Today I tried to contact Gamedude in regards to a faulty Asus motherboard. Now I know what your going to say I shouldn't of purchased it from gamedude for simply their issues of warranty returns. But it was in the beginning of last year and Umart did not have the motherboard I wanted in stock, the model being the P5N32-E SLI which was and still is a relatively decent board.

Any how I registered my motherboard with the Asus Warrenty service site, which informed me that it has a three year warranty and to contact the reseller. I knew contacting gamedude would be a pain, so before I did I called an Asus repair line, but was again instructed to called the reseller.

So today I emailed Gamedude requesting that they supply me the contact details for the Asus repair agent. In response I was told that they only offer 12 month warranties even if a specific product has a longer manufacturer, and then I was told I could give the motherboard to them for them to check and send away and charge me for it. I responded again asking if I could get the details that I had requested but continued to be responded with the same one sentence GD responses. Any how several emails ensued and finally the Gamedude staff member blocked my emails.

Does anyone have any tips or ideas, or maybe help me out with the contact details for a Asus repair center, if anyone wishes to read the email transcript just ask and ill post it up.

Cheers

unfortunatly, its exactly the same thing that happened with me recently with Umart. Asus wouldnt take it back from me just sending it. I had to pay umart to take it back. In the future Ill get Asus stuff from CA, they cover the 3 yr warrenty :(

The annoying thing is that in his last email, he said that he does not have the contact details for the Asus repair center. Unfortunately the email that I sent back asking who they deal with then, when they send back Asus repairs, which they get people to pay there service charge for was blocked and he never got it, as there is an obvious flaw in his response.

www.accc.gov.au

hahaha goodluck, i couldnt even get refunded $50 from a pile of shit faulty blank cds... aparently u buy them knowing that some wont work...

Just walk in to Gamedude very casually holding a chainsaw and ask to speak to their RA department :)

Above all, remain calm, polite and civil. It will mind fuck them even more.

If that doesn't work, well.. you're angry and have a chainsaw.. Do I really need to fill in the blanks? :)

gamedud

I don't think it will go to a center, more likely Achieva

HaHa good idea gesth, I was relatively polite in my emails, I was just asking questions and or inquiring on the answers he gave me, and then he blocked my email address. I mite put in a complaint to APCmag and or accc.

The 3 year warranty is offered by Asus. The 12 month warranty is offered by GD.
If Asus is going to offer a warranty, then it shouldn't involve the reseller.

Shouldn't your issue be with Asus?

Yes that is correct kat, but as you can see in my original post Asus says both online and over the phone to contact the reseller. Also I wasn't asking Gamedude to fix the product, all I wanted was the/A Asus repair agents contact details.

So tell Asus the reseller won't help you?

Yeah I guess thats my next option, call a Asus number and see if I can make them accept the motherboard return from me.

Well your title clearly says "Gamedude Warranty Woes" not "Asus Warranty Woes"

:P

My guess is if GD gave you the details then they would get their balls chopped off by Asus. Your issue lies with GD and my comments have nothing to do with my affiliation with GD

I would ring Acheiva, if they are still resellers, but you may get the same story. Who knows.

last edited by Kat at 15:46:56 16/May/08

But surely GameDude could be kind to their customer and give them the number they requested .. it's really just another case of poor GD customer service, it's not really a "omg they won't honour my warranty claim".

I'd like to know exactly how many emails Pro-Gem sent and what "relatively polite" means?

I'll let you be the judge Billy,

To whom it may concern,

In February 2007 I purchased an Asus P5N32-E SLI Motherboard. Recently it has stopped working, with none of the three PCI-E slots registering my GFX card or any others that I tested, and not showing a post screen. I have since replaced the motherboard with an Asus Striker 2. I believe that Gamedude only organises replacements or RA's on items purchased within a year, even though Asus motherboards come with a three year warranty. However on the Asus site it states to contact the reseller of the product in regards to claiming warranty or repair. If you could please provide me with the Asus contact details to organise a replacement or repair of the motherboard, or any options that Gamedude can offer it would be greatly appreciated.

I look forward to your response.

Cheers

Chris

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Reply


Hi Chris,
Yes that is correct we offer a 12 month warranty, if the manufacturer offers more its usually handled directly however if you are having problems getting ASUS to deal direct we can send the item for $45 Handling fee.
Before it is sent we test and inspect here and if OK its $25 test OK fee, if it does not work then the $45 fee applies

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Thanks for your swift response Greg,



If possible can you provide me with the appropriate service center contact details.



