MSI allegedly attempted to bribe YouTuber to prevent a negative review

[Zathail]

Funny how they never posted the emails to backup their claim. For all we know Dell could have bribed them to criticise the laptop.

 

[Eldritch]

Amazing how ungrateful people are.
The guys gets free laptops worth thousands, making lots of ££ selling them afterwards and from his videos/review sites.
Then, when the advertiser decides not to supply FREE goods to him anymore and instead to close the deal, he plays the single poor guy shooting videos from his cottage song. Yeah, now he's a victim.
What the hell do you want instead? You probably wanted them to thank you for the bad review, and continue to deliver the free stuff?! Are you crazy!? All rhetorical.
And did you ever think that maybe, just maybe you got a faulty laptop?

Obvious MSI troll is obvious.
Did you even bother to read the article or view the video. He very clearly wrote to MSI giving them benefit of doubt and asking if it was a faulty laptop or thermal paste issue etc and waited for weeks for their response!

He clearly says that as this was an product already on sale and even after long wait no reply was there so he released this video to inform the consumers which I think is ethical choice and kind of whole point of reviews.

 

[Irata]

Reading between the lines.."MSI apparently even asked AMD " all this is speculation and very unlikely to be a factual event. key descriptive word AMD..

Huh ?

So let me see if I understand. A tech company has resorted to underhanded tactics. In that world, its called a week-day.

In the last 24 years or so if I bought my gaming laptops from totally honest builders, with totally honest parts suppliers, none of my gaming laptops would have a CPU. Or a GPU. Or well, I wouldn't have a laptop.

As the article points out, AMD sided with the reviewer here.

 

[krizby]

Why didn't any OEM take AMD Renoir seriously and put those awesome CPUs into worthy chassis ~_~. I went shopping around for some good laptop with AMD CPU and couldn't find one that doesn't have any compromise. Those laptops with AMD Renoir either have anemic cooling, loud fans, bad screens, weak GPU such as the Asus TUF A15 or Zepherus G14/G15.

is it AMD's fault or OEM's fault here ?

 

[Homerlovesbeer]

Are people not considering the possibility that the MSI contact went rougue and does not reflect the actions or ethics of the company?

 

[Irata]

Why didn't any OEM take AMD Renoir seriously and put those awesome CPUs into worthy chassis ~_~. I went shopping around for some good laptop with AMD CPU and couldn't find one that doesn't have any compromise. Those laptops with AMD Renoir either have anemic cooling, loud fans, bad screens, weak GPU such as the Asus TUF A15 or Zepherus G14/G15.

is it AMD's fault or OEM's fault here ?

I‘d point my finger at the people designing and building the actual laptops unless AMD was keeping the OEM in the dark wrt Renoir‘s capabilities.

If I remember correctly, Steve mentioned in one of his videos how he was told that Intel paid an OEM to not offer one of their AMD based laptops in desirable colors, so ?‍

That said, I did read / watch positive things about some HP and Lenovo models.

Linus in particular was quite fond of HP‘s Spectre.

Edit: Lenovo's T14s also looks very impressive and the price looks great compared to its Intel counterpart:

Lenovo ThinkPad T14s: AMD Ryzen 7 Pro 4750U leaves Intel in the dust

After the ThinkPad T14s with the Intel Comet Lake processor, we also received the ThinkPad T14s with the AMD RRyzen 7 Pro 4750U processor. Our initial benchmarks show that the AMD CPU is much faster, despite similar power consumption figures.

www.notebookcheck.net

 

[Ronnie43]

I stoped buying their products when I bought a brand new big bang ii and found the CPU socket loose in the box. Fry's denied my return due to the situation and I could understand their position, they did however offer me $100 off a replacement. When I contacted MSI about it I got a reply from them saying it's impossible and they can fix it if I'm willing to pay for the repair. They didn't care I bought it new and the recipient showed it bought 3 hours prior to opening the RMA. That's when I stopped dealing with them

Tbh that also shows me never to shop at frys. Theres no reason they should deny a return in that case. Ive never had a retailer refuse a return on a broken item. If best biy, walmart, amazon, microcenter, etc are able to except returns no reason frys cant either.

 

[Evernessince]

Some of these comments only reinforce my belief that tech companies pay people to write in forums, social media, and comment sections to the benefit of their payers.

 

[maikal]

Never had a problem with MSI. From GPU's to Motherboards. The RMA services have been righteous with me and my family, especially since I buy used items and the services from CS have been well and timely handled. I say the reviewer got ahold of a rouge player at MSI!

 

[maikal]

Tbh that also shows me never to shop at frys. Theres no reason they should deny a return in that case. Ive never had a retailer refuse a return on a broken item. If best biy, walmart, amazon, microcenter, etc are able to except returns no reason frys cant either.

It seems that the culprit in the post was Fry's and not MSI!

 

[maikal]

Are people not considering the possibility that the MSI contact went rougue and does not reflect the actions or ethics of the company?

My thoughts exactly!

 

[candle_86]

It seems that the culprit in the post was Fry's and not MSI!

As it was explained to me a manufacturing defect that could be physical damage can't be accepted as a return, MSI should have handled it, they have the tools to tell if I ripped the socket off or if it was defective. Maybe Fry's return policy could use some work but I'm not blaming the guy I talked to, I do blame MSI though, that's terrible customer service and real low quality work. I did bring it up in the MSI forums after they denied my rma and I was promptly banned for reason "false accusations and stirring up trouble".

 

[Rostrow416]

I don't know, this sounds like a whole bunch of "he said, they said". I don't know the YouTuber or anything, but is it possible he's just drumming up attention for himself since I haven't seen any proof of MSI doing this.

 

[roychaste]

A company is doing what a company does: profit. Reviewers shouldn't behave like scavengers. This is not MSI's top tier laptop, of course it has more issues.

What?

 

[Jimster480]

This laptop is a complete disaster and a shame to the entire lineup of Zen2 laptops. I have seen a couple reviews on it already and literally nothing about this laptop is good.
They intentionally made it horrible to make AMD looks bad; its pretty obvious that they took some money from Intel to make this model so terrible that it made the Alpha look amazing.

 

[Thanthan]

Basically, you weigh the amount offered in bribery against the amount you think you'll make by gaining notoriety by exposing the bribe...

If you're a smart company, you make sure your bribe is the better of the 2.... guess MSI wasn't very smart...

Also bribery is illegal and being exposed could lead to a prison time in a lot of countries. Depending ofc on whether they have efficient laws for corruption in the private sector.

 

[Squid Surprise]

Also bribery is illegal and being exposed could lead to a prison time in a lot of countries. Depending ofc on whether they have efficient laws for corruption in the private sector.

There are some things that laws can only minimize, not eliminate.
Human nature keeps certain things eternal no matter how hard society tries to eliminate them.
Bribery, prostitution, intoxication, violence... these things will never disappear completely.

The key is to recognize this and attempt to make do in “reality”.

Bribery WILL happen no matter what - so what are you going to do to make sure that you’ll still end up on top