My first question would be, you talked to Mark at the Wake Forest Road (Raleigh) Intrex store - I would hope that you didn't make it out of the store with out talking to Brad (or Brad), the Manager and Assistant manager are both named Brad. :) I don't know everyone in the company's name, and I can't identify who Mark is off the top of my head. Generally, speaking, it is Intrex's policy that if an item has physical damage (i.e. has been tampered with), you can not return it. You say that there was a friend resistor on the part - if my memory of our product line is correct you may have purchased either an internal or external card reader. I'll address them separately for clarity.
If you purchased an internal card reader, which has an exposed circuit board, it would be clearly evident what the problem was when it happened. On the flip side, it is not unreasonable that either by static electricity or inadvertantly shorting something against the PCB you *MAY* have caused the damage yourself. I want to be clear that I'm not accusing you of having done so, but simply stating that it's technically possible, and not beyond the realm of possibility. Because of this, it is the manager's discretion (and his alone) to determine if he wants to accept the part for return. I can not say what his response would be, but at the least you should speak to one of the Brads and give them the opportunity to make a decision.
As for the external card reader, it is a closed plastic box with space for cards and a usb cable to be inserted. If you purchased this device and took it home, it did not work, and then you chose to crack the case to attempt to determine the problem -- this is a whole different story. In that case, if you took the steps to take apart the case (likely breaking plastic bits of the case) and begin sub-component diagnostics, I'm pretty sure that we won't take it back. Again, it is the manager's discretion as to wether we will accept the return, but general policy is anything that's clearly been tampered with we can not accept for return. The reason for that is simple, when we take that part in, we also RMA it to the manufacturer. If they won't accept the part for RMA from us, we *probably* won't accept it from you. There are of course exceptions - if we find a particular product has a semi-common problem, we are very likely to be more leniant with our return policies than usual. It's also very likely that we'll stop carrying that product, maybe even phase it out. I don't believe that's the case with either of our card readers, but as I don't work in the store and I am not involved directly in the retail side of things, I can't really say.
So Bottom line, if you haven't talked to a manager, please be sure to do that before you consider the book closed. I think you will find the results to be satisfactory, or at least you will get a reasonable explanation of our policies.
As an aside, I can appreciate that I am known as an employee of Intrex, but as I stated at the beginning of this email - I am not the appropriate contact for Intrex, for this type of problem. I have no authority to rectify your situation, and at best I can only bring it to the attention of someone who might. In this case, the appropriate contact would be to talk to the manager, and email [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Feedback address *really* does go right to someone in upper management who can address the problem directly. Intrex would love to hear more feedback from us, in terms of quality of service, so that we can improve our service. Personally, I am of the opinon that we do a pretty darn good job. But as everyone is aware, the minority of times there is a problem, is when the majority of noise is made. :)
I am headed out of the hotel now to return to the Hamvention, and can not continue to comment further. If I get a chance when I get home tongiht, I'll touch on the rest of the topics mentioned in this thread - particularly what products we do and don't carry. In brief - come to next month's meeting (which we will be sponsoring) and let us know what you want us to carry! :)
Aaron S. Joyner Intrex.Net System Administrator
On May 15, 2004, at 6:50 PM, Dave Sorenson wrote:
I'm posting this for 2 reasons 1: caveat emptor to the rest of Tri-Lug'ers
and 2: I know some of those at Intrex reads this list so you'll know why
I'll choose to go 5 miles out of my way to not shop at any of your stores
ever again.
Well, I didn't believe it when I heard about other peoples bad experiences,
but Intrex just lost me forever as a customer. I buy a memory card reader
from the Wake Forest store, get it home hooked up and working. A few minutes
later it stops working. I remove it from the boxen and find it fried a
resistor. I take it back and explain what happened and Mark tells me they
can't take it back because it has "physical damage" (the fried resistor)
they say my only option is to try to get help from the vendor. Note: vendor
is a small New York based outfit. We are talking $19.95 here.. It's going to
cost me more to ship certified insured as required by the manufacturer than
the thing was to buy..
I'm EXTREMELY disappointed in Intrex, They COULD have stepped up and
replaced the defective unit. In fact, I was ready to spend MORE money to
replace the defective reader with one that was $10 more. Now Intrex will not
see that $10, nor will see any additional patronage from me ever. They
CHOOSE not to help the customer, this customer now chooses not to shop at
Intrex. With "customer service like this, it's no wonder that stores like
Intrex find it harder and harder to compete against Best Buy, Tiger Direct,
Circuit City Et. All.. From now on I'll pay a little more not to have this
kind of hassle.
Dave S
--
TriLUG mailing list : http://www.trilug.org/mailman/listinfo/trilug
TriLUG Organizational FAQ : http://trilug.org/faq/
TriLUG Member Services FAQ : http://members.trilug.org/services_faq/
TriLUG PGP Keyring : http://trilug.org/~chrish/trilug.asc
-- TriLUG mailing list : http://www.trilug.org/mailman/listinfo/trilug TriLUG Organizational FAQ : http://trilug.org/faq/ TriLUG Member Services FAQ : http://members.trilug.org/services_faq/ TriLUG PGP Keyring : http://trilug.org/~chrish/trilug.asc