Thanks

Chris

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Usually we direct customers to the manufacturer website and from there you can query them, some allow direct sending to them some dont

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Yes, which I have done, and was then directed to the reseller, which is your store. I have also called the Asus service center for Australia and was informed that for motherboard's I was to contact the reseller. As the motherboard has a three year warranty it should be honored by the reseller, as that is the basis on which Asus motherboard warranties are sold.

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No sorry we offer a 12 month warranty on almost all components unless its stated on the invoice otherwise.

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If that is the case, can you please give me the direct Asus repair agent’s contact details for Brisbane.

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You can try 3849 2999 Thats at Mount Gravatt but they mainly deal with monitors and notebooks.
I dont know where the repair center is, we dont deal with them directly

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If you don't deal with the repair center directly, then who do you send your faulty Asus products to, when you charge people the $25/$45 fee for warranty returns?

++++++++++++++++


Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently:

gregb@gamedude.com.au

Technical details of permanent failure:
PERM_FAILURE: Gmail tried to deliver your message, but it was rejected by the recipient domain. The error that the other server returned was: 550 550 5.7.1 ... Access denied.

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I guess towards the end i wasn't overly polite, but its not like he was being help full, I was letting my annoyance show through the email, lol. But still he blocked a customer email address disallowing me to contact them, apart from phone or in person.

Call Asus, der. Its an asus warranty.

What the fuck!? I can't believe they blocked you... Did you try phoning GD?

While I'm not going to go into the warranty side of thing as I have no idea, and don't really care :/, those responses from Gamedude are fuckin' lame. And blocking you only goes to show what a shit retailer they are (assuming the block was intentional). Like seriously, does the owner/manager have any idea?

I've never shopped there and never will.

Just as lame as U-Mart trying to charge me $40 to 'test' a faulty $60 memory card I bought from them a day earlier.

last edited by mission at 17:11:25 16/May/08

I think Umart only charge you if they don't find a fault?

edit Not trying to defend Umart - they are douchebags and I have stopped buying gear from them because their customer service is SHIT. I'm very willing to pay extra for good service and peace of mind when it comes to faulty gear. Not only did I pay extra for a Dell system today, I paid an extra ~$150 for the extended/better warranty, which covers accidents and is available weekends and nights.

last edited by B.Hardball at 17:20:45 16/May/08

I had the same problem :/

My motherboard was like 2 weeks out of warranty and I couldn't go straight to ASUS


So Gamdude doesn't see my moneys ever again :<

I know I was reluctant about going to GD as I knew they where/are shit. But I needed the motherboard that day, and I figured that as it was a $330 piece of H/W it would last, but alas it did not. I just want to get it replaced so I can use it in my new media server.

go in tomoro morning when its busy and just go off. make a big scene and if they dont help u atleast u had fun and got to yell at them =)

I feel I need to retell this story:

I once called up Gamedude to ask about LCD dead-pixel warranties. They replied on the phone: "sorry we don't do warranties for monitors". OK, good luck with that. I went and gave my money to Umart instead (who were later more than happy to quick-swap the dead pixel LCD I got).

I know scoobs but that would require that i drive all the way to the south side, just to yell at them, and I actually sore happen on the day that I went to buy my mobo, and the dude still got nothing in return. Ill probably call them, and try the manager, or give Asus another go. If still no avail ill get APCmag to harras them for me.

If you don't deal with the repair center directly, then who do you send your faulty Asus products to, when you charge people the $25/$45 fee for warranty returns?

Maybe they just send the part back to taiwan? :o

last edited by icewyrm at 17:47:56 16/May/08

Thats a massive handling fee. All they need to do is send it back to the distributor. Unless the retailer has bought the stock overseas instead of purchasing from local distributors theres no need to ask that much for postage and 'handling'

I work for a computer shop in Rockhampton, I don't know what gamedude's RA procedures are like but mine are pretty basic.

Login to Synnex, type in Motherboard model, S/N and invoice number. They give me an RA number and I send the board back with that attached. Easy as fuck.

I dunno what wholesalers gamedude use but any decent PC shop would just do the same thing, usually for free just to be nice.

Heh, another Gamedude customer appreciation thread to add to the many.

I know Dave, I used to work for Harvey Norman, and any product that was purchased from us, we would honor the warranty on it, and either do a straight swap over, or send the item away to be repaired/replaced by the manufacturer. With no cost to the customer unless it was out of manufacturer warranty.

I think Umart only charge you if they don't find a fault?

Negative. As long as it's past the 12 month date, they too will charge a service fee. A while ago that was $35.

but any decent PC shop would just do the same thing, usually for free just to be nice.

Decent PC stores are a rarity, taking care of customers is no longer considered important.

One of my mates made the mistake of buying from gamedud. Videocard failed and they'd had it for 3 months already telling him there was no stock in Australia.

