- Warranty available in: Amazon Page says 1 year warranty, however on this forum and other spaces there has been a debate about no warranty on Thrustmaster products. But, as Amazon says 1 year warranty and you have a legit invoice from Amazon, I guess something can be figured out, so it is difficult to comment if warranty is available in India or how it has to be claimed, just in case. If anyone has deeper knowledge/experience on the subject, please feel free to chime in
Hey, registered just to reply to this. Since there's no Thrustmaster service centre in India, seller is responsible for dealing with warranty issues.
In case you face any issues, you'll have to contact Thrustmaster's support first on their website. They'll have you do some tests to make sure it's a hardware and not a software issue. If it's the former, they'll send you a mail saying you have to return it to the seller you bought from (Amazon refers to this as Service Denied letter). Here's my experience with a set of flight sim hardware
RMA 1: When Cloud Tail was owned by Amazon:-
Opened a ticket on Amazon, uploaded Invoice, P-slip (downloaded from your Amazon orders page) and screenshot of "Service Denied" letter from TM support. Amazon's technical team accepted the return for request easily enough, however this was during a lockdown last summer so I asked them to delay the pickup date until it was lifted.
Item was picked up, and refund processed in a few days. I placed an order for another set.
RMA 2: When Cloud Tail split from Amazon:-
The second set lasted 4-5 months I think, the potentiometers went bad again. Searching online, tons of people seemed to have the same problem. It wasn't a defective piece or quality control problem. They just use crappy potentiometers that will go bad in a few months and you have to do the RMA dance again.
As before, I contacted TM support, got the "Service Denied" letter [Dec, 2021]
Opened a ticket with Amazon. They tell me about the split and send me off to Cloud Tail
I emailed cloudtail, and they ask for all the documentation again, they say they will revert in a few days
A month goes by with no reply from CT, even after me emailing them again. Finally they say Amazon will handle this return, not them
I reopen a ticket on Amazon. This time they give me the runaround, saying this document is missing, that screenshot is blurry, just BS reasons basically
And keep in mind that each reply from them will take
5 business days (1 week actual)
, and you're supposeed to call them back.
And each time, you get to a different person and have to explain the entire history of your reason for return, and then they say they will call back after 5 more days (1 week actual), but not once did the call actually come.
After 3-4 months of this, I got fed up of all this. Called them "after 5 days" and the guy had the audacity to ask me to explain everything again.
Also note that I asked them repeatedly to email me a sumamry after each interaction, and not once did they actually do that: essentially they leave no paper trail of the phone/chat conversations
I declined to jump through their hoops, told him that I was recording the call, and to connect me to a supervisor.
Supervisor got on the phone, informed him that I was recording the call, asked her why this was taking so long, she blames the "technical team", ands asks me to call back after
5 more days ™
I told him in no uncertain terms that I will not be calling them again. He's got 24 hrs to refund before I would approach the consumer court, and hung up
And those were the magic words that put them into action. Next day I get a message from Amazon saying my refund has been initiated and should reflect in my bank a/c.
Spoiler: the refund didn't show up in my a/c after 3 days
Called them again, spoke to a supervisor, she was like go ask your stupid bank where the money went, we have sent it so our job is done.
I was like, ok, give me a transaction reference number and I will follow up with the bank on that basis.
Silence.
I ask again and she said she was not able to give that info.
She was still adamant that the bank was at fault.
I'd run out of patience at this point, so I told either give me the transaction number right now, or I'm going to a lawyer straight away and filling a case of fraud against Amazon.
Lo and behold, I get another message from Amazon that my refund was initiated and this time I confimed it with my bank <24 hrs later [Mar/Apr 2022]
TLDR:
Don't buy ThrustMaster products, or
other brands that don't have service centre in India, like Sabrent (they asked me to ship it to US to claim warranty, and I would have to bear shipping charges both ways lol)
Don't be afraid to threaten Amazon customer care you'll approach Consumer Court/Forum/INGRAM
Don't wait beyond a week or two for your refund to show up from the seller.
Follow through on your threat, they just want to hang on to your money, interest free, for as long as possible. [No transaction number = no refund. Do not be lenient towards them]
