Newegg's shady practices

[maflynn]

This isn't the first time, that they seemed to be guilty of shady practices.

Either last year or 2020, when you wanted to buy a GPU they forced you to buy a PSU - which was then found to be dangerous, i.e., literally catching fire. Then because of the backlash they were allowing people to return the PSU - but only if you included the GPU which was a scummy thing to do. Finally public pressure caused them to relent and only return the psu.

Now its seems that Steve from GamerNexus returned an unused and unopened motherboard to newegg, but they rejected the RMA saying the pins were bent and then later they said there was thermal paste on the mobo, so it must have been used. Steve didn't just not open the motherboard box, but he didn't even open the ups box. They basically stonewalled him, until they realized he has a following of 1.55 million subscribers on YT and 186k followers on twitter. Once it started trending on twitter it seemed newegg tried to save face.

I've had some issues dealing with them to the point now that I'll generally avoid them. If Microcenter and amazon doesn't have it, maybe I would try newegg, but after seeing this video and responses on twitter on how its been happening to so many people I'll just avoid them completely.

 

[smithdr]

Hi Maflynn:

I have always had good luck with NewEgg. But then again, I have never had to return anything. Amazon is the best. But I am seeing more and more "Shipped by Amazon sold by xxxxxxxx". When I use Amazon, I prefer "Shipped and Sold by Amazon" for a hassle free transaction.

Recently, I purchased Aputure lighting from Amazon. The product was "Shipped by Amazon, Sold by the Aputure Store". The Aputure Store was a "spoofed" name and had nothing to do with Aputure. Aputure will not provide a warranty for non-authorized retailers. I have requested that Amazon take these listings down--still not down yet. Aputure is aware of the issue, but has yet to resolve.

Microcenter is another issue. Had the need to replace a battery in a 2013 MBP. As Microcenter is an Apple authorized repair center I thought pricing would be the same as Apple. Not the case. Microcenter wanted $800 to replace the battery and keyboard. That did not seem right to me. Took the laptop to an Apple Store and they replaced the battery and keyboard for $200.

One has to be careful with some of these retailers.

Don

 

[guzhogi]

Microcenter is another issue. Had the need to replace a battery in a 2013 MBP. As Microcenter is an Apple authorized repair center I thought pricing would be the same as Apple. Not the case. Microcenter wanted $800 to replace the battery and keyboard. That did not seem right to me. Took the laptop to an Apple Store and they replaced the battery and keyboard for $200.

In the last year or two at MicroCenter, I've noticed that if I wanted to buy anything with a serial number (iPad, AppleTV, etc.), I couldn't take it to the cashier myself. I'd have to find an employee (very hard sometimes), the employee for that department had to take it to a cage up front by the cashiers, then I'd go to a cashier and say "Hi, I'm getting XYZ product." Then the the cashier would get the product from the cage and ring it up. On some level, I can understand theft prevention, but that just seems like overkill.

 

[LeeW]

For all their faults I just won't buy anywhere but Amazon. I have had so many issues with others in the past with faulty items. They say it's my fault, or claim something was wrong that I absolutely didn't do and would never have happened in transit.

Amazon? Never an issue, faulty? Sure return and money refunded within a day. I pay a bit more on some things but worth it in the long run.

 

[JMacHack]

Smells like the egg *dramatic pause* is rotten!

 

[mi7chy]

Haven't had any issue with Newegg. Contacted Newegg support chat on 12/8/2021 for return of faulty product, they provided a shipping label, shipped it back the same day and got a refund on 12/14/2021 without issue. Sold/ship by Amazon has probably the most liberal return policy followed by Micro Center, Newegg, etc.

Not that I distrust Gamers Nexus but would've liked to see picture proof which is my standard procedure with taking pictures of front and back of product, accessories sent back, packaging, etc. of anything I ship.

 

[coffee06]

It’s been a while but I returned a DOA CPU to NewEgg. I called, they emailed me a RMA label, and said they were sending out the replacement CPU immediately...even before they received the bad one. Best customer service ever (well, outside of REI ?), but that was perhaps a decade in the past on a build with many parts from NewEgg.

 

[Technerd108]

I have never had a great experience from NewEGG but I have never had any real problems either. I stopped ordering from NewEgg just because they never seem to have the best price. Their shipping and processing is slow and expensive. I didn't like the subscription service either as it seemed like a money grab with little benefits. Microcenter is better in my experience but you have to go to the store and the lines can be a real pain.

