Newegg Apologises for Well-documented Customer Service Fail, Says It Has Enacted Better Policies (pcgamer.com) 132
Newegg has apologised for dealing poorly with returns and open-box product sales, in the wake of a recent video from Gamers Nexus documenting its own terrible returns experience. From a report: The online retailer has now said it has now put in place new policies to ensure a hassle-free return experience on open-box products for motherboards and CPUs, though is light on the details. There's no doubt that the statement tweeted out by the company comes as a response to Gamers Nexus' recent videos outlining the channel's return experience for a Gigabyte Aorus Xtreme Z490 motherboard, which when combined total nearly two million views. It goes something like this: The hardware YouTube channel bought a motherboard via Newegg for testing, though shortly thereafter decided it was no longer required. It then sought to return the motherboard under Newegg's returns policy and shipped the product back to the retailer.
Too little, too late... (Score:5, Interesting)
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They have had terrible return policy for years. I ordered electronics exclusively from them until about 10 years ago when I received a defective motherboard.
They charged me shipping to return it and a restocking fee and refused to budge on it. That was without checking if it was defective. I never purchased another product from them.
I get all my stuff locally or from Amazon. Amazon can be hit or miss with quality but their return process is second to none.
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Ugghh. But Amazon's search is just awful. I can never find exactly what I want.
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This paid off when I was searching for a simple kitchen sink drain stopper. Lowest priced one via Amazon was almost $6. A quick Google search of Amazon netted me one for just over $3.
Sometimes their searching works if you're not sure what you're looking for, like a "chair pillow" to give my old chair a bit of new life in the seat. But once you've found what you're looking for, or know when you start
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Almost identical story here except for $6000 network gear IIRC. Multiply by 15% and it ate a huge chunk of my revenue for the project.
Re: Too little, too late... (Score:2)
Re: Too little, too late... (Score:2)
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So, not really a pro- or con- post on NewEgg, but...
It always interests me when people these days say stuff like "Cheap Chinese Crap". This is the way people referred to stuff made in Japan when I was young. Today, actual MIJ stuff is regarded as just about the pinnacle of design and quality (obvs not everything, but it's got a very high touch reputation generally, and the best is really the best++).
There's something nationalistic in this (not playing the race card 'cuz it doesn't always apply), and somethi
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Just the usual minute of hate stuff the older of us can recognise.
amazing how often official propaganda (whether disseminated by the media, the government, or via nefarious social media activity) is repeated by useful idiots.
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In fact, China makes better stuff than the US quite often now, because they put their money into the needed infrastructure. The US shipped manufacturing to places like China, so now we have to import most things. We did not invest in new infrastructure, for example, we have almost no chip fab capacity in the US. This was an extremely dumb move that is now coming back to bite us. It was all business decisions based on bottom lines, not on what is the best option for the US.
But getting back to NewEgg, I used
and China got lots of smog from there manufacturin (Score:3)
and China got lots of smog from there manufacturing
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just like we did back when our rivers used to catch fire periodically.
Re: maybe not that fast but do more then become CC (Score:2)
once hero now zero (Score:4, Interesting)
NewEgg was a hero when it took on patent trolls. They had a great service and good pricing. At some point NewEgg became more of a store for resellers and that is the point at which it became worthless. I will no longer use NewEgg, so avoid the kinds of issues on display here and others like it.
I'll pay more to avoid NewEgg.
newegg got taken over by Chinese for profit people (Score:5, Informative)
newegg got taken over by Chinese for profit people that pushed paying for good CS out.
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Oh? Wikipedia doesn't mention it. It says it was founded by Fred Chang and has remained headed up by Taiwanese Americans ever since. Is that not the case?
Re:newegg got taken over by Chinese for profit peo (Score:4, Informative)
???
The first paragraph lays it all out.
In 2016, Liaison Interactive (SZSE: 002280), a Chinese technology company, acquired a majority stake in Newegg in an investment deal. In 2020, Newegg entered into a merger agreement with Lianlou Smart Limited (NASDAQ: LLIT) wherein Newegg stockholders became majority owners of LLIT. Following the consummation of the merger, Newegg listed as a publicly traded company on Nasdaq (NASDAQ: NEGG) in May 2021 as Newegg Commerce, Inc.
