Newegg: No, We'll Totally Take Returns After You Install Linux | Hacker News Reader

Newegg: No, We'll Totally Take Returns After You Install Linux

consumerist.com

192 pointsmayneack101 comments

It's a remarkable (to me) number of comments to the OP saying they're glad Newegg refunded the money and apologized, but they would still never buy from them.

Seems to me like Newegg acted quickly and unambiguously. The flip side of the "punish bad behaviour" coin is "reward correct behaviour". Maybe it was, as many commenters are suggesting, just the public shaming that got Newegg to act, but maybe not... in any event, it's not helpful to provide disincentives for companies to own up to mistakes.

There is a difference between "doing the right thing" because it is the right thing and doing it because the victim screamed loud enough. Some people will no doubt go back to using them, and more probably will if they are consistent about doing the right thing.

There is. But sometimes it's infinitely more important that the right thing got done than that the right thing happened in exactly the way we wanted it to.

Edit: we're not talking about romantic relationships here, we're just talking about corporations. Most of the time it's a-ok to coerce the correct behavior out of a corporation, they don't have to be our soul mates.

Doing the wrong thing (completely ignoring Norma) < doing the right thing for the wrong reason (RMA because of the bad publicity) < doing the right thing for the right reason (RMA because someone at NE screwed up) < doing the right thing in the first place (RMA when it was originally asked for)

Clearly Newegg is in one of the middle categories. Personally, I think as long as customers are taken care of it doesn't so much matter what the decision making behind it is.

I agree that the main point is customer service, not some abstract right thing, but waiting until they scream loud enough is not properly taking care of customers.

But what if that customer HAD to scream loud in order to to get things put right? If the customer rep truly believed that was the policy (whether is was or not) and you keep batting emails back and forth to them... they will not budge. So you have to go above their heads... I don't know the whole/original story but if it was me then I would have kicked up a fuss with Newegg and demanded a telephone call from a manager.

However, it (hopefully) means that everyone at Newegg is now aware of the correct policy and that we will not have this issue again. It also hopefully means that if there are similar issues in the future then clarification is sought before refusing a customer OR it is dealt with by someone more senior.

I don't think a one off incident where they put right should be looked upon so negatively... imagine someone judging humans in the same manner!

It's not helpful to provide incentives to companies who only own up to their mistakes after a brutal public shaming.

This seems to entail that it's helpful (or at least not harmful) to incentivize companies to ignore complaints. Because if there's nothing they can do to satisfy you, there's little point in them going to the trouble of dealing with you, is there?

No, but it's good to recognize they did the right thing eventually. This isn't "providing an incentive", it's showing them that good behavior is expected.

Anyone who has raised kids understands this basic psychology.

I've got two kids. You discipline your kids when they misbehave. You don't reward them for doing what they should have done in the first place.

What they need is a post-mortem and a transparent analysis of the situation posted on their website, similar to what Heroku did with their outage. If they can show that the reason why this occurred was because of a break in a process, and this process was fixed, then I wouldn't have any problems with Newegg.

If the refund was a one-off situation to quiet the public outcry, and they don't care about fixing their general problem, then why would I purchase something from a company that I lack confidence in?

I regularly buy things from Amazon even if it's a little bit more expensive because I've been using them since their inception, and I have 100% complete confidence in them.

Are you sure it's a "general problem"?

Just as much as fixes can be "one-off"s, so can problems. Is there a repeated pattern that I missed? If not, I'm not quite sure how one makes the leap to the generalization of this problem.

It's an issue if you're sending in your stuff to RMA and you have to rely on your luck as to whether they exchange it or not. As a customer I would want to know what the policy actually is. This issue comes at a delicate time where a lot of people feel they are stripped of simple ownership rights for their digital devices, left completely at the mercy of huge companies who have a vested interest in being unhelpful.

But that's just it – why do you jump to the conclusion that one must rely on luck? One mistake doesn't necessarily indicate a pattern.

I challenge you to name one retailer or other customer-facing that has never had a single problematic interaction with a customer.

The good companies are the ones that don't make it a pattern and the good companies are the ones that fix problems directly.

That's not the point, I think you're misunderstanding my post. Either there is an official policy in place regarding custom OS installs (=certainty) or not (=randomness). It's not about whether a shop has problematic interactions and unfortunate screw-ups happening, because that's a given. The issue at hand is more specific than that.

