RMA Offering of B-Grade cards seems wrong

[dpwrussell]

Hi,

I had to RMA my KFA2 GeForce RTX 4090 SG 1-Click OC GPU as it was failing.

They've contacted me and said they are looking to replace my card (which I assume means they've determined repair is not an option). They don't have stock of my card, so I've been offered one of these as a replacement:

• B Grade Asus GeForce RTX 4090 TUF OC 24GB GDDR6X PCI-Express Graphics Card
• B Grade Palit GeForce RTX 4090 GameRock OC 24GB GDDR6X PCI-Express Graphics Card

This feels really wrong to me. I am 1-year into my 2-year warranty, but the new card would only have a 90 day warranty, and on top of that, has a completely unknown provenance. Someone could have been using it to mine bitcoin before it was reconditioned!

I have replied saying this does not seem reasonable and asked what else they can do.

Is this usual? Has anyone else had a similar experience and got some advice?

Thanks,

D

 

[tommybhoy]

RTX 3090ti RMA'd, B Grade 4070ti offered as a replacement

OcUK normally good customer service it's evident all it needed was a few back and forths before both parties were satisfied and overall a happy ending has been reached.

forums.overclockers.co.uk

B Grade 4090 disappointment - couldn't even post

Got tired of waiting for an FE 4090, so went for the MSI B Grade 4090 on OCUK. Delivered today and spent the last three hours trying to get it to post with the card installed. Did all the troubleshooting I could find online, no dice. I would have thought that OCUK would test these before...

forums.overclockers.co.uk

 

[Gerard]

Wouldn't be accepting any b grade item in exchange of a new product.

 

[random_matt]

You should be entitled for a like for like replacement. Why are overclockers not sending RMA cards to the manufacturers?

 

[gavinh87]

I'd be asking for a refund if they cannot provide a like for like or an upgrade.

 

[muzzydark]

I sense this type of posts will be disallowed here soon

This seems like a quick solution for customers instead going through whole RMA process, however b grade stock with 90 days warranty is not acceptable since the original card has much longer warranty left.

 

[Armadillo]

If there's no stock, assuming you are willing to wait, shouldn't you have to option of OCUK sending it back to KFA for replacement? What's the point of the warranty and it being processed through the retailer, if they can just offer you any old tat they have laying around instead of sending it in for you?

I don't recall this happening that often before covid & the great GPU shafting. You would either get a similar but new card, or off to manafacturer it went and you may have to wait 30 days for it.

 

[Tetras]

I don't recall this happening that often before covid & the great GPU shafting. You would either get a similar but new card, or off to manufacturer it went and you may have to wait 30 days for it.

It could be that covid shipping issues changed the policy, since it was more expensive and time consuming to do this kind of shipping?

 

[MCFC_ANDY]

 

[Gerard]

Is this the new ocuk policy? Any card that's eol or hard to get that's still under warranty gets replaced with some b grade item with a 90 day joke attached to it? Unless there's a back and forth between ocuk support and the owner to push them to do better?

@Gibbo ??

 

[Purgatory]

Basically warranties are worthless now on GPUs... From retailers and AIBs ... nice to know, seems Nvidia FE cards will be the only ones to buy from now on .... if you value a warranty ...

 

[Purgatory]

Is this the new ocuk policy? Any card that's eol or hard to get that's still under warranty gets replaced with some b grade item with a 90 day joke attached to it? Unless there's a back and forth between ocuk support and the owner to push them to do better?

@Gibbo ??

Can we have some clarification please regarding these issues regarding warranties and RMAs ? As this policy to offer B grade replacements or a refund that is not the original price paid is not really encouraging anyone to make a purchase again for such expensive items.

Are the faulty items even being sent to the manufacturer for repair or replacement by them under the warranty period ? If not .. I have to ask why ? Because this is the point of dealing with the retailer in the first place as some manufacturers will not deal with the customers directly but threw the retailer only.

 

[Angilion]

Sounds like the ethos of the B-grade system is being extended to warranty support - a terrible initial offer to catch people who are either unwilling or unable to haggle or who don't realise how bad the offer is, then haggling required to get a reasonable offer.

Not an appealing course of action for a business to take, but I guess it's more profitable. At least in the short term.

 

[Dicehunter]

This is not a good look for OCUK.

 

[BUDFORCE]

This is not a good look for OCUK.

No, it's a little bit naughty if this is common practice.

 

[Heisenberg]

Yeah, this practice has to stop tbh. The reason a lot of people shop with ocuk is customer service. You should be putting a disclaimer on the page for each GPU that the x amount of year “warranty” is actually pretty worthless as we can just offer you any old crap we have lying around in b grade with a 90 day warranty on that item.

 

[MeatLoaf]

There are new 4090 cards in stock so why cant you have one of those?

 

[random_matt]

Yeah, this practice has to stop tbh. The reason a lot of people shop with ocuk is customer service. You should be putting a disclaimer on the page for each GPU that the x amount of year “warranty” is actually pretty worthless as we can just offer you any old crap we have lying around in b grade with a 90 day warranty on that item.

It is? When did this happen? Their CS was just as good as anyone else back in the day. Fast forward to 2024 and they are not even close.

 

[SuperElectric]

Is this usual? Has anyone else had a similar experience and got some advice?

Thanks,

D

It's just to trick you. There is a chance that you could say yes and OCUK would make some money.

Now they will probably make a cash offer that is less than the price of a new card

There are new 4090 cards in stock so why cant you have one of those?

They are more expensive than B grade and that would be bad

 

[Pulseammo]

Can we have some clarification please regarding these issues regarding warranties and RMAs ? As this policy to offer B grade replacements or a refund that is not the original price paid is not really encouraging anyone to make a purchase again for such expensive items.

Are the faulty items even being sent to the manufacturer for repair or replacement by them under the warranty period ? If not .. I have to ask why ? Because this is the point of dealing with the retailer in the first place as some manufacturers will not deal with the customers directly but threw the retailer only.

And to clarify whether the original warranty magically becomes 90 days if the customer accepts a B-Grade card. And if it doesn't how does that work in the instance that the purchaser has a *manufacturers* warranty and has had their card replaced by a completely different manufacturer's card. Is ocuk putting these through as some kind of part refund and subsequent sale? Seems a tad sneaky if so because even if the user is getting a used card for a used card they still lose part of the warranty they paid for in the first place.