 

[maflynn]

This issue is making the rounds in a number of tech YTs I subscribe too, here's LTT's talking. It appears that Gamer Nexus has been inundated with other people experiencing the same thing, but Linus also mentions that NewEgg was sold to Hangzhao Liaison Interactive Information Technology Co., Ltd. NewEgg was known for customer service but having new overlords (since 2016) could be the reason why some of their customer service has gone down.

My experience has been positive when dealing with newegg, but it may be along the lines that you may draw the short the next time you need customer service, i.e., they reject your RMA and there's no recourse for you.

I love going to Microcenter, in part because there's an actual store in Cambridge for me to visit, but also there no questions asked returns. I've returned/exchanged cpus and motherboards that were opened and they didn't question the return at all.

The video below goes on who, else can you choose other then newegg? I mean there's amazon, and microcenter but the pickings are slim

 

[icanhazmac]

Not discounting the original post but I had the opposite experience last year when I won a shuffle and then decided to go a different route.

I won a shuffle bundle for a 3080ti and a crappy intel mobo that I really didn't want but because I like shiny new objects I opened the 3080ti for a look, only opened the outer box, I did not break the inner seal. I had a change of heart because I really didn't want an intel system and wanted to go AMD. I reached out to Newegg and originally they were not going to allow the return but after I pointed out the order I had in their system for AMD parts plus if they authorized the bundle return I would buy a 6900xt of equal value they allowed the return and instead of their usual gift card they refunded the bundle cost to my AmEx.

I am sure this had something to do with my being a customer for many years but the experience overall was great!

Edit: All that being said the concept of the "shuffle" was shady AF! The idea, as it tries to weed out scammers and crypto kiddies was great, but the bundles that included crappy hardware you didn't want sucked. All at crazy markups too!

 

[mi7chy]

Discussion has been from customer point of view but businesses probably have it much worse with the amount of customer scumbaggery going on out there and businesses have less recourse since, for example, there's no BBB equivalent or reviews to report customers that resort to buying as loaner with intention of returning, swapping internals or components, returning incorrect items, product mishandling or abuse, etc. That increases business operating cost and raises prices for responsible customers.

 

[icanhazmac]

WOW, follow up info on this case is even worse for Newegg. My "local" Microcenter is an hour away but........

 

[max2]

I bought a Synology ds220+ from them and had no problems.

Guess it depends on what you buy there.

 

[mi7chy]

Story doesn't add up. He's obviously not hurting for money due to YouTube monetization so it would be a lot more effort to ship it back than keeping it. Then, either use it for one of his many tests or give it to family/friend.

Just noticed it's a Z490 which was released in 2020. Didn't watch the full clickbait but either he had that mobo for a long time or he bought it recently on sale which would make it very cheap and even less worthwhile to make the effort to ship it back.

 

[Lihp8270]

Story doesn't add up. He's obviously not hurting for money due to YouTube monetization so it would be a lot more effort to ship it back than keeping it. Then, either use it for one of his many tests or give it to family/friend.

Just noticed it's a Z490 which was released in 2020. Didn't watch the full clickbait but either he had that mobo for a long time or he bought it recently on sale which would make it very cheap and even less worthwhile to make the effort to ship it back.

View attachment 1957221

He bought it recently open box.

Since you didn’t watch the video the key point is that it had an RMA label on it from Gigabyte, where NewEgg returned it for CPU socket damage (in July iirc). He bought it in December.

 

[mi7chy]

A short to the point TLDR should've been made available for those that don't fall for extended clickbait to answer things that don't add up. Have been building PCs since 486DX-50 days and motherboards tend to get cheaper as they get older. Did he actually pay $500 for a two gen old mobo when pcpartpicker.com historical show differently and bought from sold/shipped by Newegg or from 3rd party that are known for inflated prices. If he knowingly bought open box, why didn't he check when received like most with common sense would do and report the issue. No pictures when he originally shipped back. In the end, it doesn't make a difference since it's business as usual with Newegg until I have a different experience and still not watching click bait.

 

[maflynn]

I bought a Synology ds220+ from them and had no problems.

I'm going to say most people don't and won't, but given the responses on twitter and gamer nexus's video, there does appear to be a trend that its quite possible you could get burned.

Steve mentions in his video that he used newegg for years, spending 10s of thousands of dollars no issue, even when viewers reached out to him saying about problems with returns. There seems to be a review, where someone in charge looks over your buying history, whether its hundreds, thousands or tens of thousands. Review how many times you've reviewed and basically make a decision to believe the consumer. It boils down to them choosing not to believe the consumer when it all comes down to something not being right.