Ah, yes, I was misunderstanding. Thanks for humoring me.

I see your point (now =) and maybe this is a central enough issue that they should specifically state it as a affirmative clause or whatever, but their policy was pretty specific about the causes for returns being rejected and thus anything outside of that would be accepted, one would presume.

That's exactly what I was thinking. People appear to be making mountains out of mole hills! Looks like a one off, even I make the odd mistake every once in a while :D

The policy is listed and clear. They didn't honor the policy as it was written for whatever reason(bad/new support person?) and corrected the problem and upheld their policy, which doesn't forbid RMA if you install a different OS.

Why? Why is "we made a mistake, we're offering to fix it" not enough? What more could they say? Do you want the name of the rep who made the mistake? Do you want them fired? Neither one of these seems remotely reasonable, but I'm not sure what else you could want.

It was a simple human error. Customer service agent was wrong about the policy. It happens.

I agree that things happen, but I think people are often suspicious that a vendor is making life more difficult than necessary systematically on the supposition that "de jure" need not match "de facto".

Just a brief statement of intent and mechanism of the mistake would help in a public forum.

What more could they say? Do you want the name of the rep who made the mistake? Do you want them fired? Neither one of these seems remotely reasonable, but I'm not sure what else you could want. It was a simple human error. Customer service agent was wrong about the policy. It happens.

You are making an assumption that it was human error. If it in fact was human error, they could state that and say that they also searched their database for the words Linux to make sure this hadn't happened with other reps.

[Added]: They could then make a public statement about the amount of times it had happened and the total refund they issued. If it happened to 100 users at $1,000/per user, then they could issue $100,000 in total refunds. Further they could state that installing another operating system does not ever void the warranty.

>Why is "we made a mistake, we're offering to fix it" not enough?

Because I don't want to have to waste my time trying to drum up media attention when it happens to me.

>What more could they say?

Explain how this mistake happened in the first place, and what they are doing to prevent it from happening again. It doesn't help me that I may be able to publicly shame them into giving me an RMA. I want to know that I will, 100% for certain get an RMA without having to jump through hoops.

>It was a simple human error. Customer service agent was wrong about the policy

How do you know this? Who says it isn't policy to reject RMAs when another OS has been installed, and they only back down if someone creates a scene? Given those two possibilities, they need to demonstrate that it really was just a mistake, and that they are training their staff so it doesn't happen again. It isn't like this is an easy mistake to make.

>It was a simple human error. Customer service agent was wrong about the policy

How do you know this?

Personally, I know this because they've never given me a word of trouble on an RMA when I've done this, and Newegg's record is so staggeringly positive that I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.

It feels like you're making a mountain out of a molehill here (it sort of reads like you have an axe to grind about them, but I'm not going to accuse you of it without proof), but as far as I'm concerned, Newegg has the credibility to leave it at "we screwed up, it's fixed" unless it reoccurs.

>It feels like you're making a mountain out of a molehill here (it sort of reads like you have an axe to grind about them, but I'm not going to accuse you of it without proof)

That is an accusation, trying to backhandedly hide it behind "I'm not going to do exactly what I am doing right now" is just as disingenuous as people who say things like "not to be a dick, but ..." as they proceed to be a dick.

>but as far as I'm concerned, Newegg has the credibility to leave it at "we screwed up, it's fixed" unless it reoccurs.

That's wonderful for you. How does it follow then that everyone else should also just accept your belief in them on blind faith? The question was "why is this not good enough?". I explained why. Your personal lack of concern is not relevant, given that the question is addressed to people who are concerned. Your opinion does not negate others' and no amount of random people saying "I like them still" will address the actual concerns I pointed out.

Moving rapidly off-topic:

http://www.virtualsalt.com/rhetoric4.htm#Apophasis

I'm often surprised by discovering certain rhetorical devices that are old and widely spread enough to have their own name.

> That is an accusation, trying to backhandedly hide it behind "I'm not going to do exactly what I am doing right now" is just as disingenuous as people who say things like "not to be a dick, but ..." as they proceed to be a dick.

No, I'm saying that you sound like you have an axe to grind. I don't know if you do. Do you? Whether yes or no, your post still sounded like you did.

If I thought you had an axe to grind with them, with evidence, I'd have said so. Given your continued posting in the same tone it's difficult to tell whether you're just inherently hostile, have a general "business bad" mindset, or specifically dislike Newegg, but at this point it certainly does seem like you've got an axe to grind with somebody. Nobody acts like you're acting without at least some reason.

