Grey imports!!!

mikeo

mikeo

mikeo

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Must admit that I did not consider the warranty issue before purchase. I just assumed all OEM HD's had a 3 year warranty (WD 5 years on black drivers an exception I suppose).

Just purchased a Samsung F3 1TB from another supplier. And tried to register it and check the warranty on Samsung's WEB site. And it says "warranty out of area". From GOOGLE this looks like the drive is a "grey import". So any warranty claim must be with the supplier. I wonder if this means I only get 12 months? This being a small seller on a BIG O/L retailer that sells a lot of it's stuff via their "market place" sellers (obviously can't mention names).

So out of interest, I checked the previous F3 1TB that I bought from OCuk and that looks to be a "grey import" as well! Though I'm assuming OCuk would cover the 36 moth warranty!?

Question... is this usual practice these days selling "grey imports"?

Must admit that I usually stick with WD drives. Only ever had to return 2 in some 20 years and both have been replaced ASAP. One reason maybe to stick with WD in the future!!!!

PS. Just running a full sector check on the new drive to check it's OK.
 
So I should be OK with the one from OCuk. The other one I bought only seemed to mention 12 months. I just sort of assumed that after that I would have to return it direct to SAMSUNG. Should have done some digging before I suppose. The new drive looks OK, so I'll go with it. Hey maybe decent sized SSD's will be down to a decent price in another 12 months time (what's that one about "flying pigs"?).

You live and learn I suppose (even at my advanced age :) ). Think I'll stick to WD drives after this. To be honest, the only reason that I did not purchase a WD black 1TB was because of the HUGE price hikes.
 
mikeo said:
You live and learn I suppose (even at my advanced age :) ). Think I'll stick to WD drives after this. To be honest, the only reason that I did not purchase a WD black 1TB was because of the HUGE price hikes.
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You're just as likely to have the same problem with WD drives, or Seagate for that matter.
 
bremen1874 said:
You're just as likely to have the same problem with WD drives, or Seagate for that matter.
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Not from my experience (unless I've just been lucky) but as far as I know, WD will honour the warranty on their drives regardless of where they were sourced. Whereupon Samsung explicitly state on their WEB site that "grey drives" are not covered by their direct warranty and you must return them to the supplier.

PS. As an example... purchased a WD 640GB black (while over in the USA) a while back and that went FUBAR and WD replaced it virtually by return of post without the slightest problem and that was with a new drive, not a refurbished one (the documentation that came with the replacement drive stated it was new). Now if you try that on Samsung's WEB site, the first thing it asks for is the S/N off the drive and your country of origin. If it recognises it as a "grey import" (IE. source outside the country of origin) it tells you if you have an issue, to return it to the company that sold it you. So as far as I can see, there is no way to return a Samsung "grey import" direct to them!
 
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Had exactly this problem a while ago - seems a large number of F3 drives were imported into the UK channel which shouldn't have been - the warranty info on Samsung's site says 'out of territory' or something like that.

In my case I demanded a full refund from the retailer. They did say they'd honour the full warranty period but the value of the drive was still diminished in my view as, should I want to sell it on later, it'd be far harder to sell with a retailer warranty compared to a Samsung one.
 
Vertig01

Don't think it's just Samsung F3's. This practice looks to be pretty much industry wide (probably just a case that retailers source their drives from the cheapest place). GOOGLE this issue (especially re Samsung) and there are moans / comments that cover just about every O/L retailer. As I commented earlier on, the drive I bought back in June from OCuk was also flagged up on Samsung's WEB site as a "grey import". Though I can't imagine it being an issue with them if I had to RMA it. Unluckily not all O/L retailers are made equal (so to speak).

PS. The drive I just bought has a manufacturing date of 09/11, so about as new as they get and that's a "grey import".
PPS. Obviously a "non issue" unless I have an issue and need to RMA.
 
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mikeo said:
Not from my experience (unless I've just been lucky) but as far as I know, WD will honour the warranty on their drives regardless of where they were sourced. Whereupon Samsung explicitly state on their WEB site that "grey drives" are not covered by their direct warranty and you must return them to the supplier.

PS. As an example... purchased a WD 640GB black a while back and that went FUBAR and WD replaced it virtually by return of post without the slightest problem and that was with a new drive, not a refurbished one (the documentation that came with the replacement drive stated it was new). Now if you try that on Samsung's WEB site, the first thing it asks for is the S/N off the drive and your country of origin. If it recognises it as a "grey import" (IE. source outside the country of origin) it tells you if you have an issue, to return it to the company that sold it you. So as far as I can see, there is no way to return a Samsung "grey import" direct to them!
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I can promise you that they exist. The last WD20EARS I bought fell into this category.

