Review evga denying RMA for frivolous reasons

[Xanthor]

My trusty 9800GT died a while back and I decided to RMA it. The official distributors declined to honour the Lifetime warranty offered on the product because thats just what customer support in India is; once its sold nobody gives a damn about the customer.

I approached evga via their support website and was told that Lifetime Warranty was available in the USA and that I would have to send in the card to them in the USA to claim warranty. I was pleased that evga cares enough to honour their warranty even though their local distributor had refused to do his job and sent the card, packed securely to their RMA center through a friend in the US.

Imagine my surprise when I received this email from them

Dear Raunaq Rupani,

EVGA has received the following RMA shipment and has placed it on hold:

Part Number: 512-P3-N976-AR
Serial Number: <blanked out>
RMA#: <blanked out>

The reason for the hold is:

Repair fee is due for replacement of screws, cleaning of the card and severe rust/oxidation/corrosion across several of the resistors on the card, also severe rust on the DVI ports requiring replacement. Please reply to this email if you have any questions or documentation we may have missed.

Please see the attached photos of the product as received by EVGA.

Required Action:

Repair fee is due for replacement of screws, cleaning of the card and severe rust/oxidation/corrosion across several of the resistors on the card, also severe rust on the DVI ports requiring replacement.

We request that you contact us within 5 business days of the receipt of this email to dispute the damage to the product. Please keep in mind that if your RMA was a cross shipment your refund will have the repair fee deducted once the refund is processed. If this is an Advanced RMA the credit card on file will be charged for the repair fee automatically after the 5 business day period has ended.

We understand that accidents can happen, but unfortunately physical damage is not covered by our warranty. Please see our warranty terms available at EVGA Warranty and if you feel that this damage was caused during shipping we recommend contacting your shipping courier for assistance. If you would like to discuss this damage further please contact Jayson Cane at 1-888-881-3842 extension 5073 or reply to this email. Please allow 1-2 business days for a response.

You may check the status of your RMA and pay the damage/repair fees at anytime by logging into your EVGA.com account. Once logged in to your account please visit OPEN RMAs to make payment for the damages. All payments will be processed within 1 business day to allow for the RMA to complete processing.

If you have any questions or concerns, please include them in your reply to this email and I will do my best to further assist you.

Sincerely,
EVGA Damage Support
rma@evga.com

The TL;DR version is that "We found some rust/dust/oxidation on your card and now we want $65"
They say this counts as physical damage and requires me to pay for repairs. The amount they demand is probably twice the current value of an equivalent card.

I have currently sent my reply to them via email and the reply is as below.

Dear Jayson,
I have been a long time evangelist cards and motherboards, I have recommended evga to friends and family because I find your products functionally superior and your after sales support fantastic.
I am flummoxed by this email asking me to pay a value that is greater than the present market value of the card itself that too for a reason that is frankly ridiculous. It seems to me that you are simply trying to palm of responsibility under frivolous pretenses.

This card has not been abused in any way and has been running in a closed system for the duration of its life. I cant see why I am being blamed for the formation of rust or any such other depositions. The card worked fine until it started throwing up artifacts and I dont see how rusted screws and dust is any excuse for denying someone warranty.

Unless you can come up with any real physical damage caused by mishandling I dont see why I should be asked to pay for repairs. If anything, the rusting of screws and oxidation is caused by the use of inferior materials by evga, leaking capacitors will often release chemicals that will cause oxidation, and rusted DVI ports and Screws can hardly be attributed to me doing anything wrong, perhaps the coating on the ports and screws was simply affected by the humidity in the air. Please explain to me how rust is something that can be blamed upon me? I have done all that is within my power to ensure that the card was handled with the utmost care and I even placed silica packets inside the case to keep the environment dry.

None of these "damages" to the card can be attributed to anything that I could have possibly done to the card.

I hope we can resolve this soon, I love evga and the products you make and would like to be a long term member of the evga owner community.

Regards

The TL;DR version of the email is that I think they are trying to wash their hands of responsibility because the card is old and it will cost them money to replace it. Formation of rust on screws and DVI ports is hardly something that can be blamed on the user. Surely rusted screws cannot cause a card to fail.

The story is developing and I would like to keep the community clued in; I know a lot of people who swear by evga and have recommended evga cards to a lot of friends here on TE and in person. I'd like to share my experience with the brand so they can make better buying decisions.