> That's wonderful for you. How does it follow then that everyone else should also just accept your belief in them on blind faith? The question was "why is this not good enough?". I explained why.

The standards you expect Newegg to reach are absolutely insane given their size and the triviality of this issue[1]--and that, given the very widespread amount of goodwill toward the company, that you're absolutely flying off the handle. And that the ridiculous standards you want them to meet are a large part of why it sounds like you've got a personal beef with them.

[1] - I mean, c'mon--as stated elsewhere in the thread, the original complainant went public while Newegg was dealing with the RMA appeal. They have a process if you think a RMA was denied in error (I've used it before, and they got it right). If they'd said no to that, I would give the complainant significantly more weight, but given that Newegg has a nearly-universally-positive public opinion in geek circles, it reads like a huge stretch to paint this as some gigantic failure rather than an individual issue of process. Getting the pitchforks and torches out before confirming malice is stupid.

>No

Yes. Again, pretending otherwise doesn't make it so. Allow me to demonstrate:

Man, you sure sound like a dumbass. Not that you are one or anything.

What is the purpose of that statement? It is only included to call you a dumbass. Just as saying "you sound like you have an axe to grind, but I'm not saying you do" serves no purpose other than to suggest that I do in fact have an axe to grind.

>Whether yes or no, your post still sounded like you did.

You interpret my post that way. My post is a simple statement, which isn't based on newegg specifically, but rather the general concept of "just saying oops isn't good enough, you need to explain how you are solving the problem". Your interpretation is colored by your own biases, just as everyone's is. So while you see me as someone who hates newegg, others may see me as a normal, reasonable guy, and you as an obsessed newegg fanboy, or a shill. Of course, the reality is probably neither of those. Pushing your bias on me serves no purpose other than to dismiss my opinion. You are welcome to dismiss my opinion, but you need not report to me every time you do so.

>The standards you expect Newegg to reach are absolutely insane given their size and the triviality of this issue[1]--and that, given the very widespread amount of goodwill toward the company, that you're absolutely flying off the handle.

The standard is in fact very low, and easy to meet. Explain what happened is not complex or difficult, regardless of company size. I am not familiar with newegg, so why would other people's goodwill make me feel comfortable dealing with them? And again, your bias is painfully loud here. I did not fly off the handle. I calmly answered a question with a very simple and reasonable answer. I would suggest that the many upvotes my post received indicates that a significant number of people do not share your perception.

>Getting the pitchforks and torches out before confirming malice is stupid.

There are no pitchforks or torches, again with the insane bias. I simply answered the question "why is this not good enough?". With the actual reason that I would not purchase something from a company that refused an RMA for an obviously bogus reason, and then just said "oops sorry" when there was a public outcry, but never bothered to explain what happened or how they are preventing it from happening in the future.

I agree. I've never had any problems with newegg, they were ahead of the game as far as shipping/order speeds for a long time, and the times I've had products that had problems they were replaced efficiently. Newegg has been the standard for computer gear since I started building machines, and I've never heard anything but praise for them.

>Who says it isn't policy to reject RMAs when another OS has been installed, and they only back down if someone creates a scene?

This is a valid concern. Their policy for return shipping is that the customer pays for return shipping on an RMA unless you ask a customer service agent for a free shipping label. If you ask, you get it, without any special requirements.

> Because I don't want to have to waste my time trying to drum up media attention when it happens to me.

You could just e-mail customer service with a link to this article.

Which is supposed to accomplish what? If they are actually refusing RMAs deliberately, then privately pointing out that they shouldn't isn't going to do anything.

But privately pointing out that "I know I can make a fuss like this guy so let's just save each other some time and cut to the point" very well might.

> How do you know this?

I don't. You are right that it could be policy. It just seems that the Occam's Razor explanation is human error.

I disagree about the ease of making the mistake. I think it is a very easy mistake to make. Customer service agents deal with tons of emails. They probably also deal with tons of emails where the customer has legitimately done something to warrant not taking the machine back (like say, dropping it in the bath tub). If you don't hear about Linux often (and most people don't), don't know the details of reinstalling OSes (something customer service agents are unlikely trained on), it's easy to think the customer has gone too far. You spend 2 minutes on the email (so you can get through them all), send it on its way and never give it a second thought.

