No, I have a different complaint. Not exactly a complaint, more like bit of commentary about the expectations of people and misleading statements by alleged experts. Since I am an alleged expert on various things, I feel very qualified to pontificate on this particular subject.
Warranties and replacement parts and so on...
In the about to be mentioned Consumer Alert column from the Boston Globe, the alleged expert is discussing warranties and expectations. Let me quote something from the column, something that I am about to do some commentating on...
It is probably more common than not these days to find warranties that allow the manufacturer to replace a defective unit under warranty with either a new one or a refurbished one. Is it really fair that the new, but defective, electronic equipment you purchased gets replaced with a repaired one that died in someone else’s house? Not really. Is it legal? If those are the terms you agreed to, yes.
The entire column can be read here...
You see, I am a bit pedantic. If you hadn't figured that out by now, you haven't been reading this blog. Especially this particular post No Way!. But I will forgive you for not being an avid reader, there aren't many.
To get back to my point here. The very fact that you have a device of some sort means it is used. You do not have a "new, but defective" piece of a equipment unless you brought it home, unpacked it, plugged it in and it immediately failed in some way. At which point, I would return it to the store and get my money back or a replacement off the shelf. If you have used the stated piece of equipment for any length of time, it is then (by definition) "used" and no longer "new." The manufacturer has every right (and it will undoubtedly say so in the warranty) to replace it with a refurbished device (or repair it) at his discretion. You are merely getting an allegedly repaired used unit in place of your defective used unit. There is nothing unfair about this. It is actually quite logical.
And, to be honest, nobody actually reads a warranty until something breaks, do they?
About the only thing I will consider being unfair is warranties that require you to return said broken
This, of course, does not apply to this blog. If you find this post defective in any way, please try to remember that I have made no warranty (stated or implied) that you would find it to be otherwise. I will not replace it nor will I repair it.
On the other hand, if you find anything (except the blogger) defective or not working on this blog, please inform me of said defect and I will endeavor to correct the problem. Assuming I am capable of doing so. As stated above, this does not extend to content of any post.
3 comments:
Seeing as we have 10 hard drives in constant rotation at home...well, make that 8 since the PS3 and laptop sleep sometimes...I'm glad the manufacturers now have 5 year warranties standard, and Western Digital, at least, will pre-send you a new drive with a handy box to ship the bad one back in. Of course, you have to pay the $6 or $7 to ship it back, which isn't a bad deal when the drive's been running for a few years. I was pretty irked, though, about a month ago when I got a DoA WD 1.5TB ($100 on sale from $110), then had to turn around and pay $6 to have it replaced. Not to mention the fact that I spent 4 days determining the failure and had to wait a week for the replacement.
I guess my only point is shopping online has its ups and downs.
Steven, I use the internet for most of my digital equipment purchases. I have received DOA items now and then but all have been reasonably dealt with. I am currently using a refurbished router which I bought for less than half what a "new" one would have cost. Worth the risk, says I, since a router has no moving parts (which are the most likely to break) and poor setup or incompatibility issues are what gets items like that sent back.
Just a question, though,wouldn't a DoA drive be obvious from the moment you plugged it in? That seems like a no-brainer to me. Flakey drives are another matter. But, hey, Dead is Dead.
Well the drive was full of bad sectors...so I guess it wasn't dead on arrival, but terminally-cancerous-with-all-its-limbs-torn-off-and-black-death-infected on arrival.
I had plugged it into a Drobo (RAID box) which said it was bad, but I'd heard that they did that spuriously on good drives, so the blame was diverted for a while until I took the time to put the drive in a machine to run a scan.
But yeah, in the end all the savings I get online, mostly from Newegg, far outweighs the inconveniences and costs...
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