RMA Problems *NOT OCUK*

[Psyoletic]

Good Evening All,

A certain Bolton competitor is giving me a serious headache with an RMA.

I purchased a Inno3D GTX480 in June 2010 for £375.99 which came with 2 year warranty. This February the card began to cycle once the nVidia driver is installed and I began the RMA process with the competitor company.

The manufacture is in Hong Kong and the cost of post would be silly amounts and rather it be sent so far away off my own back I thought it would be easier if this competitor honoured the warranty and dealt with issue themselves, which they did unfortunately.

Now the RMA process was started on 10/02/2012 which was 62 days ago today. I emailed them at least once a week for an update on the RMA and all I ever got was "We will contact you once we have an update for you" and within the past couple of weeks is were the trouble started.

I got advice on the situation and I was told that a company is within right to repair or replace in a reasonable time of 28 days after that a refund of some sort. I've mentioned this to them and at the time it had been 56 days and I have neither a confirmed replacement, repair or refund and I would like either of the three options as lets be honest they're 28 days beyond the reasonable turn around.

Present date, I received an email this morning and is as follows:

HI

Further to your mail, we have been unable to get a repair / replacement within this time. The card is currently with our suppliers and I do not yet have a an exact date that this will be resolved. As such we can offer a refund taking into account usage and depreciation, the refund works out at £53.33

Please reply directly to this mail.

Regards

############
##################

Soon as I received this email I rang up the RMA department and this is what I was told.

The value given £53.33 is what the competitor believes the GTX480 is currently worth in Market Value using this formula.

Product Value at Time of Purchase divide by Amount of Warranty Product Has then multiply the Amount of Warranty Left.

With this formula I am entitled to £62.66 but wait, they don't include VAT so the grand total is £53.33

Now something is seriously wrong here, if I could replace the GTX480 with £53.33 I would buy two of them and SLI them but that's not the case. The case is that market value of a GTX480 is roughly around £140? So that means I need to fork out another £100 to replace the card now that's warranty and service at its best right?

I smelt a rat somewhere so my friend rang up trading standards whilst I was on the phone to monkeys on my behalf.

The trading standards women said and I quote;

"The partial refund can not be calculated on the manufacture warranty period and must be calculated on the deemed reasonable time period in England which is 6 years use, age and condition much be taken into account when calculating a refund."

The phone's close at 6PM so I couldn't get back to them in time as I busy today but I did send them another email with these facts and I await a reply.

Where am I to stand with this? Frankly I feel out of my depth as I've never had to deal with this situation before but I am in no mood for being fobbed off and if this company is breaking the law or particular legislation how can I go about solving this? All I want is another GTX480 or the equivalent next generation card, nothing more. I don't want thousands out of them just a simple resolution.

Thank you for reading this and I appreciate every comment and help towards solving this petty situation.

Sincerely,
Psyoletic

 

[Psyoletic]

Said competitor have a 480 (EVGA) in stock at the £180 mark. That's what it would cost for you to replace your product with a like for like replacement, so that's what I'd want off of them.

Alternatively I'd happily take a 'like for like' replacement if they would allow it. Now technically I think you can get away with things like a 580, however realistically as performance is so close I'd happily take a 570. If I was at a relatively short period of time into the RMA, I'd probably push it based on VRAM limitation, but considering your point I might take a 570....

Go speak to trading standards again, get them involved, make the company aware that you're getting the, involved, and I believe they'll advise you to write some kind of letter.

kd

As if I browsed the internet for similar situations it seems a GTX580 is the replacement of choice from many manufactures and Inno3D themselves have replaced GTX480's with GTX580's.

Tomorrow I will give them options and lets see which one they take!

Frankly I don't think that's true. Some things cannot reasonably be expected to last for 6 years.

In the PC consumer market I do believe it is 6 years which was introduced couple years ago.

you should demand proof the card was even sent back to the manufacturer and the current status of the request

Looking at the RMA Returns tracker the card has been at the suppliers a week after I sent them the card. I was told in many emails that they're waiting for the manufacture when all this time it was sitting somewhere in England.

 

[Psyoletic]

So Psyoletic isn't the original purchaser of the card from new then?

That changes the complexion of the matter somewhat as he has no contract with the retailer.

This matter needs to be approached with great care as the retailer would be within their rights to tell him to "go away".

I didn't put the information in as I was already discussing matters with the original buyer. You know I'm not trying to scam the scammers all I want is a GTX480. Even if they're willing to compromise and hand over the partial refund I'd quiet happily settle for the price of a GTX480 which they in stock at £184.98 .

All I want, is a GTX480...