He went down and got into a screaming match with the manager and they eventually ended up giving him the albatron supplier address which a few blocks away. He took his card back, went to the supplier and had his card exchanged on the spot.

I feel like buying something from gamedude just so i can post a whinge thread. i feel so left out :(

You can buy a motherboard off me... P:

the board is from Cellnet @ 59-61 Qantas Drive Eagle Farm

email address as follows servicea@cellnet.com.au

Above all, remain calm, polite and civil. It will mind fuck them even more. If that doesn't work, well.. you're angry and have a chainsaw.. Do I really need to fill in the blanks? :)

Not one to advocate violence but I bought 2GB ram off umart last year and was told some bullshit about it being out of the warranty period. (I bought the ram a few weeks earlier) sorry sir 'two week only'.

I said to the dude 'If you dont replace this Im going to walk out to my car, get a ball pane hammer out of my toolbox and smash this ram all over your fucking counter' to which he replied 'that wont help sir bullshit bullshit' so I calmly repeated what I had first said. long story short I got replacement ram about 5 minutes later. Umart is awesome.

i reckon i could beat the entire staff of umart at milton one on one in a fight

spook, that ain't that much of a brag, y'know.

im a lover not a fighter

im pretty sure a 12yr old lady-boy from thailand with a pedicure could bash the ppl that work at umart.

Fuck this I'm gonna buy from CA or Dell instead of Umart now on. Never had a problem with umart before - in fact they were actually alright in my experience, but I ain't going back after hearing all these stories!

Another story to add... while I was working at CA I had some poor bastard who had purchased parts to build a system with ended up with a $800-900 DOA watercooled ATI card. Assembled the system and no go, brought it in. Swapped out the videocard and bam it works.

They refused to warrant the card simply because he took it out of the packaging... that was their only reasoning.

I actually typed him up a letter saying how fucking retarded that is and there was no evidence of physical damage and to stop being pathetic cunts.

He promptly bought another $900 Nvidia card from CA after I did that to get up and gaming. I wished him luck with his bullshit fight and he went on his way, always wondered how he went with that.


With the amount of stories out there I can't really understand how they still convince people to buy from them... :/

what ati card comes standard watercooled ?. none to my knowledge. if he watwercooled it him self he voided his warranty anyway so gg to be him.

add instead of having a girly moment. its by law to have to only offer 12 months warranty in australia, they do not have to honour the 3 years.

Contact Sam wong. He is in charge of Asus australia. Based at the Mount Gravatt Service Centre. He can give you an End User RMA form and you can send it back to Asus your self directly. Cellnet and Achieva Will not take it back unless He authorises it.

last edited by Slappercx at 21:00:57 16/May/08


and gregb@gamedude is me. and no i have not worked there in a few months. and so yes ur not speaking to me but someone using my email address as i was the servcie manager.

last edited by Slappercx at 21:05:02 16/May/08

It seems like the computer hardware industry gets away with putting the blame on customers a bit too much. I know theres fucktards who blow things up but they do seriously sell a lot of low quality shit and I bet a lot more of it fucks up of its own accord than they find out about.

last edited by Idol at 21:03:02 16/May/08

unfortunatly, its exactly the same thing that happened with me recently with Umart. Asus wouldnt take it back from me just sending it. I had to pay umart to take it back. In the future Ill get Asus stuff from CA, they cover the 3 yr warrenty :(

Not hating on CA, as i buy ALL my stuff from them (usually about $1500 a year or so), but when my monitor broke after 2.5 years on a 3 year waranty, CA just said, beh bow, here's the number of the centre to call and handle it your self.

Now i dind't mind that, they only have to offer 12 months, but just wanted to clear it up.

This one does


x1900xtx watercooled

I did work as a tech... I do know the difference between stock and aftermarket cooling...

Giri: Do you think retailers keep warehouses full of 2+ year old monitors to replace your broken one? Its probably the PC component that takes up the most room after a chassis. Make sense now?

The policy is IF they have stock of your busted component they will swap it on the spot providing yours tests faulty. You'd be hard pressed getting anything swapped on the spot thats over a year old and isn't a popular item.

last edited by rubba-chikin at 21:34:57 16/May/08

i didnt doubt ur tech ability rubba so please dont think i did. was just saying that to my memory i didnt remember a watercooled x1900. but i stand corrected.

Monitors are the exception to the rule... its pretty much a standard policy with any PC store.

7 day DOA return to base warranty - after that its through the manufacturer

Samsung is pretty good, they'll courier a replacement to you and take away the busted one.

I've got nothing but praise for CA so I'll continue to shop there.

8-)