Integrity Fail - HIS Tech

Today we're looking at a series of emails between a customer ( I should note that the customer is NOT me, and their identity will NOT be revealed, so don't ask ) and the customer relations of HIS Technology, a company who sold this customer a top end Radeon HD 5970 for a whopping $700, which is more than most people spend on their entire computer. When one buys a premium niche product, one expects premium service. Sadly, not only is this not the case, it is often the case that the service for said device is pawned off onto an incompetent third party. This is the tale of one of those times.

I should note that we here at uryaen.com value INTEGRITY, and it's what we're all about, more than mere "reviews". When a company fails to show this, you can bet that we're going to TELL you all about it. You've seen this in action in a number of articles, ( and you will note that the system WORKS ) and now we're going to show you a new one. On this occasion, the GPU in question required warranty service. The card was sent in through the normal RMA process, but this is where things begin to go downhill.

We begin with the first of the email exchange: censored items are colored light blue and my notes are indicated with my signature orange color. All personally identifying information has been removed and will never be revealed except for the name of the company which is fair game. We're not here to harass anyone, and while I fully support that Paul Christoforo is a world class jerk, harassing his family was uncalled for. It would seem that the internet trolls in general lack the same class that I demand of my vendors as well, so you don't get to know who was actually involved here. Sorry.

Our tale starts with the following email, from the third party RMA dept of HIS. ( Seriously, who uses third party RMA depts? That can't be good . . . )

______________________________________
From: RMA DEPARTMENT -LEXY PACIFIC CORP
Sent: Wednesday, November 30, 2011 4:36 PM <----- note the date
To: Customer
Cc: A bunch of related individuals
Subject: RMA#

Please click the "reply to all" button when you reply email to us so that Lexy RMA Team will follow up your RMA case in time.

Dear Customer,

Thanks for requesting a Return Merchandise Authorization (RMA) to us.
The RMA number of returning 1 piece H597F2GDG (S/N: XXXXXXX) for replacement is XXXXXXXX.

Please return the goods to the address indicated below.
Reminding: This Limited Warranty will not apply if a claim is made arising from any unacceptable use or care of the Product, including (without limitation) physically damaged, graphics card is burnt out, misuse, abuse, negligence, acts of God, unauthorized modification or repair, unauthorized commercial use and any operation of the Product outside Manufacture recommended parameters. This Limited Warranty is also invalid if any serial number or date stamp on the Product has been altered, obliterated or removed. Cosmetic damage and normal wear and tear are not covered.
For avoiding "Warranty Void", please pack the RMA goods properly, i.e. well pack bubble bag or protective material with the strong outer carton.
Please enclose a copy of RMA Request Form inside package and write the RMA number outside package as well.
Please send the defective unit by mail, we do not have a drop off window available.

The RMA number is valid for 15 days from the date of issuance. You are required to resubmit the RMA Request if the RMA number is expired.

Thanks for your cooperation.

Please ship the goods to:
RMA Person

************************************************************
LEXY PACIFIC CORPORATION
RMA Department
Tel:
Fax:
Email Add.:
************************************************************
LEXY RMA Direction
Before returning products to Lexy, you must obtain a RMA number. No RMA service/credit will be issued without Lexy issued a RMA number.

Please complete the RMA Request form with correct serial number, invoice number and date, and reason for return for EACH ITEM. Please submit the RMA Request Form to us by email () or fax (). No RMA number will be issued without any of these information. You can find the serial number on the back of the HIS video card, http://www.hisdigital.com/us/support-31.shtml. You can find all the remaining requested information on your proof of purchase/invoice. Please remember to include a simple reason of why you are sending in the product for warranty work as well as a copy of your invoice.

RMA number is valid for 15 days from the date of issuance. You are required to resubmit the request form if the RMA number is expired.

A RMA number will be issued within 2 business days.

All RMA returns to Lexy must be freight prepaid.

No RMA services/credit will be issued if all returned goods are not placed in anti-static bags and not shipped in a securely protected shipping container.

Any physical damaged, tempered, altered, abused or mishandling to the product will result in a voided warranty and the product will be returned at customers' expense without any repairs.

Please ship the assigned RMA products only. Do not send accessories. (except for CREDIT or DOA)

Warranty period is started from the date of invoice (not the date of received shipments) and all RMA returns to Lexy for services/credit must be received by Lexy before the expiration date of warranty.

Return for credit must be in original packing and new condition. All returned items are subject to 15% restocking fee. No credits or refund will be issued after 30 days of invoice date.

Credit will be issued based upon current market value on the products determined by Lexy. <----- Note: This is where things get a little sticky as USA consumer laws beg to differ

All products for credit must be received within 3 working days from the date RMA number was issued.

Any discrepancies must be reported within 2 days upon receipt.

Returned items diagnosed "No Problem Found" by Lexy technician will be charged the shipping and handling fee.

Our RMA turns around time is 30 days from the date of received goods. Please do not call if your open RMA is less than 30 days. <---- this is also a point of contention as it has in fact been longer than this which means that the company is holding both the product AND the money interest free for 30 days, while fighting logic and reason.