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I'm not gonna burn the "never settle" t-shirt I have tucked away as a collector item, but I might not buy anything from NewEgg again.
Although I was already looking around at my options because when I click "Sold by NewEgg" there were less and less computer components listed. As a marketplace they just suck, they're like a swap meet, nothing like Amazon. Which is already lower quality than brick-and-mortar.
I might end up having to go back to buying online from an over-priced brick and mortar just to get part
Re: once hero now zero (Score:2)
openbox should have an pic of the pins taken (Score:3)
openbox should have an pic of the pins taken before shipping
Too little and a decade too late (Score:5, Insightful)
Newegg lost my $100k+/yr business account 10 years ago after they refused to offer a return on a CPU when they had sent the incorrect sku. They made false statements and presented false records to AmEx when I disputed the charge. I have not purchased a single item from them since, and I post this cautionary tale every single chance I get.
No matter what the problem, NewEgg will eventually make a mistake on one of your orders and when they do, they will fuck you. Do not do business with them. Everything they sell is available from an alternate and more ethical alternative, many times at a lower price.
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I used to buy from m-wave, but they went out of business. Then NewEgg proved themselves to be smarmy.
Is there a good alternative for the discerning nerd, or am I stuck just buying wherever? What is an ethical alternative?
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Another satisfied m-wave customer here. I used to order from them M-Wave in the 2000, switched to Newegg in 2012, and then switched to Amazon (for computers) in ~2019. I never had any problems with Newegg but a friend of mine did and swore to never to do business with them ever again.
> What is an ethical alternative?
Maybe B&H Photo Video [bhphotovideo.com] ?? I ordered a Threadripper 3960X back in 2019. It took them a month but they DID deliver it.
Also, check out Now In Stock [nowinstock.net]
I hate "Worse Buy" but IF they have EXAC
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ah, mwave, I had forgotten all about them. My last order from them was in 2007, looks like I use to use them and newegg for while, then only newegg and I try hard not to buy everything from amazon.
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After hearing yours and other stories here, I've now removed them consideration in the settings of the website I use when sourcing parts, so that's another customer they've lost. Granted, I've never bought regularly from them, but my purchases tended to run into the thousands when they did happen, so it's something.
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They went downhill when they wanted to become Amazon and started becoming a storefront for sellers outside of Newegg's control.
You're almost better off buying stuff from eBay anymore.
Some missing critical details (Score:5, Informative)
Gamers Nexus [youtube.com] bought a $500 Gigabyte motherboard that was "Open Box" meaning it was not brand new. Some of their criticisms was that it was not as clear as in the past that it was an open box until after they bought it. Gamer's Nexus then claims by the time they received the board they did not need it and did not even open the shipping box before returning it. They returned the box unopened for a refund. From their viewpoint it would have been fair for Newegg to charge them a restocking fee.
However, Newegg declined the refund citing damage to the board and refused to discuss with Gamers Nexus further. However Gamers Nexus had been contact with other customers of Newegg who allege that Newegg did the same thing to them: refusing refunds and leaving them no recourse. That is how the saga began. The main problem with denying Gamers Nexus is that they have 1.6M YouTube subscribers and were able to publish their spat with Newegg. After some bad publicity, Newegg reversed course and granted them the refund and said they shipped the part back to them.
In a followup [youtube.com] to the video, when Gamers Nexus received the part back, they finally opened the box and found that the motherboard had already been through a returns process with Gigabyte. Based on their conversations with a Gigabyte rep, it appears Newegg sent the motherboard already back to Gigabyte. Gigabyte confirmed damage to the board and quoted Newegg $100 fee to repair it. Newegg declined the repair and had the board sent back to them. It appears Newegg then turned around and sold the board to Gamers Nexus without any repair and fully knowing it was damaged only to deny refunds if it every came back to them.