The first step of the WDC warranty return process requires you to enter your country and the drive's serial number. Basically the same as every other manufacturer.

I must have purchased many 100's of drives over the years and this problem has only cropped up on a few occasions.
 
Andrew Moore is our hard drive specialist

he will be able to answer this thread properly and give you a proper overview of the situation.
I have linked this thread to him and he will reply when he gets back to work tomorrow.
 
rjkoneill said:
Andrew Moore is our hard drive specialist

he will be able to answer this thread properly and give you a proper overview of the situation.
I have linked this thread to him and he will reply when he gets back to work tomorrow.
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Thanks for that. I'll be interested to hear what he has to say.
 
bremen1874 said:
I can promise you that they exist. The last WD20EARS I bought fell into this category.

The first step of the WDC warranty return process requires you to enter your country and the drive's serial number. Basically the same as every other manufacturer.

I must have purchased many 100's of drives over the years and this problem has only cropped up on a few occasions.
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From WD's WEB site

"No warranty service is provided unless the Product is returned to an authorized return center in the region (warranty regions are identified as Canada, U.S.A., Latin America, Europe, Middle East, Africa, Asia Pacific, India and Thailand) where the Product was first shipped by WD, which may have regional specific warranty implications."

So you are in fact correct. You live and learn :)

Makes me wonder how they accepted the WD 640GB black that I bought in the USA for an RMA in this country!? Unless the policy has changed in the last couple of years.

I'll be interested to hear what OCuk has to say on the matter.
 
mikeo said:
From WD's WEB site

"No warranty service is provided unless the Product is returned to an authorized return center in the region (warranty regions are identified as Canada, U.S.A., Latin America, Europe, Middle East, Africa, Asia Pacific, India and Thailand) where the Product was first shipped by WD, which may have regional specific warranty implications."

So you are in fact correct. You live and learn :)

Makes me wonder how they accepted the WD 640GB black that I bought in the USA for an RMA in this country!? Unless the policy has changed in the last couple of years.

I'll be interested to hear what OCuk has to say on the matter.
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There's a section on WDC's site that basically states that they'll accept one out of area warranty claim per person per year (or something like that).
 
Hello

Warranty is stipulated on the site so if it says 3 years then thats what you will get.

In cases we buy mixed stock so keeping the warranty up to date on the website is near impossible.
 
Andrew Moore said:
Hello

Warranty is stipulated on the site so if it says 3 years then thats what you will get.

In cases we buy mixed stock so keeping the warranty up to date on the website is near impossible.
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Thanks for that.

As I expected, no real issue here :)
 
I have had this with a couple of WD drives, not from OcUK and can't remember the models. The vendor maintained that it was a mistake of mixing drives for system use from memory and stated I would still receive the full warranty direct through them.

I now check all my drives before opening the static packaging, although I have had problems with WD turnaround time I would much rather deal with them directly.
 
IanAG said:
I have had this with a couple of WD drives, not from OcUK and can't remember the models. The vendor maintained that it was a mistake of mixing drives for system use from memory and stated I would still receive the full warranty direct through them.

I now check all my drives before opening the static packaging, although I have had problems with WD turnaround time I would much rather deal with them directly.
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Yep... looks like it can (and does) happen with pretty much any manufacturer. But as you say "no issue" as long as the retailer will guarantee the warranty. Unluckily not all OL retailers are as good as OCuk to deal with (see next paragraph)!

Though if anyone cares to GOOGLE "hard drive grey import" you will see that the main manufacturers drives that get moans/complaints etc. re. warranty on grey imports, are Samsung drives. In fact I could only see Samsung mentioned in the first several pages that I skimmed! And pretty much all O/L retailers gets mentioned. I expect this is one of the reasons that Samsung drives have (in the past!) been among the cheapest to buy. Not like I'm complaining here.
 
Andrew Moore said:
Hello

Warranty is stipulated on the site so if it says 3 years then thats what you will get.

In cases we buy mixed stock so keeping the warranty up to date on the website is near impossible.
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None issue by the sounds of it
 
Andrew Moore said:
Hello

Warranty is stipulated on the site so if it says 3 years then thats what you will get.

In cases we buy mixed stock so keeping the warranty up to date on the website is near impossible.
Click to expand...

If I wanted to sell a grey import on, on the members market, will OCUK honour the warranty for the new owner.
 
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