Lexy Pacific Corporation is available by phone during the hours of 10am to 5pm Pacific Standard Time, Monday through Friday at , we are closed on weekends.

Lexy reserves the right to modify this policy without further notice. <--- again, we have consumer laws that supersede this nonsense. It's like those crappy gates in apartment complexes. They can put up a sign that says that a malfunctioning gate is not the problem of the owner, but our laws DO NOT allow an entity to wave their own liability. It's crap like this that makes me really angry.

Some time passes, and they finally respond with acknowledgment of receipt of goods:

From: RMA DEPARTMENT -LEXY PACIFIC CORP
Sent: Wednesday, December 14, 2011 5:33 PM
To: Customer
Cc: A bunch of related individuals
Subject: RMA#

Please click the "reply to all" button when you reply email to us so that Lexy RMA Team will follow up your RMA case in time.


Dear Customer,

We received the goods of RMA # XXXXXXX and it will be in process. Please allow 2-4 weeks from the day that we received the goods.

Please tell us your shipping address for sending replacement, for avoid fault and double check, please use keyboard writing via email instead of handwriting of PDF.
Our service area is only in North America (USA and Canada). Please offer us your shipping address in either USA or Canada.
(Please provide private physical street address, the parcel do not be delivered a post mail box.)

Note: customer informs me that the shipment was signed for on the 9th, so already they are slow. This does not bode well.

Another three WEEKS goes by, and the customer receives this email:

From: RMA DEPARTMENT -LEXY PACIFIC CORP
Sent: Friday, January 06, 2012 1:43 PM
To: Customer
Cc: A bunch of related individuals
Subject: RMA#

Please click the "reply to all" button when you reply email to us so that Lexy RMA Team will follow up your RMA case in time.


Dear Customer,

Regarding to your RMA # XXXXXXX, we are sorry to inform you that we are currently out of stock for the item H597F2GD, however in order to expedite your RMA replacement case, we would like to provide you a substitution model 2pcs x H695FN1G2M as the replacement for your returned video card. The detail information of this replacement card can be found at http://www.hisdigital.com/, please kindly review it. If you would like to take this card as a replacement, please confirm and reply to us. As soon as receiving your confirmation, we will process it right away.
Thank you and we apologize for any inconvenience.

The customer discussed the issue with me and we determined that this is NOT an acceptable replacement for a variety of reasons.

While two 6950's is NOTHING to scoff at, it is NOT the same thing has having a 5970 for the following reasons:

Crossfire scaling bites. It just does, and anyone who tells you different is lying. Adding a second identical card gets you MAYBE a 50% gain, and usually not even that.

Two cards each with 1GB of Ram do not combine to make 2GB of Ram available for textures, set up. 

Power consumption is double for the fairly minimum overall increase in performance.

There are case issues, CF cabling, room on the PSU, stuff like that are DIFFERENT design/purchace decisions than going with the 5970.

Also, we turn over hardware every few months. A single 5970 is likely to be worth more on the secondary market than two 6950's.

Finally, no matter how you slice it, this is extremely poor customer service for someone who bought the HIGHEST end premium product that this company sold. A discerning consumer demands BETTER treatment than this for buying the top thing.

So that's where we're at, but it gets worse. The customer replies:

From: Customer
To: RMA Dept
Cc: A bunch of related individuals
Subject: RMA#

XXXXX:

Regretfully, I do not regard that as an acceptable/comparable swap. My ATI 5970 was a much better 2 GB card whose performance as a single card trumped most other cards running in Crossfire. Going to 1GB cards is a significant downgrade. Having to go to Crossfire to attempt to score comparable performance (and unlikely to get it) entails crowding my case, extra cabling, and the likelihood of increased power consumption and noise. I purposely chose a single card with dual GPUs for a reason in my high-end performance build. I also note that I will lose the ability to go to Crossfire of an ATI 5970 or equivalent by using as a replacement these lesser cards. I will simply run out of PCI-e slots.

The offered replacement also has harsh user reviews:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161361

Please return with an offer of a single replacement card whose performance benchmarks and user ratings (which I will check with reputable review sites) are equal to or exceed those of the ATI 5970 card that failed. That would be consistent with how RMA requests involving other out-of-stock products from other vendors I have dealt with have been handled. <------ I wholly and complete concur, and even if your mileage was not as good, THIS IS what we expect from a properly handled RMA process.

Alternately, the offer of a full refund of my original purchase price of the card from Newegg is also acceptable.

I look forward to hearing back,

Cordially,

Customer

Next, the customer gets the following, proof that the reader lacks even basic reading comprehension skills, or simply thinks that they can trick the customer into complying:

________________________________
From: RMA DEPARTMENT -LEXY PACIFIC CORP
Sent: Friday, January 06, 2012 1:43 PM
To: Customer
Cc: A bunch of related individuals
Subject: RMA#

Hi Customer,

Would you like to accept H695FN2G2M as substitution model?

