Newegg Apologizes for Reselling Broken Motherboard and Refusing Refund, Enacts New Policies for “Hassle-Free” Returns of Open-Box Items

Tsing

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Newegg has shared a letter on Twitter advising its followers of new return policies for select open-box merchandise following a huge customer service fail.



The PR disaster was prompted by GamersNexus’ Steve Burke, who recently returned a GIGABYTE Z490 AORUS XTREME motherboard that, despite never being opened, was rejected by Newegg for being damaged. Following some drama between both parties and an eventual refund, it was later discovered that the motherboard was actually an open-box product with bent pins.



Newegg has apologized for the “unintentional” and “isolated” incident by setting forth new policies that will make returning open-box motherboards and CPUs less of a hassle. The company also stressed that customer satisfaction and integrity are at the core of its business.



Customer Service Update...
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It's too bad they really screwed this one up. But better on them to remedy it. I've had nothing but the best luck every time dealing with Newegg. I can't remember any order that was damaged or got messed up. And I'd order from them without hesitation.
 
I haven’t stopped entirely but I have significantly backed off what I order from there - they have become my vendor of last resort since they were bought out a few years ago.

I have had hard drives shipped bare just wrapped in bubble wrap thrown in a box. I’ve had opened/returned products shipped to me as new. I haven’t had issues with returns fortunately but that could be because I don’t buy much to return anything lately.
 
Ditto on the hard drives rattling in a box. I don't order hard drives from them any more. Other stuff, sure.

The whole GN drama is so screwed up it's almost funny. The refused RMA sticker on the mobo from Gigabyte was icing on the cake. Someone screwed up at Newegg, whether by policy or personal fault. But the fact that this happened to someone with an established channel and audience, that's just comical.
 
Brian_B said:
Sad part are the reports of other people having this happen as well, and that it took someone with a high profile to affect a change.
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Every company makes mistakes and you only need one guy who does not care when doing his job to have stuff like this happen, that does not mean the company as a whoole is rotten. They would be out of business pretty fast if that is how they conduct business.

Steve from GN blew this way out of proportion, worst of all he is pissed he can't get them on the phone and when they do call him he blows them off saying they should send him an E-mail like they wanted him to do, way to show them who is the bigger man.

I once ordered and SSD from a local E-tailer here, and got an empty SSD box, called them up, they were going to check it and get back to me the next day. Not even a couple hours later I get a call saying they found out what happened and sent me a replacement shipment, that's how is should work, but for bigger companies like Newegg that might be a bit harder to do.

And we all know there are enough customers who try to screw over the seller too.
 
Brian_B said:
I haven’t stopped entirely but I have significantly backed off what I order from there - they have become my vendor of last resort since they were bought out a few years ago.

I have had hard drives shipped bare just wrapped in bubble wrap thrown in a box. I’ve had opened/returned products shipped to me as new. I haven’t had issues with returns fortunately but that could be because I don’t buy much to return anything lately.
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That's been me. I used to order almost everything from them exclusively with my purchases dropping to being occasional at best. For one thing, they haven't generally competed well with Amazon or Microcenter on pricing. Secondly, I'd almost be willing to spend more to get things from retailers I trust more than Newegg as its reputation has been in the ****ter for some time.

I do buy from Newegg occasionally, but I don't buy big ticket items from them. I'll be damned if I'm going to order a $700 motherboard from them and get broken pins or something and not be able to return it. I'm just not willing to roll the dice on that.
 
Last thing I got from Newegg was shipped by a company with a horrible rep. Fortunately, it worked out in my case.

I stick to MC and Amazon these days
 
Microcenter and Amazon have been my Go to for a while. Ever since Newegg started obfuscating sellers and acting as a middle man for 3rd parties I lost interest. At least Amazon stands behind their product deliveries on the side of the customer for the most part.
 
Grimlakin said:
Microcenter and Amazon have been my Go to for a while. Ever since Newegg started obfuscating sellers and acting as a middle man for 3rd parties I lost interest. At least Amazon stands behind their product deliveries on the side of the customer for the most part.
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I like to give MC business, for sure. But there are times (cough Covid cough) where I do not want to go to busy stores and hang out with tons of random people unless necessary.

I understand why MC does the "in store only" on stuff like CPUs and GPUs.... they want your butt in the store and you'll probably buy other things while you're there. But that doesn't exactly make it convenient in an age where I can order shampoo and cat litter online and have it the next day at my doorstep.
 
MC does curbside. I usually reserve online and wait for the it's ready email. In and out most times
 
I haven't seen any of GN's videos on the matter yet, but a friend who informed me about this issue showed me this breakdown of what initially happened:
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And then this: https://i.redd.it/q25n77n7uph81.png
So yeah I still need to watch the videos to see what actually went down.

Like some of you, Newegg used to be the place where I bought most of my PC stuff, and now I rarely use them. Amazon and Micro Center have been getting most of my business for the last several years. Newegg got bought out by that shady-@ss company (Chinese I think) a while ago, and a few years ago they had some very anti-consumer practices. I remember one winter holiday season they were not accepting a single return, which pissed off a lot of people. I haven't followed them too closely in the past few years. I still get emails from them, but aside from that, their name is no longer really on my mind. I did however buy a Samsung C27HG70 monitor from them in 2020 when I could not find any decent 27" 1440p high-refresh-rate monitors in stock at most places. I didn't feel comfortable about that. The monitor ended up failing on me, but Newegg just replaced it with another new unit (which thanks to the Samsung panel lottery ended up being better than the one I returned). I eventually sold that monitor.

I still feel the height of Newegg was back in the days when I was reading reviews of stuff like the Radeon 9700 Pro and 9500 Pro and GeForce FX series on [H]. When THG was still a decent site, and FiringSquad was still around. Back then Newegg used to use FedEx by default, and packages always arrived early. If a package came on time, that was considered "late." I remember cuz one year I had a new graphics card coming in, and it was supposed to arrive after my college finals were over. Instead it arrived a few days before that. I knew I was screwed, cuz there was no f*cking way I would be studying with a shiny new Radeon 9500 Pro to replace my GeForce 2 Pro. That semester didn't end so well. I gave no f*cks though, I was having a blast with that card.

Anyways, I miss classic Newegg. I will always remember the good times. I really used to enjoy getting stuff from there.
 
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