Gigabyte Graphics Card RMA Procedure?

bigSadFace · 12 Nov 2019 at 19:55

Hi all,

To cut a long story short, I have a faulty GTX1080 purchased just over two years ago. It has a duff fan, that makes an awful noise.

I have contacted Gigabyte UK RMA who have been really quick in replying; however have got to a point where they are requiring one of the following three things:

A) Post the item to them at my expense and pay a £15 'processing fee' to RMA the item (they say it is to cover return postage)
B) Pay for postage to and from Gigabyte UK to RMA the item
C) Drop off and collect from their UK RMA office

I am not looking to grumble; however is this typical RMA procedure? The best I have experienced previously is collection and return paid for by the manufacturer. With the second best being pay for postage one way. Maybe I am too spoiled by other graphics card manufacturers in the past (EVGA & MSI)

clone · 13 Nov 2019 at 07:49

I'm sure there is a gigabyte rep on these forums that may be able to help out.

Ezyryder · 13 Nov 2019 at 11:38

cc @GIGA-Man

benjii · 13 Nov 2019 at 12:12

Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't the consumer laws say the customer shouldn't have to cover any of the expense of having a faulty item replaced? So it should either be free postage or have the postage refunded.

orbitalwalsh · 13 Nov 2019 at 13:25

benjii said:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't the consumer laws say the customer shouldn't have to cover any of the expense of having a faulty item replaced? So it should either be free postage or have the postage refunded.

not to sure with that one. Must resellers you have to post your item to them like SCAN with RMA number listed on the delivery address etc , believe OCUK is the same . Thing will get costly for users and resellers if hard brexit and RMA goes to EU due to having to then pay import taxes in worst case on delivery .

technically @bigSadFace should be going through reseller to do RMA. this is most common practice with Vendors, specially on motherboards were Gigabyte is the only one to repair in the UK. since few years Gigabyte rep has been pushing hard for RMA so now must contract the rep & gigabyte to go direct .

think Giga Man stated in thread yesterday that they are off till next week then rubbing in of having to take 20+ holiday days in December...

bigSadFace · 23 Nov 2019 at 07:52

Thanks all for the advice. Amazon are refusing to assist. Gigabyte have accepted the RMA however its looking like £30 for insured postage there and back. Seems cheaper to buy a replacement fan set and repair myself. Really not impressed with paying postage both ways on an RMA and wont be buying gigabyte products again as a result.

Kaeo · 23 Nov 2019 at 09:09

Strange. Every time I've had to mail something to a manufacturer for RMA, they always sent an email with a courier label, packing instructions and a link to organise pickup times etc.

tommybhoy · 23 Nov 2019 at 11:54

bigSadFace said:
Gigabyte have accepted the RMA however its looking like £30 for insured postage there and back. Seems cheaper to buy a replacement fan set and repair myself. Really not impressed with paying postage both ways on an RMA and wont be buying gigabyte products again as a result.

What I'm wondering is under the sale of goods act, is it lawfull for a company to charge you two way delivery charges on their faulty products?

My GB 2070 WF went space invaders on me and got GB mail regarding the ~£30(guessing it's ~£15 to post it to GB UK) two way post cost replacement direct from GB!

The place I bought it from gave me a DPD pickup drop off so it cost nothing, but have been informed it'll take up to 4 weeks for repair/replacement after the space invader fault was described as 'black screen after driver installation'.

@GIGA-Man whether you pass this down the chain or not, I won't be making any future GB purchases unless they work out £30 ish quid cheaper than the alternative to factor in possible costs further down the line.

bigSadFace · 23 Nov 2019 at 16:14

tommybhoy said:
What I'm wondering is under the sale of goods act, is it lawfull for a company to charge you two way delivery charges on their faulty products?

My GB 2070 WF went space invaders on me and got GB mail regarding the ~£30(guessing it's ~£15 to post it to GB UK) two way post cost replacement direct from GB!

The place I bought it from gave me a DPD pickup drop off so it cost nothing, but have been informed it'll take up to 4 weeks for repair/replacement after the space invader fault was described as 'black screen after driver installation'.

@GIGA-Man whether you pass this down the chain or not, I won't be making any future GB purchases unless they work out £30 ish quid cheaper than the alternative to factor in possible costs further down the line.

If Amazon would have been willing to act on my behalf with Gigabyte I would have been more than happy. I just do not believe it is fair that I suffer the two way return costs for a faulty product sold with a three year warranty. The worst I would have expected is one way cost.

Using the cheapest service (Hermes) with adequate insurance the cost to post is £15 one way (so £30 two ways). The alternative is to post it one way and pay Gigabyte a 'processing fee' which is an additional £20 for them to post it back.

@GIGA-Man If you could chime in on this it would be appreciated. I am in the ludicrous position of choosing not to make use of my warranty and purchasing a T128010SU fan from China and carrying out the repair myself as it is cheaper.

mikedigitales · 23 Nov 2019 at 17:40

My experience of Amazon's customer service over the last month or so has been similar - you now get passed to some sort of tech support team, who eventually transferred me to the manufacturer. The old days of easy Amazon returns when things break seem to be gone. Also i'm surprised Gigabyte are getting involved in this give us an extra £15 for return postage shenanigans, I thought that was a few of the other brands.

