Newegg apologizes for customer service shortcomings, will discuss matter on camera soon

[Shawn Knight]

A hot potato: Newegg has made changes to its internal return process following a public dispute with popular hardware enthusiast and YouTuber, Steve Burke. The situation has escalated to the point that Newegg has agreed to meet with the user for an on-camera interview.

Steve Burke from Gamers Nexus recently purchased a Gigabyte motherboard from Newegg and opted for expedited shipping as he needed it quickly for a content piece. By the time it arrived, however, he had already sourced a different board and no longer needed the unit from Newegg so it was returned.

Something Burke didn’t notice when he placed the initial order was the fact it was an open box item, meaning it had been returned by someone else and deemed resellable by Newegg. Burke said he never opened the shipping box the board came in, much less its retail box. He submitted an RMA, shipped the package back and waited.

Newegg eventually e-mailed Burke and said the RMA was rejected due to bent pins on the CPU socket. Burke tried to resolve the matter through traditional customer support channels, but was unable to make any headway. It wasn’t until he used his platform on Twitter that Newegg suddenly became responsive and wanted to rectify the situation.

Gamers Nexus has more than 192,000 followers on Twitter and 1.58 million subscribers on YouTube.

Customer Service Update pic.twitter.com/qxAYjDCdCU

— Newegg (@Newegg) February 14, 2022

Newegg in a recent post on Twitter said they have become aware that a small number of returns may not have been thoroughly inspected before being routed for returns, liquidations, or e-waste recycling, and thus were accidentally resold as open box merchandise.

Newegg said these were unintentional process errors and isolated incidents, adding that they’ve already changed their internal procedures to manage product returns. The company also said it is reaching out to customers that may have been affected by these issues.

In a follow-up video, Burke said Newegg refunded the purchase and sent him back the busted motherboard. I’m not sure why they did both as it seems like a simple refund would have sufficed in this situation.

Incredibly enough, the board had an RMA sticker affixed from Gigabyte, meaning Newegg had sent the board to RMA to diagnose what was wrong with it. Burke called Gigabyte and learned they received the board in July 2021, offered to fix the CPU socket for $100, but noted that Newegg declined and had the board sent back to them. From there, it somehow made it back into the store as an open box item and was sold to Burke.

Newegg invited Burke to come to their headquarters and discuss the issue, which he is taking them up on.

What has your experience with Newegg been like as a customer? I've shopped with them since the early 2000s and never recall having any sort of issue that I couldn't get resolved in a timely manner. Then again, it's been years since my last order so perhaps things have changed since the last time I did business with them.

Image credit wallpaper cave

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/93410-newegg-apologizes-customer-service-shortcomings-discuss-matter-camera.html

 

[Dimitriid]

While I respect Tech Jesus willingness to talk crap to companies one thing I never liked and still don't like here is the willingness to give them the benefit of the doubt far more than what's warranted: This is just standard PR damage control: Expect no meaningful changes at all from newegg and *expect to get scammed* again and again.

By letting them attempt to tell their side they're already just minimizing the issue: "No it's just a small number of isolated cases, we're already getting that under control!" when years of customer abuse stories beg to differ this is just them getting caught and trying to say face: (@#$( Newegg, don't ever buy from them again regardless of their promises and empty apologies and crocodile %(!@# tears.

 

[Achaios]

I like Tech Jesus.

He's one of very few You Tubers who genuinely care abt customers and also tend to unmask crooks such as Mafia Scalpers Int'l.

 

[axiomatic13]

I too have had a couple of Newegg RMA hassles. They eventually made good on them but it took months to get anywhere. I just don't shop there anymore as the potential for a month-long RMA is far too high.

 

[Nintenboy01]

I loved Tech Jesus' "waste of sand" insult to Rocket Lake and how he roasts bad prebuilts

 

[mikhailgorbochov]

While I respect Tech Jesus willingness to talk crap to companies one thing I never liked and still don't like here is the willingness to give them the benefit of the doubt far more than what's warranted: This is just standard PR damage control: Expect no meaningful changes at all from newegg and *expect to get scammed* again and again.

By letting them attempt to tell their side they're already just minimizing the issue: "No it's just a small number of isolated cases, we're already getting that under control!" when years of customer abuse stories beg to differ this is just them getting caught and trying to say face: (@#$( Newegg, don't ever buy from them again regardless of their promises and empty apologies and crocodile %(!@# tears.

