All,
I have occasionally been of the mind to take this sort of revenge on a
corporation, but don't have the technical know how (or the--um --guts) to do
so. But that hasn't kept me from worrying about the consequences of acting
with explicit MALICE against any organization with lawyers.
Is there a hazard here? Should Doug be putting all his assets into an
irrevocable trust for his parrots before he takes on newegg?
Just wondering.
Nick
Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
Clark University ([email protected])
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
http://www.cusf.org [City University of Santa Fe]
----- Original Message -----
From: Douglas Roberts
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Sent: 2/18/2010 4:56:57 PM
Subject: [FRIAM] War has been declared
Dear fellow FRIAMers,
Please enjoy the opportunity to be the first audience to observe the opening
salvo in my newly-declared war on Newegg.com. I just got off the phone with
their Customer Service Department, after having sent then a courtesy advance
copy of the short article included below. I wanted to give them one last
chance to correct what I believe will be a much larger mistake than they might
have anticipated. Next stop Slashdot, then Linux Today, then CNET, Wired.com
if they will have it as an editorial. Linux Journal, Linux Journal (Facebook).
I'll become a fan & write on their wall for all 6,384 other fans to read.
Linux Magazine Online, Linux Online, Linux Magazine (different from Linux
Magazine Online), etc.
This might surprise some of you, but I can become a large pain in the ass when
I get pissed off.
And I am pissed off.
--Doug
______________________________
I admit it up front. I want to take $399 out of the hide of Newegg.com.
Here's why:
I purchased a refurbished Asus K50 Series K50IJ-RX05 laptop from Newegg 4
weeks ago, for -- you guessed it -- $399. The laptop arrived three days later,
and I installed Kubuntu 9.10 on it. No muss, no fuss, no hitches. Everything
worked, right out of the box: wireless, graphics, the whole shebang.
Well, apparently everything worked. The laptop was a birthday present for my
wife, you see. So the first thing she asked for was for me to install Skype on
it so she could make video calls to her daughter.
No problem, says I. Presto, Skype got installed. Oops, the picture is upside
down. This laptop was manufactured/assembled with the webcam installed 180
degrees out of whack!
Well, ok. I guess. There's a Video For Linux patch just for this situation.
So I installed the patch (a library to pre-load prior to running apps that use
webcam). Alrighty, the webcam video is no longer upside down in Skype. I
handed the laptop back to my wife.
Day two: the wife says, "My laptop locked up." I asked her what she had been
doing at the time. "Moving the mouse."
Oh, oh, this isn't right. The Asus K50 is running an Intel T4200 dual-core
processor and the Intel 4500 graphics chipset. The Linux Intel graphics
drivers are pretty solid. In fact, I've installed Kubuntu 9.10 on several
nearly identical Acer T4200 laptops with the 4500 chipset, and they are all
rock solid under some pretty heavy-duty use.
So, I installed the very latest Kubuntu update, which brought the kernel and
modules up to version 2.6.31-19, and handed the laptop back to my wife. Again.
No go. Three - four times a day the machine just locked up. Randomly. Hard.
Power cycle required to reboot.
So now I go to the intertubes to do some research (I know, I know) and discover
[careful, big surprise coming] that the Asus K50 Series K50IJ-RX05 machines had
the webcam installed upside down at the factory. Oh, and they randomly lock up
several times a day. Linux, Vista, XP. Whatever. They lock up. There's a
reason that so many "refurbished" units of this model are up for sale.
Clearly an unsatisfactory situation. So I contacted Newegg and explained that I
was unhappy with the defective laptop they had sold me. After a brief
consultation with her supervisor, the nice lady approved my RMA refund request
and sent me a free UPS return label for me to use to ship the laptop back.
Not to shabby, I thought. This kind of service is why I have been a good
Newegg customer for the past 7 years. Spending about $2,000 - $3,000 per year.
For seven years. At Newegg.
Oops, not so fast. [I bet some of you saw this coming.] See the email I just
received from Newegg:
Dear Valued Customer,
Thanks again for shopping at Newegg.com.
We recently received your RMA and your return was then sent to our Inspections
Department for closer examination.
Incomplete return
User changed OS to Linux Kubuntu
System has been modified/altered original manufacturers operating system has
been removed cannot access restore partition, this voids Newegg warranty. Unit
cannot be accepted or resold as received.
RMA denied return to customer
Because Newegg would be facing a loss if we were to replace this item, we are
returning the product to you and recommending that you contact the manufacturer
directly to request that they repair or replace the item under your
manufacturer's warranty. Please visit the following link to view a listing of
all the manufacturers whose products we carry:
http://www.newegg.com/app/contactmanufacturer.asp?DEPA=0
Kindest regards,
Newegg.com
RMA Inspections Department
[email protected]
http://www.newegg.com
This email was sent from Newegg's Automated Email System so please do not reply.
That's right: I installed Linux on the laptop, and therefore Newegg is not
going to honor my refund.
Need I say more? Newegg is now on record as a vendor from whom you purchase at
your own risk. They have demonstrated that they will knowingly sell defective
hardware, and not honor refund requests on same.
A very good way to go out of business, in my opinion.
Buyer beware.
______________________________
--
Doug Roberts
[email protected]
[email protected]
505-455-7333 - Office
505-670-8195 - Cell
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