Similar story here (Score:2)
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Surprised this junk retailer is still in business (Score:3)
15-20 years ago I used to happily pay a little more to buy parts from NewEgg because they had consistent quality at reasonable prices and generally trustworthy reviews. Then they tried to become a marketplace and made it difficult to discern the orders fulfilled by scammers from the orders fulfilled by NewEgg. Now I'm not sure there even is a difference as the entire site is a crapshoot in terms of price, quality, legitimacy, return policy, and even whether the item sold as new is actually new. In every way they have become inferior versions of eBay and Amazon.
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I'm just glad than when I ordered from them and they screwed it up, it was in my favor and they sent me the same part twice! I could just as easily not received it at all.
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I still try to continue to buy from them, because who else is there?
(obviously avoiding amazon)
Not even amazon gives users easy way to find parts and compare them. most people I know just pcpartpicker and buy where ever it points them at.
Not the same company (Score:5, Informative)
The NewEgg of today isn't the NewEgg a lot of people may remember. Like a lot of browser extensions, someone bought them and then used the good will associated with the brand to start screwing people over.
Some years back I briefly worked for an OEM trying to resolve issues customers had that were a bit outside the usual CS job description. I would constantly see complaints about NewEgg refusing to accept mobo returns because of bent/broken pins when everything was in working order when it went back. These were from hardware enthusiast sites, so I'm inclined to think they knew what they were doing.
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What companies are good these days? I miss Fry's Electronics. :(
Re: Not the same company (Score:2)
Central Computers. All that's left in Silicon Valley now that both MicroCenter and Fry's are gone.
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Never even heard of that place. Aw, you lost MicroCenter. Too far for me. :(
Re: Not the same company (Score:2)
Yeah. Micro Center left a decade ago because the rent was too damn high.
Many years ago (Score:2)
Newegg is a publicly traded company (Score:3)
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No it isn't. There's a direct financial benefit to having happy customers and plenty of publicly traded companies don't piss on their customers.
I stopped buying (Score:2)
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I stopped buying from them around the same time; I received scratched/open products that were labeled and priced as new when I purchased them. I had to resort to having my credit card company deal with getting my money back. While it took months I did prevail.
This isn't the worst thing Newegg does (Score:2)
Newegg stopped caring about their catalog and service when they opened the "Newegg marketplace." They tried to be the next Amazon: an open marketplace, rather than a company that cared about quality distribution.
I ordered multiple of an item on the "Newegg marketplace" from Hong Kong that had a >45 day lead time. Shipping time was totally acceptable in this case. When I only received 1, I tried to post a review, but Newegg won't allow a review outside of 30 days. Surely their system just didn't think ab
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I never had a good experience with Marketplace. The prices seemed way too high and if you do not read the fine print, you might miss that a lot of parts were being shipped from overseas. Even then there was some shadiness. One time I bought some case fans. The manufacturer had a 45 day wait and this one marketplace seller was the only one that had them for a noticeable mark up. They were case fans; what's the worst that could happen I said. I checked and nothing said it was coming from overseas.
A few days l
Does anyone buy from Newegg anymore? (Score:2)
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That is pretty much the only place people recommend for being able to actually get a GC, by using one of their bundles.
Re:Returns are costly (Score:5, Informative)
That's misrepresenting the situation. GamersNexus bought a product they thought they needed (and did not at the time realize was sold as open-box), and by the time it arrived, they didn't need it. They returned it to NewEgg unopened, without even having opened the UPS shipping box, let alone the motherboard box. They had no way of knowing that the product was damaged, and they had no way of knowing that NewEgg would reject the return despite there being a giant sticker saying the board was damaged before NewEgg sold it.
Even if we subscribe to your version of events, and presume that Gamers Nexus was lying about not having opened the box, the fact remains that NewEgg rejected a return for damaged pins despite there being a huge sticker on the motherboard from the manufacturer (covering all the PCIe slots) saying that the damage predated NewEgg's sale.