I don't think its click bait, in so much as he's trying to capitalize on a non-story, I do believe newegg is more aggressive in denying RMAs, and he (somewhat unknowingly) bought an open box, newegg really should have inspected it prior to re-selling

I wonder if instead of just shipping the unopened box back to newegg and opened it up, Steve could have called newegg on selling something so damaged and would have avoided this issue. That is, I think if you call newegg and mentioned they sold a motherboard with bent pins, they might have been less likely to reject the RMA. No idea, I'm just thinking out aloud.

 

[Lihp8270]

I'm going to say most people don't and won't, but given the responses on twitter and gamer nexus's video, there does appear to be a trend that its quite possible you could get burned.

Steve mentions in his video that he used newegg for years, spending 10s of thousands of dollars no issue, even when viewers reached out to him saying about problems with returns. There seems to be a review, where someone in charge looks over your buying history, whether its hundreds, thousands or tens of thousands. Review how many times you've reviewed and basically make a decision to believe the consumer. It boils down to them choosing not to believe the consumer when it all comes down to something not being right.

I don't think its click bait, in so much as he's trying to capitalize on a non-story, I do believe newegg is more aggressive in denying RMAs, and he (somewhat unknowingly) bought an open box, newegg really should have inspected it prior to re-selling

I wonder if instead of just shipping the unopened box back to newegg and opened it up, Steve could have called newegg on selling something so damaged and would have avoided this issue. That is, I think if you call newegg and mentioned they sold a motherboard with bent pins, they might have been less likely to reject the RMA. No idea, I'm just thinking out aloud.

The thing is about saying NewEgg should have inspected it.

NewEgg KNEW it had a damaged socket before they sold it.

NewEgg returned it to Gigabyte months before GN bought it. Gigabyte offered to fix for $100, NewEgg refused, got it back. Then put it back on sale.

The board had an rma sticker on it predating the sale date.

 

[maflynn]

NewEgg KNEW it had a damaged socket before they sold it.

No question, that second video is so damning to newegg's practices. The Gigabyte RMA sticker on the motherboard is a dead giveaway.

This comes off to me, as so scummy on Newegg's part.

 

[mi7chy]

What's the lesson learned and how to prevent is more important.

#1 Spend five minutes to proactively check item upon receipt, immediately contact seller to report issue and take pictures for evidence?

#2 Wait until it becomes an issue to react, have funds held up and spend two weeks making YouTube videos?

Standard procedure for typical buyer is #1 unless a content creator then maybe #2.

 

[Thysanoptera]

What's the lesson learned and how to prevent is more important.

#1 Spend five minutes to proactively check item upon receipt, immediately contact seller to report issue and take pictures for evidence?

#2 Wait until it becomes an issue to react, have funds held up and spend two weeks making YouTube videos?

Standard procedure for typical buyer is #1 unless a content creator then maybe #2.

#1 - what would prevent Newegg from saying ‘it was fine when we shipped it, you damaged it’?
#2 he deals with a lot of hardware coming in and out. It’s perfectly plausible he didn’t need the board anymore and send it back unopened. He build his channel on detailed and technical reviews, not clickbaits. This piece about Newegg was not typical (except for the piece about exploding PSUs).

 

[maflynn]

#1 Spend five minutes to proactively check item upon receipt, immediately contact seller to report issue and take pictures for evidence?

Except that in this case newegg will only say that you the buyer damaged the product. I was of the same mind as you, but after re-watching the follow-up video, its quite clear that newegg's process is such that if they get a damaged product from a customer, they will reject the RMA. It does not matter how the RMA was created or what the customer said. If newegg denies the RMA, there's no recourse for the consumer its your word and against theirs and they control the purse strings so as the consumer you lose.

They were unwilling to accept Steve's answer that he didn't even open the box, so why would they believe him, if he RMA'd it for damage instead of unused/unopened?

Again this isn't just one person dealing with this nonsense, it seems people have come out of the wood work to state they were screwed over by newegg, so there doesn't seem to be a special way of receiving your purchase from newegg to gaurentee you'll not have any issues.

 

[icanhazmac]

Newegg Apologizes for Customer Service Failings, Promises Change

A well-known techtuber highlighted the terrible open-box product return experience.

www.tomshardware.com

Weak response.

 

[mi7chy]

He has a 3rd video out already (no I didn't watch it). He should do a 4th to recap how he's making $5K per 1 million clicks per video. Definitely got what he wanted.

 

[maflynn]

He has a 3rd video out already

Here's the video

As the video states, he's taking up newegg's offer for a face to face to discuss the issues. He has stated that he's more interested trying to have newegg change its ways rather then get his money back (which he already did). There's not much to the video, other then him saying he flew out to California, and what will be happening in the near future.

Weak response.

My hope is that they actually do change, and improve customer service.