I think it's an easy mistake to make because I make stupid mistakes all the time. Where I work, some users have a certain network path mapped as a drive letter and some don't. Yet even after making the mistake several times before, I still sometimes send emails to users who don't have it mapped referencing the drive letter instead of network path, only to hear back from them that my link doesn't work.

You want 100% certainty it won't happen again, but nothing is ever 100%. The best they can do is increase the number of 9's. Zero tolerance for errors simply doesn't work.

I will admit, however, that my tendency is to give the benefit of the doubt, so I could be biased here.

>You want 100% certainty it won't happen again, but nothing is ever 100%

No, I didn't say that at all. I want a reasonable assurance. Going "oops, nevermind" after a public outcry doesn't give me reasonable assurance. Saying "one of our support staff made an error, and we have decided to improve our training materials so that our support staff will know what an operating system is in the future" would give me reasonable assurance. And I would be totally fine with that, even though I have no way of knowing they actually did change their training. I would gladly give them the benefit of the doubt. The problem is not that I assume they are bad when they are trying to be good, it is that they are offering me no information at all, so I have to assume it would be risky to deal with them.

What about "one of our support staff made an error and we are doing absolutely nothing about it because stuff happens"?

That, to me, is what seems like the reasonable respond from Newegg, but I don't think anyone would want to hear that.

That wouldn't cut it for me, since I don't feel it is a reasonable mistake for support staff to be making. If you are hiring people to process RMAs, and they don't know what an operating system is, then I obviously can't put any faith in your RMA process. If its just "we hire clueless people and don't care" then all sorts of other legit RMAs can be rejected too. I don't have the time nor inclination to fight with a company over crap like that, so I just stick to ones where I know I don't have to.

http://consumerist.com/2012/06/so-does-installing-a-new-os-v...

It would appear that it was not a mistake. This is precisely why I need to hear a very clear "we messed up and are taking action to prevent it from happening again" rather than just "oops".

> wrong about the policy

In that case, it's interesting that they had RMA form boilerplate for the situation.

Exactly, that form did not seem if it had been written for that specific case but rather something they could select in the system for why they were returning the item.

Could DanielStraight or anyone link to the Newegg apology he's quoting, it doesn't appear to be in the article or linked from it?

Do you forget that Amazon basically deleted books from your Kindle (1984) ? It was ironic and it was in the news and they had pretty much the same response (we were sorry). For newegg its probably going to be the same way. People forget if its a one in a while.

I don't know about him, but for me that's one of the reasons why I still have no interest in a Kindle, or any DRM'd ebook platform. I give Amazon lots of money for other types of goods (~100-120 orders a year according to my invoice history... yikes), but not much for books any more.

"then I wouldn't have any problems with Newegg."

You sound like the person threatening to not fly an particular airline because of the surly behavior of the ticketing agent. Fact is you will fly the airline if the price is significantly cheaper than what competitors are offering or the schedule works for you etc.

Companies are in the business of making money. They don't need you they need everyone. The effect this will have on newegg is nominal.

News flash: In order to give low prices something has to give. While there may be a few outlier exceptions you can't be all things to all people. Price quality speed pick any two. It's not just a cliche.

HN readers seem to be very polarized in how they view things. Things are good or bad. Either you bogu to their every needs or they make a big fuss and want to be catered to.

Lastly, Heroku and newegg are two different companies catering to two different markets and customers although there is overlap.

[post-mortem and a transparent analysis of the situation]

talk about overboard. they apologized, is all, move one.

Maybe I'm just getting soft in my old age, or I'm lucky enough to only deal with decent retailers, but I've been in quite a few scenarios lately where the company had a choice to make me either a spiteful vocal detractor or a customer-for-life and they have made the customer-for-life choice.

The fact that it's hard to tell if the person you're screwing out of a refund has a few thousand twitter followers (I sure as hell don't) might be creating the right kind of pressure for customer service.

Newegg, you're still in the "customer-for-life" group.

Customer-for-life (until they fuck up)

It's also remarkable to me that Newegg would become the target of an internet lynch mob. I know dozens of IT professionals and Newegg has done right by all of us for years. I can't think of another hardware retailer that's gotten better word of mouth.

A company is allowed to make a mistake once in a while! This was resolved quickly and to the (internet loudmouth) customer's satisfaction. Let's give them credit.

Absolutely. I only order from Newegg if it at all possible. Their Returns Department is top notch.