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I can see an open box item having a scratch here or there or maybe even missing some optional accessory, but that board was of absolutely zero use to any normal person in that state. The only place that could have wanted it is a specialized repair shop for parts.
Re:Returns are costly (Score:5, Interesting)
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accusing NewEgg and their returns department of lying about the condition of a part they returned
But that's precisely what happened. GN got board, left boxed, returned it, Newegg rejected the return saying that it was damaged, and it couldn't have been damaged prior to shipping it. Newegg *rejected* the return saying that it must have been broken by GN. Newegg upon rejecting the return shipped the product back out to GN, who then got to see that the board was marked as damaged way before they bought it.
It fell through the cracks and then they blamed the customer for their mistake, despite clear docume
Re: Returns are costly (Score:3)
Re:Returns are costly (Score:5, Informative)
Newegg had a return that they determined needed repair, they sent the part to Gigabyte for repair, Gigabyte stated charge for repair, and Newegg declined. The part was *thoroughly* checked out and clearly labeled as 'damaged, not repaired' long before GN ever placed an order for it.
Upon receiving it back from Gigabyte, they screwed up for the first time, by putting a *known bad* product in inventory for sale after multiple companies looked and verified and labeled it as bad.
Then when they got a return from GN, they screwed up by noticing the damage and somehow completely failing to notice the giant RMA sticker that documents that it was a broken board months ago. It's bad enough to be skeptical of a user with an open box item, it's crazy that they would fail to note during their inspection that Newegg previously explicitly told Gigabyte to let it stay broken.
GN's point was that Newegg only caved after public embarrassment by a well-known channel, and a number of not-so-famous people had similar experience to report about Newegg shipping something broken and presuming it must be the customers fault.
Re:Returns are costly (Score:4, Insightful)
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Wow, were you born this stupid? Are do you need to see the doctor a brain scan, because you've experienced significant changes in cognition and emotional affect?
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No he wants to focus on one detail and doube down when proven wrong.
Train0987 enjoys trolling frequently. Check his comment history. If he's not defending Russian military buildup along Ukraine's border [slashdot.org], he's posting outright lies [slashdot.org] ">about the contents [slashdot.org] of the GamesNexus YouTube videos and their content [slashdot.org]. Here are some outright fabrications he stated as fact at each of thse three links (emphasis mine):
GN's first video was very clear that GN returned a brand new part in unopened packaging, totally omitting that it was an open box item.
It was still very shady for Gamers Nexus to put out that first video without disclosing that it was in fact an Open Box item
the original GN video did not mention the phrase "open box" once.
Now, maybe you thought he missed the part of the video where they first mentioned that it was an Open Box item [youtu.be], and perhaps we're additionally willing to give him the benefit
Re:Returns are costly (Score:5, Informative)
I don't see how so. In the first video, they balked at being told they broke pins on a board they didn't even open the box on. Newegg refused their RMA and sent them the guys their rejected return.
In the second video, after having it rejected and he got to open it to investigate the breakage newegg alleged him to have done, he found the Gigabyte sticker denoting 'declined repair' dating back to months before he bought it.
So the timeline is:
-Some unknown customer receives the board and probably is the person to break pins. He, somehow, successfully returns to newegg.
-Newegg inspects the damage, sends it back to Gigabyte for repair
-Gigabyte says it's not covered under warranty, and Newegg would have to pay $100 to fix it, Newegg declines and Gigabyte ships back the damaged board
-Newegg sells the known-damaged board as open-box to Gamers Nexus
-Gamers Nexus, oblivious to the whole thing returns it unopened, and then newegg rejects his return claiming damage on something he never saw or even opened, first video goes up griping about the rejection.
-Gamers Nexus receives the damaged board as part of the rejected return, opens to inspect, and only then finds out that not only could he point to how he never opened it, but a Gigabyte RMA sticker proves it was damaged before his order.
Gamers Nexus isn't perfect, but in this specific case, everything he presented was factual and complete based on the information he knew at the time of posting the respective video. Newegg shipped a part that was broken and they *should* have known it was broken, when they inspected the return *maybe* they could have been uncertain about whether the socket was pre-damaged... except for the glaringly obvious sticker denoting that Gigabyte acknowledged newegg's decline to repair prior to the sell, so it's even worse than being skeptical of a user.