When has Steve ever allowed a company to do that? He's torched Gigabyte, MSI, Nvidia and now Newegg. Steve offers a road to redemption, and if they don't put anything meaningful forward, he continues to torch them video after video.

 

[terzaerian]

I've never had an issue with the times I've used NewEgg RMAs. If anything, I've gotten reimbursed on occasions when I probably shouldn't have, never been sure if that was simply forbearance or incompetence in my favor.

Either way I live somewhere where there is no good alternative, my choices are basically BestBuy or Amazon, and both of them are geometrically worse than NewEgg. Until Microcenter decides that places besides overpriced hellholes like LA and Chicago are worthy of their presence, NewEgg is the best option.

 

[Dimitriid]

When has Steve ever allowed a company to do that? He's torched Gigabyte, MSI, Nvidia and now Newegg. Steve offers a road to redemption, and if they don't put anything meaningful forward, he continues to torch them video after video.

I was saying that they don't deserve a road to redemption at all. I know he does that but these corporations are all irredeemable in my eyes. Your mileage might vary (As in, I'm ok with many of you disagreeing with me on this point) as I was saying, this "redemption" only serves to allow these companies to restart the cycle of consumer abuse all over again.

 

[wiyosaya]

I remember sending something back to Newegg once, and I had no problems. I don't remember what it was, though.

One thing about Newegg that PO's me is that they charge $3.00 for "expedited" shipping. I once paid that fee, and from what I could tell, they did not expedite the shipping process. Since then, I have never paid that fee again, and I never will. IMO, that fee is a complete scam.

I try to avoid them if possible because of their "free shipping" game. For many components these days, like when I built my wife's Ryzen 7 3800 system, I bought most of the components from B&H. From my experience, B&H is not likely to scam, and they don't play the free shipping game.

EDIT: And I don't particularly care for Newegg's crApazon like membership program - whatever they call it.

 

[brucek]

Talk about burying the lede. The most important information in this article is in the last 3 paragraphs. NewEgg sending a system they provably knew to be defective and then refusing to take it back while claiming Steve caused damage they again provably knew was pre-existing is what takes this to IMO a crime vs. a dispute over customer service policies. I like Steve but the video I really want to see is not a blogger visiting them, but a detective or a consumer affairs attorney.

The second key piece of information is the author's admission that his personal experience shopping there is years out of date. One of the patterns that emerged in the many comments on Steve's original videos is that many posters feel there was an inflection point where NewEgg went from generally trustworthy to less so, possibly having to do with a change of control.

 

[Aus spot]

I nearly purchased from newegg once. But noticed they had started charging australian tax from their US store when shipped to Australia.

After dealing with several layers of customer "service" explaining the proposed legislation for the tax was still in discussions and was not law, including referencing material. They had no concept. In effect they were extorting money they had no legal right to, and were never going to supply to Australia.

So as I said, nearly purchased something.

 

[texasrattler]

I haven't bought anything from New Egg in a long time. Once they got sold/new owner, I never bothered with them. Prices seemed higher, nothing ever interesting on sale. Most items I could buy elsewhere, either cheaper or in some cases in stores like Best Buy or Micro Center.

 

[captaincranky]

And this boyz & gurlz, is why I will never, ever, buy an item listed as "re-boxed", much less used parts.

 

[scavengerspc]

And this boyz & gurlz, is why I will never, ever, buy an item listed as "re-boxed", much less used parts.

It's safe from Amazon. They allow a 90-day return period for all refurb\renewed items.

 

[captaincranky]

@scavengerspc My experience (and opinion), is mostly related to guitars, not to electronics.

In this case, I would never buy a re-boxed mobo, due to the issue presented. Many people don't possess the skills necessary to home build a PC, but punish other customers who do, by RMA-ing crap they've bent pins on trying to install the CPU, static damage, or whatever else they can figure out how to do wrong. The sheer volume of stupid questions on Quora, is testament to this, coupled to the fact that they're too flat out lazy to do any research on how to build a machine.

As for guitars: the Chinese and Indonesians build wonderful guitars nowadays. However, if Martin builds one that doesn't meet their standards, they take it out back and chainsaw it in half. Whereas the two aforementioned countries will ship a substandard instrument, and hope for the best. Of late, (at least as of 2014), the "higher end" imported instruments, have been QC'd and setup has been done in the US, making for a better buying/playing experience.

However, the are certain individuals/a**holes on a certain prominent acoustic guitar forum, who will order three on the same instrument, and pick the best, (or the one they think they like the most), and send the other two back.

I could go on for pages about some of the crap guitars I've gotten, but just was too lazy, or perhaps too nice, or even too inhibited, to send back.