Thanks

At this point, I would completely lose my patience. This is beyond unacceptable behavior for the RMA dept of a multi-national tech company whose existence lives and dies by customer/PR relations. This is the point when I stepped in. I informed them fairly that this article was coming, but they seemingly do not care. I hope that the lost sales from this article will force them to care. Let's wrap up. The customer, showing a level of composure most irritated customers would not, sent the following: 

From: Customer
To: RMA Dept
Cc: A bunch of related individuals
Subject: RMA#

XXXXX,

Uh, I don’t think I can do that. Again, the card that failed cost me $699.99 from Newegg at the time of purchase. It was also the fastest gaming video card on the planet at that time.

Here is the current gen HIS card that appears to be more directly comparable both in terms of price and performance with the card that failed:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161399

HIS H797F3G2M Radeon HD 7970 3GB 384-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready Video Card

The card being offered as a replacement sells for typically half or less what my 5970 cost new.

Now, let’s look at some performance benchmarks that test my dearly departed ATI 5970 against the offered replacement, the HD 6950:

Here we have some selected benchmarks that compare the two cards against each other:

 - - - links that I will not republish without permission. Bottom line, even together, the cards are not an acceptable replacement for the 5970.

I won’t link to all the benchmarks and belabor the point. The pattern is clear.

Looking across all of the benchmarks, we can see that the ATI 5970 handily beats the 6950 in test after test. In some benchmarks, the result are striking. It is simply a better card and that is why I spent a bloody fortune on it in the first place.

Again, I requested a card that could be considered a direct replacement for a super-premium piece of graphics equipment. I made it clear that I would check reputable benchmarks to assure that what I was being offered was, in fact, a comparable replacement.

So, why, I ask myself, am I being offered a card that is clearly a notable downgrade from the card that failed

I stress that the card you have offered is, in and of itself, a nice card. It just isn’t a replacement for the extreme performance card that failed.

So, please either offer me a card that is comparable to the card that failed or offer me a full refund for it.

I look forward to hearing back,

Customer

More time passes, customer presses for answer, justifiably: 

From: Customer
To: RMA Dept
Cc: A bunch of related individuals
Subject: RMA#

Dear Lexy Pacific Corp:

It is now almost close-of-business on Friday and I have not had a reply to my email (below) from Tuesday evening. You have had my defective $700 video card since Dec. 9, 2011 (over a month!) and we appear to be no closer to getting the matter resolved than when it started.

Twice you have offered to swap the card with lesser replacements. Twice I have rejected that offer and requested that the card be replaced with (a) another ATI 5970 or (b) a card with published benchmarks that meet or exceed the ATI 5970 or, if replacement is not possible, a refund of the full purchase price.

So, where do we go from here? My desktop gaming rig (used to review games) is now running with a “review unit” card on loan to me . . .

I have reached the point in frustration where I am about to post the entire saga on my blog . . .

It is definitely starting to make me leery of buying another high-end HIS card. That would be too bad, as I picked up three of your cards just this week alone. . . .

Please get this expedited and moved to an amicable resolution. I have been more than patient, but my patience is wearing thin.

In contrast, I didn’t have to endure hassles like this when dealing with EVGA on another high-end card that failed. They simple swapped out the dying card right after they received it and were done with it.

Customer

Final communication from RMA dept, which is still really unhelpful. No admission of fault, no apology.

From: RMA DEPARTMENT -LEXY PACIFIC CORP

Sent: Friday, January 06, 2012 1:43 PM
To: Customer
Cc: A bunch of related individuals
Subject: RMA#

Hi Customer,

Received your email, and we have forwarded your idea to HIS headquarters in Hong kong. Now we are waiting their reply.
Maybe they are plan to return the replacement same as the original model.

Please wait our reply.

Thanks
Lexy RMA 

Conclusion - for now

"your idea"? Is tech support now SO BAD that replacing a premium product with, oh I don't know, the SAME product now considered a novel "idea"? This is beyond amazingly bad consumer relations. 

Finally, we come to the current conclusion of our tale. As it stands, it no longer matters WHAT the outcome is. This third party RMA dept for HIS has soiled all over the reputation of their "partner". At uryaen.com we do not distinguish between the actions of one entity and their friends. You as a company ARE responsible for what your various depts or stratetic partners do. YOU hired them to do your RMA/distribution and therefore, your company is responsible for their actions. This applies to equally terrible PR. I recently had the misfortune of running across one of the least mature and grown up individuals I've ever seen, and their job was PR for a game company. They are often the WORST offenders. 

To HIS: FIX this issue NOW. You have already made a bad situation worse with the endless delays and insulting suggestions. You are being placed on level three warning status starting right now based on the above actions. In order to move down the list, I will require that you first replace the customers card with one comparable to our expectations, or offer a full cash refund. You have one week.

To move to level two or lower, I will require further action. I will need to see a series of PR samplings that go smoothly, and if you've seen my other articles, you will see an example of a company doing this very thing. You have two weeks to begin that process. Failure to meet the above conditions may move you to level four or even five status, depending on the outcome of this customer interaction.

To everyone else, my current recommendation is to stay far away from HIS until they fire this third party RMA/partner dept and clean up their act a bit. Once they have done this, and I execute an RMA "as a customer" to test/confirm the new process, I will re-evaluate this stance. For now, consider yourself warned.