GIGA-Man · 4 Dec 2019 at 10:11

Sorry for the late reply.

I'm away now until the New Year but will do my best to help you out where I can... Whoever you buy the goods from in the first year should deal with any faults. IN regards to warranty support after that we only ask for the fee to cover the costs of shipping the goods back. Is this something other companies don't do? Do other companies cover the shipment costs during their warranty periods?

Zeebedy · 4 Dec 2019 at 12:30

I had a issue with a previous 2080ti and was given a full refund minus the postage costs..

tommybhoy · 5 Dec 2019 at 14:13

GIGA-Man said:
Is this something other companies don't do? Do other companies cover the shipment costs during their warranty periods?

Would have covered the cost sending it to GB, but not paying two way postage, it's the return cost that's left the bad taste, could have got an EVGA for the exact same cost but picked GB to match up with my GB Aorus MB...

EVGA don't charge return postage.
https://eu.evga.com/warranty/rmaprocess/

The Standard RMA requires that you are the original owner of the product and can provide proof of purchase in the form of an invoice or receipt.
After approval, you will be responsible for shipping the product to EVGA, following our shipping guidelines, which can be found here.
Upon receipt of your undamaged product, EVGA will process and ship a replacement to you within 3 business days (exclusive of time in transit).

Corsair didn't charge for return postage, with a direct return to manufacturer, pretty sure it got posted out from Holland too.

Outwith PC stuff I've never ever been charged return post on faulty goods, some cover return postage, at worst Iv'e had to pay to ship it to the retailer/manufacturer, paying for it to be sent back out, it's a new one on me.

Still sitting without my 2070 because I have to wait for up to 4 weeks, could have paid £30+ to get it rma'd direct to GB, but with no guarantee it would take less than 4 weeks to replace AND cost £30+, not to mention there is a very slight possibility of a brand new unit if authorised from the retailers supplier.

As it stands, GB's off the future purchase list unless it's cheap enough to cover return postage.

TNA · 5 Dec 2019 at 14:35

GIGA-Man said:
Sorry for the late reply.

I'm away now until the New Year but will do my best to help you out where I can... Whoever you buy the goods from in the first year should deal with any faults. IN regards to warranty support after that we only ask for the fee to cover the costs of shipping the goods back. Is this something other companies don't do? Do other companies cover the shipment costs during their warranty periods?

Corsair even paid to pick my RAM up when I kindly asked. They certainly did not charge to send me a replacement.

I am dealing with you guys right now with an RMA and have had to pay to send it, which I can understand. But you really should be paying to return items imo.

Maybe it is something you can look into arranging? It would go a long way if you did

Ezyryder · 5 Dec 2019 at 15:34

Indeed, Gigabyte should pay to return the items, at the end of the day, the item was defective during the warranty period.

tommybhoy · 6 Dec 2019 at 20:08

Space invader RTX is hardware repairable it seems.

Got my 2070 back today, invoice stated repaired, serial no. matches up but a DP cover has been melted onto the DP port, its on rock solid, the DP port on the bottom has no signal either.

Shoddy shoddy work, but don't know if it was GB that repaired it or a third party.

tommybhoy · 11 Dec 2019 at 14:24

So I asked the etailer if they had any suggestions about the gpu and they replied with:

As the item has been repaired by Gigabyte, I would advise you to get in touch with them directly as this is something they might need to investigate with your collaboration and if they need the card back from you, you can just send it to them instead of having to send it to us first so we can send it to them.

@GIGA-Man will GB expect me to foot the postage cost when GB don't send out a satisfactory repair in the first instance?

TNA · 11 Dec 2019 at 18:33

tommybhoy said:
So I asked the etailer if they had any suggestions about the gpu and they replied with:

@GIGA-Man will GB expect me to foot the postage cost when GB don't send out a satisfactory repair in the first instance?

I am 99.9% sure they will take care of all postage costs going forward.

Ezyryder · 11 Dec 2019 at 23:07

tommybhoy said:
Space invader RTX is hardware repairable it seems.

Got my 2070 back today, invoice stated repaired, serial no. matches up but a DP cover has been melted onto the DP port, its on rock solid, the DP port on the bottom has no signal either.

Shoddy shoddy work, but don't know if it was GB that repaired it or a third party.

That is shocking.

orbitalwalsh · 12 Dec 2019 at 13:43

If this is a faulty repair then they SHOULD collect it for free and send back as @GIGA-Man normally gets on RMA case . Rep doesn't do the repairs etc but is the face of them so normally pulls it out of the bag for people . though believe the rep is off to the end of the year .
Would hound Gigabyte RMA and link giga-mans email in the email. think its, [email protected]
Link this forum post as well . Should take 2 and 2 together for the RMA team to do what Giga-man most likely would have done in this case, collect the fault repaired card for free and send it back for free