Except, of course, when the returns department kicks the return back at you based on an apparent misunderstanding of policy.

Their Returns Department charges a 15% restocking fee, return shipping unless you ask for a prepaid label, and original shipping unless you raise a fuss. What do you consider bottom notch?

I guess I usually exchange instead of return. Also I use Shoprunner for free 2 day shipping and they provide free return labels.

So, I guess I really like Newegg + Shoprunner.

>in any event, it's not helpful to provide disincentives for companies to own up to mistakes.

This is why the 99%( particularly left ) have trouble creating political capital. The rabble of the mob doesn't always provide rational incentives.

As a counterpoint, Jews are able to swing states like Florida by block vote even though they represent a minority.

It just feels like them squashing bad press. They have rectified this specific instance. There is nothing from the linked article that indicates that Joe Normal won't have these or similarly silly problems in the future.

(I posted this earlier... this is a little off topic)

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/AsusZenbook#Suspend

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1774661

First off, I'm glad newegg will accept returns but we've got a HUGE problem in the linux community with these newer laptops. The problem isn't that newegg needs to accept our laptops but why these newer laptops are getting bricked by linux!

I want an ultrabook. I want something solid, fast, long battery life, great keyboard, great screen, lightweight and FLAWLESSLY running Debian. I can't buy that, I have to buy a MacPro. Yeah, my MacPro is nice and all (insert appletax joke) but I'd trade it in a HEARTBEAT for the equivalent running my distro of choice.

I don't think Ubuntu has ever claimed perfect support for those and I don't understand why Asus is not being held to the mat for not doing basic QA with at least one Linux distribution.

Anyway, when you buy hardware, do not just buy whatever looks nice but buy something confirmed to work for your use cases. If that use case is running OS X, get something which supports OS X. And same for Linux, too.

I don't understand why Asus is not being held to the mat for not doing basic QA with at least one Linux distribution.

Because there's no money in it.

A PC runs Windows. That's practically the definition of a PC. They're selling into a market that's like 90% Windows -- more like 99% if you filter out all the Macs. Their margins are razor thin. They can either do QA with Windows only at a certain cost x, or they can do QA with Windows and Linux at cost 2x and see almost no additional money for it.

OK. It is open season for saying that Linux is bad because your laptop doesn't support it. But if consumers decide that laptop manufacturers only need to support Windows, it should not be a shock when brand new laptops are made without good Linux support.

I can't even imagine how bad driver support would be in Windows or OS X if every single device driver had to be made by the same company selling the OS.

I can't even imagine how bad driver support would be in Windows or OS X if every single device driver had to be made by the same company selling the OS.

I can. That situation happened with OS/2 back in the early nineties. That's one of the big reasons why you don't hear about OS/2 anymore.

The whole point of the Ultrabook is to act as a viable Windows competitor to the Macbook Air. Linux doesn't even enter the picture.

To be fair, "FLAWLESSLY running Debian" is quite a tall order considering that Linux support for newer laptop drivers is typically pretty slow and even if the drivers exist, it's likely to have some wonkiness that kills the "FLAWLESSLY running Debian" qualifier.

I'm not a MBP owner, however, an OS running off of a variation of Unix is probably a huge boon in terms of Linux compatibility when compared to the other laptops out there made to run Windows.

Its also easier to support a distro that runs on 3 types of laptops of the same brand rather than 1000 variations of Wintel laptops.

I am in this ship too. I was looking forward to change my old macbook white for an ultrabook running some distro, but the reported software problems and some other problems specific to the utrabooks I tested (bad trackpad, etc) made me buy a new macbook pro. It was hard to me to resist to a great hardware allied with a good unix-based os.

It didn't work out of the box, but I have a UX31E and it works flawlessly now (meaning: it behaves exactly how I want it to, all peripherals work), with Debian testing.

I tend to treat the effort of making a new laptop work perfectly with a Linux distro as a one-off cost. If you're using the machine 10 hours a day for two years, spending three days on making it work right is barely noticeable.

In that vein, a friend of mine bought a Mac and spent a similar amount of time making it work flawlessly. That included buying software that minimises and tiles windows, figuring out that if you resume it with a large screen plugged it, the DPI will change and fonts on the laptop display will look weird and first googling and then working around this:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3336420?start=0&tst...

I'm sure someone with a new Windows laptop would spend a similar amount of time to make it work just right.