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-Some unknown customer receives the board and probably is the person to break pins. He, somehow, successfully returns to newegg.
The customer successfully returned it to Newegg but nothing says the customer got any money back. Any competent tech would have noticed the damage right away.
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Re: Returns are costly (Score:2, Informative)
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Then Newegg knowingly sends them a damaged board. Again, that's fraud.
You can fuck off now.
Re: Returns are costly (Score:2)
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It was still very shady for Gamers Nexus to put out that first video without disclosing that it was in fact an Open Box item. He admits missing it when he ordered it (due to how they are labeling them) but he completely admits it was open box. This is the first video (queued to the time stamp where they talk about it being open boxed:
A) they did disclose it in their original video: https://youtu.be/2fnXsmXzphI?t... [youtu.be]
it was in fact an Open Box item which we all know comes with its own problems.
Open box items might have problems. Damaged packaging, missing accessories, manuals. It should NOT be completely unusable unless clearly marked as broken/damaged/parts only. And even so, if that's what they sell as open box, that still does not excuse them for rejecting a return on an item returned to them in the exact same condition they sent it out in and blaming the damage on the customer. If it was good enough to sell fo
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If you aren't going to accept the return of open box items then don't put a label on the page selling the item that says there is a hassle free return policy. Instead there should be an equally prominent notice that all open box sales are considered final.
Re: Returns are costly (Score:2)
Somebody very clearly didn't watch the first video. They mention in it that they found out it was an open box item after buying it, explicitly because Newegg changed the location and size of the open box notice.
Re:Returns are costly (Score:4, Informative)
It's a bit more complicated than that.
The issue is that Newegg had previously sold this board, got it back from the original customer with pin damage, sent it to Gigabyte for repair, Gigabyte said "$100 please", Newegg said "no, send it back", and then put it back on sale as an open box item that Gamer's Nexus got.
Gamer's Nexus indeed admit that they bought the board knowing they might or not need it, and returned it unopened. At which point Newegg took a second look at the board, saw the damage, and refused to process the return.
I think Gamer's Nexus can certainly be seen as taking too much advantage of a good return policy, but that still doesn't justify sending them a product that was so broken they couldn't have used it anyway, and trying to charge them for it.
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Well. Was the box actually open? In that case they would have had to look at the board and complain about the damage. If the box was sealed, then you are right. If not, then the thing is not nearly as one-sided as claimed.
Re: Returns are costly (Score:3)
Re: Returns are costly (Score:2)
Cept they did admit it was open box in the first video... They just didnt notice that when they bought it
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Why the fuck are repeating this redundant comment 100 times?
You're a fucking idiot. There is no excuse for getting a return, knowing it is broken, knowing you didn't fix it, selling it to a new customer, and then accusing them of having done the damage!
It doesn't matter how short her skirt is.
Re: Returns are costly (Score:2)
Well, just to make this clear, as a man, it does matter how short her skirt is. What you do with that also matters and is different. But the length of a skirt is directly proportional to how much nudity you get to see.
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You're just a pathetic wannabe rapist incel.
Re: Returns are costly (Score:4, Informative)
The problem being that not only did they ship an utterly broken product to a customer "open box" and then blamed them for breaking it, the board had a sticker from the board manufacturer stating it was unusably broken and Newegg declined repair months prior to the sale. So they had proof right on the board that the customer wasn't the one that broke it.
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The solution to new egg as a discount retailer is simply not to accept open box returns.
Don’t want to stand behind the stuff you sell? Fine, I’ll just file a chargeback. The fact is, if you accept PayPal or credit cards, you have a return policy whether you like it or not.
If you want to sell stuff as “as-is, for parts”, great. The payment processors will generally side in the retailer’s favor in a dispute over an accurately described item that does not work. However, “open box“ is generally agreed to mean an item that functions properly but was retu
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In this case it is clear that the so-called victim bought a product it knew it was not going to keep, then leveraged a policy meant for the continence of real customers to return the product
Not trying to be pedantic, but what do you mean by continence in this context?
