushed it too far and I need to say something so other people know what they are getting themselves in for.

I had a faulty AsRock Fatal1ty K6 Motherboard, the USB 3.0 stopped working and putting the board into XMP profile one would cause a constant boot loop. On the 23/11/2016 I contacted AsRock support and Scan for some advice. After getting nowhere and all solutions not working, I organised for an RMA under warranty, however on 25/11/20116 I slipped when removing the cooler causing damage to a number of CPU pins. I put my hands up to this straight away, it was my fault for not really paying attention, I didn't try and get one over on anyone though and accepted that I would now have to pay the repair cost. That wasn't an issue. I was advised that it would cost £25+ vat however further costs may be levied by the manufacturer which I would be liable for. I felt that was fair considering the damage caused but wanted to explore these possible extra costs further.

With the board being worth around £150, I thought if it was going to cost upwards of £100 to repair then it wouldn't be worth it, therefore I contacted AsRock direct and got a run down of how it works, I was advised that the total cost if I went through them would be around 40 euros plus whatever the postage was to them, I worked it out to be about £10 more than Scan in total. AsRock said they do not repair boards with this kind of damage in house and they send them off to Asia to be refurbished, to save waiting on it's return they dispatch a manufacture refurbished board instead, the total process takes 5 working days from when the board is received and there would be no further costs.

I was quite happy with that and as I purchased through Scan, were slightly cheaper and arranged all the shipping for me I went through them. I packaged the board up and sent it off on the 28/11/2016 and it was received the next day.

29/11/2016 I received an email:
Current status of your RMA: : Items forwarded to supplier / manufacturer
We can confirm we have processed your returned goods and are now forwarding them to our supplier / manufacturer for resolution.

I emailed the manufacturer on 01/12/2016 and advised them I had sent the board back so should be with them very soon, they had not received any notifications so I left it a couple of days. On the 09/12/2016 the manufacturer had still not received notification that my board was en-route. I logged into scan to check the status. RMA status updated on 29/11/2016 saying it was cleared for a chargable replacement. Therefore I emailed Scan again, requesting a phone call as I was not happy that nothing had happened and it had just sat there all this time. No one called. I did receive an email an hour later saying that there is no guarenteed time frame but would chase it. Amazingly, exactly 40 minutes after I received this email, the manufacturer emailed me saying they had received my board request and it would arrive with them and as soon as they get it in they will send out a replacement. Coincidence? Probably not, I'm guessing left on a shelf. I sent another unhappy email to Scan, which was ignored completely.

At this point I'm trying to order some watercooling bits and getting impatient with things saying they are in stock then ordering and getting an email that they are not in stock. Luckily I had a couple of helpful reps who, as I needed next day delivery, and the friday slot was missed then the saturday slot, they managed to sort a Sunday slot for me and no extra charge which I was very greatful for.

Moving on, I hadn't heard anything from either side, so on the 21/12/2016, I emailed the manufacturer and asked if they had received the board or if there were any issues, I thought about contacting Scan but AsRock were 10x more helpful. They replied the following day stating the board was received on the 13/12/2016 and the replacement dispatched 15/12/2016, a week ago. I gave up hope this was going to happen before Christmas and decided to leave Scan to it. I had lost the will to fight and it was supposed to be a happy holiday, plus I know retailers are busy this time of year.

29/12/2016 an email from Scan - With regards to the above rma, the board has been returned repaired / replaced, as such we need to take the chargeable repair payment fee of £25+vat.

Fine, no problem, I asked for a Paypal invoice or something to be created so I could pay it. I wasn't too fussed if this delayed it by a day or two as I've bought a new board by now (A nice Gigabyte G1 Ultra Gaming). On 05/01/2016 I had an email saying the invoice was raised but cannot be completed over email or paypal and i'd need to talk to someone on Livechat, i knew what this was as i'd used the same system to modify an order, a bit of a pain but no great issues.