There are no silver bullets.

Fair point. On reflection my biggest problem isn't just tinkering, I don't mind that, but the fact that now when it fails it can fail HARD. That or it just wont have something supported (multi-touch, graphics, webcam)

It's good to know you got your zenbook working, I really like the keyboard and size on that laptop but the fact that I could brick it just makes me uncomfortable.

For what it's worth, I have the same laptop running just fine with Linux (Ubuntu) as well. My one complaint is that the keyboard is horrible. The responsiveness is well below that of any other keyboard I've used.

You can already get pretty close to this with a Thinkpad. I have a Thinkpad T420 and it runs Debian Wheezy flawlessly. Of course you will have to make some tradeoffs in the weight/battery life department because Linux isn't as good about battery life. However, I am able to get about 5hrs with an extended battery and it still feels lighter than a 13in Macbook Pro. You can also replace the CD/DVD drive with an extra battery if you want longer battery life without affecting weight much.

i have a t420 running arch, and am able to get 13 hours on idle and 10-12 doing work. posted something about how i did this here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3564400

Thanks for the tip. I always wondered what kind of battery life I could get if I tweaked things.

Your first link looks like a pretty bad situation. But there were similarly bad problems in the past too. My Dell laptop from 5 years ago had a hard drive that would basically go nuts under Linux, something to do with the timer telling it when to go into "sleep" mode not working so it switched back and forth constantly. If I hadn't noticed it sounded weird sometimes and taken action to fix it, it would have worn itself out within a year. It took a couple versions of Ubuntu before that bug got fixed by default.

And your second link basically seems to be "my somewhat nontypical graphics setup doesn't work in Linux", which is an age old problem.

This story somewhat mirrors a similar RMA experience I had with Newegg a year or two ago.

I bought several high-end Cisco access points. One needed to be RMA'd, so I boxed it up and sent it back.

The problem was that I inadvertently used the box from one of the working APs. The remaining boxes were discarded.

Newegg refused to take the RMA because the serial number on the box's label didn't match the serial number of the unit inside. All of the original parts were there, still sealed in the original plastic. The RMA'd unit's serial number was on the original invoice. The sticker on the box bore the same part number and was in every way identical to the three others that were shipped to me, but the box's serial number was apparently worth $600 and the RMA could not be processed without it. I escalated my issue through several levels of management, all of whom were insistent that there was nothing they could do.

I posted about my experience on a couple of reviews sites, and within 24 hours Newegg relented and agreed to accept the RMA, conditional on me removing my negative reviews.

In fairness, some manufacturers actually have the serial number requirement.

Nintendo was notably one of them in the past and so were some video card manufacturers.

Newegg didn't want to eat the cost of the return; and who can blame them?

When I handled returns for the electronics retailer I used to work for, if we didn't follow all of the procedures and meet all of the requirements for the return exactly, the manufacturer often wouldn't credit us for the return and would send it back.

On the other hand, sometimes we did eat the cost because the customer followed all the rules we told them about...

In my experience, Cisco generally isn't that kind of manufacturer.

Can someone clear this up for me? I'll quickly write what I understood:

A single person had Problems with an RMA because of Linux while everyone else is wondering why they never have problems getting and RMA after installing Linux. Signs lead to believe that it is a couple of bad apples at Newegg that are simply stupid/malicious.

Newegg says of course we do RMA for Linux and people talk about how Newegg changed their stance.

Now I can see how Consumerist maybe helped Norma. Maybe escalating it up the chain to the the point where you got an actual thinking human being might have worked as well, maybe that's hard to do, I don't know. But does't this whole thing seem to be totally blown out of proportions?

I had a similar experience with Newegg. I bought one of these shiny 13" uber-thin laptops from them about a year ago. The wireless card on that machine is useless (due to aluminum casing apparently). Exchanging with another model was almost impossible and I had to literally argue with a bunch of people on the phone to get the RMA. Not sure if I ever would buy anything from them again. Amazon on the other hand has been the best experience for me so far. Prime + Amazon, and the only thing I buy in person are groceries.

Freshdirect!

Difficulty of getting exchanges/refunds is a common feature of virtually all discount electronics stores. Their prices are low because they don't need to absorb as many unconditional returns as big-box stores do. (RMA? What's an RMA? Just return it within 30 days if you don't like the shape of the shift key or something.)