It then leveraged its victimhood in views and profit.
How do you know this? Are you saying that GamerNexus makes it a practice to buy and then return? If yes, I agree that's scummy. I don't know that that's accurate, however.
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In this case it is clear that the so-called victim bought a product it knew it was not going to keep, then leveraged a policy meant for the continence of real customers to return the product. It then leveraged its victimhood in views and profit.
I don't think you even read a single part of what happened. The "so-called victim" bought an old board as a replacement for a system they had that was failing. They managed to find an alternative solution between when they purchased the board and when it finally arrived and shipped it back, unopened, still sealled in the shipping box that Newegg sent (because they realized they no longer needed it before it even showed up). So they RMA'ed it as per Newegg's policy. They would have had no problem paying a re
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Well, the morale here is that if you buy "open box" inspect the goods when they arrive and complain about obvious damage. Sure, somebody at Newegg screwed up and tried to blame the customer. But that is not the whole story.
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Well, the morale here is that if you buy "open box" inspect the goods when they arrive and complain about obvious damage. Sure, somebody at Newegg screwed up and tried to blame the customer. But that is not the whole story.
And how would that have helped? The item is already damaged, but how do you prove you were not the one to damage it when Newegg is already pointing the finger at you? You would have to have time-stamped, forensic quality continuous video, from the moment the box arrived on your doorstep, through you opened the box, finding the damage, and packing it back up. Who has that? Do you video every box that arrives from the moment it is dropped off on your doorstep until you open it? Unless you have that, Newegg wa
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Indeed. Tragedy of the commons all over. Some people are just assholes and ruin everything. My retailer, for example, deduces 10...20% of sales price for open-box returns and re-sells at that item at the same discount as "slightly used". That seems to work pretty well and keeps the assholes in check.
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The solution to new egg as a discount retailer is simply not to accept open box returns. In this case it is clear that the so-called victim bought a product it knew it was not going to keep
Congratulations on being stupid. In this case it's clear you don't know what happened in this case considering the box wasn't opened.
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The retailer should be expected to deal with this because they explicitly advertise the fact that they *do* deal with it. And the returned product was unopened. And I mean, the UPS shipping box was unopened, Gamers Nexus just took the sealed shipping box and slapped a return shipping label on top of the original one. So this isn't even a "retail rental" scenario.
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NewEgg state on their website "30-day hassle-free returns". Many online storefronts have a similar policy.
NewEgg specifically say that you can return an item sold with the 30-day hassle-free return badge at any stage within 30 days, with no restocking fees and free return shipping.
It doesn't matter if the dude from Gamers Nexus intended to use the product or not, NewEgg sold it under the condition that it could be returned for a refund in full at any time within 30 days.
Someone buys a product with - apparently no intention of keeping it - fully intending to return it, expecting a full refund.
Why isn't that fraud ?
Why should a retailer be expected to deal with this cynical purchase with anything other than a cynical return experience.
Why indeed? Because NewEgg promised t
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1. You DO realize that situations change and people make mistakes ordering, right?
2. Newegg has a 30 day return policy [newegg.com]
3. You are twisting and ignoring facts. Originally AT the time of ordering GamersNexus DID need a motherboard, however they no longer needed one by the time it arrived which is why they sent it back UNOPENED.
4. You keep using this word fraud; It doesn't mean what you think it means.
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It's more likely that somebody at NewEgg wasn't paying attention when they received the motherboard back from the manufacturer and scanned it incorrectly, and then somebody else failed to inspect the motherboard properly when it was returned for refund. And then also refused to investigate the situation until they realized that they were dealing with a media outlet. So, multiple levels and instances of incompetence and carelessness.
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Wait, wait, first of all, why not both? Why do you think one disproves the other?
And isn't a culture or placing profit over customer satisfaction consistent with "at least eight people failed to inspect?" Wouldn't one simply cause the other?