Below are the photos they sent as "Proof"

 

[ViKiD]

To be honest, the card does seem to be in pretty bad shape. Another thing is that the oxidation isnt just on the screws, it all over the board.

And the reason why they are kinda whining about the whole oxidation thing, is because in the US, in most of the sates, there isnt as much humidity as in India, factors like this are probably the reason why they dont offer lifetime warranty in India.
Also i think your friend much have already spent 1/4th the current value of the card on shipping the card to them.
And i think i remember seeing somewhere that they dont cover oxidation and/or damage due to natural causes under warranty (probably when i bought my GTX680's). Let me see if i can dig it up.
Please dont get me wrong, im not trying to defend EVGA. Im just saying that from the looks of it, your better off just getting a new card, if EVGA refuses to replace it for free.

 

[m-jeri]

Yea. Even i feel the same. The card looks in a awful state. At least cosmetic. You should pay the 65. And get a upgraded card if possible .

 

[6pack]

How old is the card? Its looks like it was submerged in water for a long time by the looks of it. I have a 15 year sound card that is in better shape than this even though I stay in a highly humid environment all throughout the year.
Also, you didn't even remove the dust from card and fan and sent it as is?

You get that corrosion on computer parts if you don't clean the dust off every few months. The layers of dust attracts humidity and moisture in air corrodes the metal.

No wonder the evga guys are complaining about the condition.

 

[Xanthor]

The card is about 5 years old, its been in my case the entire time. I live near the shore so the humidity here is just awful. It hasnt come in contact with water at any point.
The card was put into the box it came in for a good 6 months after it died before finally being shipped off to the US to be replaced.

All points taken into consideration, I come away from this feeling like rusted screws and oxidation that I have little or no control over shouldnt be a reason to deny warranty.

 

[vaibhavyagnik]

yup. pretty corodded. On the other hand, why not use SS screws?

 

[pr0ing]

The card looks in a pretty bad shape. Try to find a compromise with EVGA and see if you can get an upgrade for some discount.
How are the other PC components/Electonic Equipments? Any problems with the TV etc? Do you use a de-humidifier?

 

[Xanthor]

Everything else shows no signs of deposition or corrosion. The motherboard and RAM are a little newer than the card, they're not showing any corrosion/ blackening of contacts.

The only part that seems to be affected by the humidity is the heatsink, my tuniq tower 120 has a few fins with the paint falling off.

 

[adder]

Next time atleast clean the PC once in 6 months.
I stay around 360KM away from the nearest shore and i clean my pc every 3 months.

 

[Lord Nemesis]

All points taken into consideration, I come away from this feeling like rusted screws and oxidation that I have little or no control over shouldnt be a reason to deny warranty.

Alright, going by your logic, lets say you were outside and it suddenly started raining and you were drenched and your mobile got damaged due to water going in. Do you think the manufacturer will fix it on warranty? Do you think its fair to ask the manufacturer to fix it because the rain was beyond your control?

How did you know for sure that the rusted screws and oxidation were also not responsible for the card going bad? Loose Rust particles could easily cause a short circuit.
If you think that rusting was due to circumstances beyond your control, why do you think that its the manufacturers responsibility to take care of it? It is beyond their control are well don't you think?
Warranty is offered on the basis that a product will work fine within normal working conditions and any failure in the normal course of operation will be covered by them. Most products even put their the products normal operating conditions like temperature and humidity levels, electrical parameters etc.
There are many factors that are beyond our control, but it does not mean that when things goes bad because of circumstances beyond your control, it is up to the manufacturer to take responsibility for it. If you have an environment that is corrosive, why should they take responsibility for it.

 

[Xanthor]

Warranty is offered on the basis that a product will work fine within normal working conditions and any failure in the normal course of operation will be covered by them. Most products even put their the products normal operating conditions like temperature and humidity levels, electrical parameters etc.
There are many factors that are beyond our control, but it does not mean that when things goes bad because of circumstances beyond your control, it is up to the manufacturer to take responsibility for it. If you have an environment that is corrosive, why should they take responsibility for it.

You make a fair point about warranty being applicable for products used in normal working conditions. evga has replied suggesting that they could adjust the repair fee and I am hoping the product offered in lieu of the card is of sufficient value to make the transaction one that makes economic sense. Will update once something concrete happens.