Posts Tagged ‘RMA’

Yet another Seagate drive I own bit the dust a few days ago.  The current victim is a Barracuda 7200.11 500 GB drive.  I can’t quite recall when I bought it, but it is still under warranty for quite some time.

Before anyone asks – yes, I updated the firmware.  No, not the original “fix” put out by Seagate – the for-real, 100% fixed and working firmware they put out after that.  This was your good-old run-of-the-mill “whir, click…whir, click” death that typically signifies a dead logic board.

Alas, I know Seagate would never consider simply replacing the board and returning my drive (along with its precious data) to me.  A company that charges for an advance replacement would surely never adopt such a policy.

I am this close to giving up on Seagate altogether…

For the longest time, I have preferred Seagate drives over most others because I typically don’t have many issues with the drives. Recently though, a relatively new (6 mos. old) drive died on me, and I went to Seagate’s site in order to submit an RMA.

Normally the process is pretty simple. I have RMA-d quite a few Western Digital drives over the years, so I figured this time around would be pretty similar.

Aside from the annoying two-word captcha which seems pretty unwarranted, unless they are receiving thousands of bogus RMAs, the process seemed straightforward. That was, until I asked for advance replacement, aka a cross-ship RMA. If you are not familiar with the concept, an advance replacement RMA typically consists of the following:

1. You submit the RMA and your credit card details.
2. The company puts a temporary charge on your card for the value of the item you are returning, then they immediately ship the item out, before receiving your broken item.
3. You return your broken item in the box that the replacement item came in, and the temporary charge is reversed.

Sounds easy, doesn’t it?

I almost always select the advance replacement option, as the item I am returning is usually pretty crucial to my computer functioning. I was shocked however to discover that Seagate wants to charge a $20 non-refundable advance replacement charge! That’s not to say they do not charge you if you do not return your broken item, the same as everyone else. They want you to pay a $20 premium for the pleasure of getting a new drive before you send your old drive in.

That’s right – while most, if not all other drive manufacturers will offer free advance replacement for an item (which makes pretty good sense, as the item is defective), Seagate says “screw the consumer” and asks for an additional $20. The drive is so dead, I can’t even run tests on it via Seagate’s SeaTools Diagnostic program – I think that at a minimum, they should cross ship the item for free.

Needless to say, I decided to go the normal replacement route and I will now wait about 2 weeks to receive a reconditioned drive.

Charming.

As a side note, I know for a fact that Western Digital does this for free, as does Abit and OCZ. In those cases, I simply had to pay the return shipping cost, if that.

This will likely be the last Seagate drive I ever purchase.