Back to electronics, the only factory defective part I've received was a GT-730 from MSI. At $50.00 (just after its re-release), is it even worth it to go through the hassle of obtaining an RMA, pay for shipping, wait for a replacement,? Or just write it off, and never another one of their 2nd or perhaps 3rd tier products again? (Much less some $2000.00 motherboard).

 

[psycros]

Nowadays I only buy from continental US Ebay vendors that offer free returns. Always cheaper, just as reliable and its literally the same stuff.

 

[texasrattler]

Also let this be a lesson to pay attention to what you are buying. Yes the issue sucks and should have been handled way better but also, if the buyer had paid attention to what they were buying, would they have been in that situation to begin with, probably not.

The good of it all is because of who the buyer is and people he can reach through his platform, New Egg didn't want it to go any further. Will this change anything, for the company or buyer, that remains to be seen. Only time will tell the tale.

 

[johnsonlam.hk]

As an online shop, the after-sales service is really important since the shipping cannot be controlled, and there must be DOA items need to handle, for most cases try not to blame the customer first. Also in this case "OpenBox item" is very like 2nd-hand items which may have defect, you build the reputation by long term advertisement but it can be lost within a single day.

 

[RudyBob]

I will bet someone at Newegg was not paying attention and doing their job proper which is why it ended up back on the shelf. I am sure there is no policy to but broken stuff on the shelf. Newegg is responsible. I have been buying lots from Newegg for over 20 years and not had any issues. Good video but not to fair

 

[sorten]

I used to be Newegg's #1 fan back in the early 2000s. I would order parts and select the standard 3-day shipping, and the parts would show up the next day. Great prices, selection, etc.

The point at which that changed was when I realized that they had started using demand pricing. Haven't been back since.

 

[Jerryjamesee]

These @$$clowns pulled this on us last September we photograph all parts before returning and they damaged the socket pins so they didn’t have to replace the board. Sent a letter to ASUS CEO telling him to pull products from Newegg. We no longer do bizzz with Newegg and no longer buy ASUS motherboards or products since they seem to be enabling this bad behavior. I’m thinking class action lawsuit is in order now.

 

[gnite]

"Newegg invited Burke to come to their headquarters and discuss the issue, which he is taking them up on."

Yeah, not really. Steve announced they would show up at a given time and place, and if newegg wants to, they can come and talk on camera. Newegg did not initiate the meeting.

 

[Bobbydpue]

I stopped buying from Newegg when I realized shipping a case to an APO (overseas Military address) cost as much as shipping it to Alaska. Amazon ships to APO addresses for free with Prime. It cost half as much to send a case to a mail forwarder that ships the package to APO addresses and they charge a handling fee of about double what shipping costs.

 

[Bobbydpue]

These @$$clowns pulled this on us last September we photograph all parts before returning and they damaged the socket pins so they didn’t have to replace the board. Sent a letter to ASUS CEO telling him to pull products from Newegg. We no longer do bizzz with Newegg and no longer buy ASUS motherboards or products since they seem to be enabling this bad behavior. I’m thinking class action lawsuit is in order now.

I don't think that's fair to ASUS. What is ASUS supposed to do? Are you expecting them to stop doing business with one of the largest computer parts distributors in the US because a customer had a bad experience with Newegg? How is that ASUS's fault? I had an issue with an MSI motherboard I got from Drop, but when I had a horrible experience with the motherboard and MSI I didn't hold Drop responsible for MSI.

 

[Bobbydpue]

I will bet someone at Newegg was not paying attention and doing their job proper which is why it ended up back on the shelf. I am sure there is no policy to but broken stuff on the shelf. Newegg is responsible. I have been buying lots from Newegg for over 20 years and not had any issues. Good video but not to fair

Not fair? Do you know how many mistakes have to have been made for a broken motherboard to go to a customer and then blame the customer for breaking the motherboard when the package was never opened?
- First off Newegg turned down fixing a $500 motherboard for $100. The motherboard is worthless with a bad socket so why would they not get it fixed? What do you think their plan was for the broken motherboard? Shipping the motherboard to and from Gigabyte was a total waste of money. - When they got the motherboard back it was still broken and had a label on it saying it was broken, but somehow it was shipped to a customer without anyone opening the box and looking at the note from Gigabyte saying the motherboard is broken.
- When the motherboard was returned it still had the note from Gigabyte saying the motherboard was broken, but the people accepting the RMA ignored the note and blamed the customer for the damage.