Asus US Headquarters
800 Corporate Way,
Fremont, CA 94539
I've never wrwith Asus customer service was so very
appalling that I have decided to waste my time on a letter.
It started with the
tell-tale sign of doom with the voice of one thickly non-English-speaking
individual struggling to comprehend a language as ridiculous as English. Kudos
to him for speaking English far better than I speak Spanish, but in the end
communication is frustrating when trying to explain complex technological
issues and the words do not seem to be getting through.
As an example, I
started the conversation by explaining that my Sabertooth 990FX motherboard
will reset 3 times prior to completing POST. He, of course, heard that my motherboard
would not POST at all. He asked me to do things in Windows which I explained
maybe 3 times that it would have zero impact since it is not getting to the
point of even trying to load Windows. I proved this by unplugging all my hard
drives and the problem remained. I spent over an hour, shoot, maybe 2,
troubleshooting this thing when he finally agreed to give me an RMA. He asked
for my S/N but, of course, it's nowhere to be seen on my board and he has
absolutely no clue where it ought to be. He offers that it is likely on the
backside of the motherboard which means I have to tear it all apart and drain
my water-cooling system to get the information.
Before doing this, I
want to get an idea of expectations. What will happen? He says they will try to
repair it and, if not, if they have it in stock, they will send me a
replacement. I asked if they had it in stock. He said he can't tell me without
the S/N. I asked what would happen if they did not have another in stock
(since, by now, I'd place money on them not finding the problem). He tells me
that he doesn't know. Doesn't know? There's no contingency for following
through with the warranty if they have none in stock? I assume that they would
probably exchange it with a comparable motherboard, but he could certainly not
offer that assurance.
So I sit on it for a
while because I don't want to rip my computer apart for no reason.
Unfortunately, my computer also has some funny behaviors which, given the POST
resets, makes me think something is wrong with the motherboard. Problems remain
after a complete reformatting of the computer. Must be hardware and I've
already ruled out all the other hardware.
I finally take it
apart and to my shock and horror, there is no S/N on the back of the
motherboard. Nothing. Nada. I call up Asus once again and get a similarly
lacking individual in the ways of communication. I start by explaining to him
that my motherboard is IN MY HAND and has no S/N written anywhere on it but
that I need an RMA which I was promised after some hours of troubleshooting.
He, of course, has no more clue where the S/N is than the previous guy and
begins trying to troubleshoot my motherboard. I explain once again that it is
no longer a part of a computer but rests alone in my hand so I cannot troubleshoot
further and that I've already endured such torture. Unshaken by this, he asks
me to remove the motherboard from my computer as if he's heard nothing of what
I've said.
After hitting my head
a few times on the desk in front of me and getting zero assurances for anything
regarding getting it fixed and what might happen to it, I finally find the S/N
in a nice little hiding spot only visible from the position of a head being
smashed flat on a desk. It's a sticker on the freaking SIDE of a PCI-E port.
Not visible from top-down view. Why make it easy, right? Had I placed a mirror
on the bottom of my case, I could maybe have read it while it was still
connected with all the components. Alas, I share this good news with him and he
tells me something ridiculous like the 12th letter needs to be an M. I grit my
teeth in frustration and I offer that the 3rd letter is an M, but he assures me
that it must be the 12th. Nearly giving up, I allow him to put in an RMA
without it, but I press further. "No, this must ABSOLUTELY be the S/N. It
says right on it that it's for my exact motherboard and I could have sworn that
the previous guy told me that the 3rd letter needed to be M and not the
12th." He then asks me if the 3rd letter is M to which I assure him, as I
did the previous 3 times, that it was. He then accepts it as the S/N as if
that's what he said all along.
Fine. Whatever.
Finally got the S/N. He can now tell me definitively that there are none in
stock. Asking him what will happen to it then if they cannot fix it, he assures
me that he has no freaking clue. Wonderful. More assumptions. And guess what?
They don't cover my shipping charges. So now I have to ship it just to find out
what they might do with it.
I take the plunge. I
go to ship it only to find out they want $50 for it. That's 1/3 the cost of the
motherboard new... I go and find my own packaging materials and find that I can
now send it for $16. Still, a hefty price for shipping, but still a bit smaller
cost than a new motherboard so I accept the charge and ship it off.
However long later, I
receive an email addressed to "Shawn Lordin" despite having SPELLED
my name as "Sean Lauren" to the guy on the phone AND having written
it on the RMA. They are returning my motherboard. They found nothing wrong.
Quickly, I grab a
phone. "What the heck is this?" I ask the new non-English-speaking
person. The email said that I had claimed that the motherboard didn't POST
(which is not what I wrote, but hey, let’s be consistent with not listening to
me). It POSTed for them, of course, as it does for me, so they're returning it.
They didn't even call me for clarification. The guy, of course, apologizes for
this "inconvenience" and replies astoundedly that they wouldn't have
called me. He thinks I should “trust them” that they’d have noticed the
resetting if it were truly there for them. Yeah, Asus as built so much trust in
my eyes thus far! They got the symptom wrong and simply shipped it back with no
questions asked. I asked him to cancel the shipment. Too late, of course,
despite it not being in the shippers system. He tells me they've already picked
it up. The email told me they'd be shipping soon, but who'd have thunk it'd be
a mere matter of minutes? I ask him to cancel it. He says he can't because it's
not in the system. I ask him to wait until it IS in the system and then cancel
it. He says he cannot cancel it once it's in the system either. Absolutely
nothing they can do.
I ask for a manager
and go through the whole thing all over again. He can't help me either. He
offered that I can reject the package or open a new RMA once I get it. Well
shoot, if I just reject it, will anyone manage it or would it just sit in a
warehouse with people wondering why it came back? Suddenly, he changes gears
and tells me that I cannot reject the package. Instead. I must test it when I
get it back to see if the problem is still there and, if so, create a new RMA.
Are you freaking kidding? Test it again? Hook it all up, fill the system with
water, and everything? They did nothing to it and they want me to test it
again. I've already tested it multiple times. If the problem disappeared
without doing anything to it, that doesn't mean its fixed suddenly and they are
out of responsibility for correcting it. It means that there is some kind of
problem which is now hidden and will resurface in the near future probably
AFTER my warranty expires.
After explaining this
5 different times, with him continually telling me to test it again, I ask for
a new RMA now so that I can write it on the box and reject the package to save
my shipping that they wasted. He offered, of course, to refund the shipping IF
I TEST IT and the problem is still there. New holes appear in my desk and
perhaps new cracks in my forehead. After arguing and getting nowhere for far
too long, I have simply given up. Asus and AMD used to be my go-to products.
Absolutely not anymore. I have never had such a terrible experience with
warranty or customer service before. Absolute rubbish. Crap products, crap
customer service, and crap promises. I am most certainly avoiding these names
for all future builds and I am quite disgruntled that I recently made my newest
3 computers with AMD processors and Asus boards. Never again. I updated my
computer with a new ASRock $50 motherboard which works perfectly fine and an
Intel i7 processor. Computer now boots in a matter of seconds when before it took
almost a full minute despite having a $150 motherboard and an AMD 8-Core FX-8120
processor. Absolute junk.
I highly recommend you
guys get your customer service and warranty process under control especially if
you're going to rely on sub-par products to keep you alive. I’ve built around
10 systems with you guys, entirely unaware of what I was missing because of it.
Never again.
Pissed off,
Former AMD/Asus Fanboy
No comments:
Post a Comment