Today (09/01/2016) I finally managed to get onto live chat and pay the invoice expecting the usual delivery period and to receive it back, I then received the email that I thought took the urine a little bit....

Delayed Order Notification

Hi,

Thank you for your order from Scan.

Please regard this email as an active notification of a delay in your order, due to a temporary shortage in stock of the following item:
1. LN66179 - ASRock Intel Z170 Fatal1ty Gaming K6 Skylake ATX Motherboard
This product is still on pre-order. We are currently awaiting an ETA for this product.


...You cannot be serious...HOW!? It is MY board, there is only one which you have already said you have received. HOW can it possibly be delayed and awaiting an ETA!? Seriously what is going on, how can it be this bad? I thought maybe it was the invoice bringing up an error and it was out of new stock, yet it isn't:

https://www.scan.co.uk/products/asro...be-usb31-aplus

The reason I wasn't going to say anything was because a couple of times I wasn't the fastest at replying either, plus it's Christmas and everyone is extra busy which I fully understand...but that last email was the icing on the cake. Luckily I don't need the board and i'm either going to sell it on when i get it back or keep it as a back up/spare. The whole service has been dissapointing. If I had gone straight to AsRock (I wish I did) I would have had the board back around the middle of December at the latest.

[Mick@SCAN]

Predator,

I am very sorry for the problems you have had with our returns service; I can see that the process has taken longer than you had expected for which I apologise for.
The way our returns process works is that we return the motherboards back to the supplier or manufacturer in bulk, it is not economically viable for us to send a single motherboard back as this would significantly raise the costs of processing the repair.

This is why we do not guarantee a time-frame for any customer induced damage repairs and this should have been explained to you in the beginning so you could have made a more informed decision on how to proceed with the process.

I can also see the lack of response to your email as mentioned in your post and again I can only apologise for this, yes we were busy over the Christmas period but you should still have had a response from a member of the team, this is something I will be looking into to ensure we can improve on this area.

The final complaint concerning the automated email you received was also an over-sight by our live chat team, this has been brought to their attention and further training for the team will be provided.

Due to the above issues it has been agreed to refund the repair cost of £30, this shall be shouldered by Scan Computers due to the unsatisfactory level of service and delays you have experienced, I hope this will not deter you from future orders and I thank you for raising the issues outlined above as we are always looking at improving our service levels.

Kind regards,

[Predator]

Predator,

I am very sorry for the problems you have had with our returns service; I can see that the process has taken longer than you had expected for which I apologise for.
The way our returns process works is that we return the motherboards back to the supplier or manufacturer in bulk, it is not economically viable for us to send a single motherboard back as this would significantly raise the costs of processing the repair.

This is why we do not guarantee a time-frame for any customer induced damage repairs and this should have been explained to you in the beginning so you could have made a more informed decision on how to proceed with the process.

I can also see the lack of response to your email as mentioned in your post and again I can only apologise for this, yes we were busy over the Christmas period but you should still have had a response from a member of the team, this is something I will be looking into to ensure we can improve on this area.

The final complaint concerning the automated email you received was also an over-sight by our live chat team, this has been brought to their attention and further training for the team will be provided.

Due to the above issues it has been agreed to refund the repair cost of £30, this shall be shouldered by Scan Computers due to the unsatisfactory level of service and delays you have experienced, I hope this will not deter you from future orders and I thank you for raising the issues outlined above as we are always looking at improving our service levels.

Kind regards,

Thanks, that is very kind.

I heard about bad RMA service a few years ago but thought it would have been a thing of the past. I will of course still use Scan as your sales team helped me get an urgent order and were very helpful, as they have been in the past. The returns side let things down, if something breaks due to my fault I will most likely look to go straight to the manufacturer in the future. I can understand sending things in bulk to save costs, however incorrect updates should not be sent to the customer saying items have been dispatched when they are not dispatched for another week.

Thanks again for your reply.