Newegg has always treated me right, even paid to ship a defective monitor back and shipped me a new one, zero hassle.

They may not be amazon-level customer service but they are up there.

If you get the wrong customer service person on the wrong day, anyone can have a bad experience.

And it only took a huge outcry...

It doesn't mean they're devious. More likely, it means somebody with more authority and more intelligence simply didn't know about the problem until there was a public outcry.

It means that they don't have/follow clear procedures, so it's a matter of luck if your request is processed this or that way.

It's a matter of luck, but given that I've literally never heard of anybody else having a poor experience with Newegg, they still compare favorably against most of the alternatives.

Now you've heard of anybody else. I didn't have a horrible, traumatic, life-scarring experience, but I did have a bad one:

* They advertised an item as a SAS/SATA RAID cage; I paid rush overnight shipping, only to discover it was actually SATA-only

* When I tried to return it, I was charged a $90 "restocking" fee for their mistake. Indeed, their invoices state "All refunds require a 15% restocking fee." That's not legal in Massachusetts.

* I was also left responsible for paying my own return shipping (until I complained). Not legal either.

* And the original shipping, for an item that's not as advertised. Probably not legal either.

* When they corrected all this, they gave me the "one time exception" bit - which implies that their policy is to charge me shipping even if they send me the wrong item.

Color me not very impressed - and in fact I've avoided buying from Newegg for over four years now.

https://gist.github.com/2927900

Looks like this approach is useful for more than just "google disabled my account that runs my legitimate business" cases.

How do you think the guys at Newegg feel about this? How would you feel if this was the norm for how your customers escalated their cases with your company?

Id try to make sure that there was never any such need for this kind of "escalation". Escalation means someone, somewhere, screwed up.

No, the customer just made a huge stink while their case was being reviewed and resolved.

Newegg didn't get to where they are by stonewalling RMAs as a matter of course -- quite the opposite.

I've never had anything but excellent experience with newegg. this whole things seems way overblown anyways.

It's not overblown if you're the one out the cash and still needing a new laptop.

Hmm... I have 31 purchases from newegg and returned 25 of those purchases with 0 problems. That's 80% return rate with 100% satisfaction.

I'm glad we hold companies accountable as consumers, but why do we focus on one employee's action without forgiveness? The issue was resolved, get over it. I'm tired of rant articles being posted to HN.

Wow, that flipped amazingly fast.

I'd imagine the intersection between "people who build their own computers" and "people who might install Linux" is pretty large.

A better choice in wording might be "comparatively large".

(As a portion of people who build their own computers, it is probably still not anywhere near a majority)

could it be somehow the linux display driver damaged that screen? while I use linux but I do think newegg has a point. A policy is a policy and newegg can not verify all those 100+ linux distro on the market.

Generally speaking you don't want a screen to break no matter what signals you put into it. It would really suck if a virus could actually destroy your computer.

True, but hardware failures are known to happen due to Linux misbehavior (yes, even today--it might happen with mainstream OSes but I've never heard about it).

I agree that ideally the hardware should be robust about it, but from a practical perspective it's a lot easier for a niche OS to fix their bugs than to get manufacturers to test those corner cases.

> True, but hardware failures are known to happen due to Linux misbehavior

[citation needed]

In the past, Linux was blamed for memory failure because it exposed bad memory when trying to make use of it, and Windows on the same machine didn't. But it was not Linux's fault.

Look elsewhere in this thread re: the Zenbook issues. They're mostly fixed now (maybe even entirely), but at one point it was possible to damage them with certain combinations of settings.

The Zenbook issue described in this thread does not damage the hardware; A proper reset (which unfortunately due to Zenbook construction requires disconnecting the battery, which is nontrivial) solves everything.

Right, which for a reasonable user does mean bricked, and is probably a cause to send it back to the OEM. Personally, if my hardware goes belly-up, I'm sending it back to somebody who's paid to fix it.

"I have to send it back to the OEM" is "damage" as far as I'm concerned.

In fact, the original IBM PC monochrome monitor had a horizontal sweep timing circuit driven completely by a video card register. If it were set too high, for example the motherboard switch was set wrong and it didn't tell the BIOS to initialize it, the monitor could be burned out.

PC Magazine printed a rumor of a virus that tried to or actually did (can't remember) burn someone's house down.

Nice, but am I the only one who is tired of the phrase "reaching out"... only thing worse being "curate".

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