Multiple RMA - is it normal or karma? (share your stories)

[Dowlphin 463]

I'm wondering how many people come into a situation where they get flawed products and then the replacements are flawed, too.

Either it's karma that it happens so often to me, or it is just the trend, with the economic freakouts and all.

 

One time I ordered a batik T-Shirt with a printed motive. First shirt had a printing error. Returned it, got another one. That one had a loose thread and the motive printed over it, so another printing error in a way. Returned it, got a third one. That one had a burn hole!!! I returned it and gave up.

 

Then one time I wanted a new car stereo head unit. It came with a pretty severely scratched display. Not deep, but as if someone had brushed over it with fine sand paper or something. Support said normally it should not need a protective foil. I'm not sure if transport caused that or some other messup. Well, I got a replacement, and that one had the same problem. Then I got a replacement display from a tech support firm, complete with the protective foil on the display that they said is supposed to be on all products.

 

 

Well, and now I've finally decided to replace my CRT monitor with a TFT one, an expensive brand. Got it with dirt trapped inside of the display, leading to grey spots.

Got a replacement the other day. That one has a scratch on the display. Got a replacement. This one now has a faulty pixel. ... And the manufacturer claims that all monitors are being checked individually before they'e sold.

 

 

There have been even older cases like this, but I don't remember which ones. It's crazy. Or is this simply becoming more and more likely to happen?

[Kamil 315]

Well, on average I'd expect that an error of some kind happens in most products less than 1% of the time, with things like food having much stricter government regulation (for obvious reasons). I personally don't usually return something unless the issue makes it unusable though, so have relatively few stories of returning a broken product.

 

There was one time though, I bought a laptop and the touchpad was lacking a small number of features. I tried to go through the manufacturer's support, but they told me to get it replaced so I did. The replacement was even worse, not fixing the touchpad issue while also crashing any time I played games (after freaking out for a bit first) so I exchanged that as well. The third one still had the exact same touchpad issue, but by then I was just happy it functioned. I later fixed the touchpad issue; it turned out that the drivers just had some of the advertised features disabled and the options menu hid the options that let you change that. No hardware issue at all, just some mildly dangerous registry editing.

[Dowlphin 463]

OK, I now believe this is not karma, but the fact that I actually care about getting a flawless product, combined with the myth of quality control. You know, financial crisis making people go crazier than usual.

 

The 4th monitor I got has a scratch again and a very significant brightness deviation in the lower right corner. A few hours of use and a faulty pixel and a 'dirt-spot' had appeared, too.

Yes, you read right. This monitor unites the flaws of all 3 previous ones plus a new one.

 

You know, this ALMOST awakens my curiosity about what might happen if I got a 5th one.

 

Expensive piece of junk. I'll probably have to try a different brand.

 

It's frustrating when it looks like I'm destined to base my living on computer-related stuff and that stuff is a source of so much anger.

Edited June 16, 2013 by Dowlphin