

Newegg: No, We'll Totally Take Returns After You Install Linux - mayneack
http://consumerist.com/2012/06/newegg-no-well-totally-take-returns-after-you-install-linux.html

======
rfrey
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.

~~~
steve8918
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.

~~~
DanielStraight
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.

~~~
papsosouid
>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.

~~~
eropple
_> 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.

~~~
papsosouid
>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.

~~~
eropple
> 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.

~~~
papsosouid
>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.

------
x1
(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.

~~~
slurgfest
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.

~~~
bitwize
_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
2 _x_ and see almost no additional money for it.

~~~
slurgfest
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.

~~~
bitwize
_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.

------
dpifke
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.

~~~
binarycrusader
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...

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

------
Semaphor
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?

------
sourc3
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.

~~~
prezjordan
Freshdirect!

------
ck2
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.

------
Karunamon
And it only took a huge outcry...

~~~
TallGuyShort
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.

~~~
miahi
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.

~~~
praxulus
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.

~~~
jaylevitt
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>

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

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

------
dpres
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.

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

------
forkrulassail
Wow, that flipped amazingly fast.

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

~~~
sliverstorm
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)

------
xxiao
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.

~~~
Symmetry
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.

~~~
eropple
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.

~~~
beagle3
> 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.

~~~
eropple
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.

~~~
beagle3
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.

~~~
eropple
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.

