Scary and unsettling experience with Gigabyte motherboard

[quicky008]

I recently purchased a gigabyte GA b75m D3h motherboard for my computer.I bought it locally from a retailer whom i trust and have bought dozens of other products from in the past.After buying ,i didn't use it right away-i kept it aside for a couple of days as i was busy.

After about a week when i unpacked the motherboard i observed that although everything seemed ok,there were NO sata cables (that are usually bundled with most new mobos)in the box-however all other accessories were present and so i assumed that they had probably not included the cables with this motherboard for some inexplicable cause.

However the real shocker came when i removed the protective plastic flap from motherboard's cpu socket-i observed immediately that atleast 6-7 pins in the socket were already bent!! I was really taken aback by this-it seemed that the motherboard was shipped with broken pins from the factory itself.I immediately called the retailer who had sold me this board and his first reaction was that of utter disbelief-he stated it was very unusual for a mobo to come with damaged pins-according to him he had sold "hundreds of mobos" till date but had never encountered a situation like this before -it seemed he was trying to imply that i had damaged the pins myself and was bluffing in order to conceal my mistake.Nonetheless he asked me to bring it to his shop so that he could take a closer look at it.

After inspecting the mobo at his shop he was convinced that i had in fact bent the pins while trying to install the cpu on it the wrong way and it was simply impossible for the pins in the socket to have sustained such damage otherwise!! Another know-it-all type guy in there pointed towards some superficial scuff marks on the metallic surface of the cpu socket(which were already there when i got the motherboard-i didn't do anything that could have caused them)and described them as "signs of misuse" that had resulted from improper handling of the mobo while installing the cpu's heatsink (which was an outrageous lie).

No matter how much i tried to drive home the fact that i hadn't even attempted to install the cpu in the socket(as it was already damaged),let alone its heatsink and therefore there was no way i could have bent the pins myself,they were unwilling to believe me.Also when i told them that the package containing the mobo didn't include any Sata cables they didn't want to believe it either.

Finally after several rounds of arguments and counter arguments and visiting the store for 2 days consecutively(where many tacit hints were dropped of I being a liar and a fraud who was trying to hoodwink them)the shop-owner agreed to replace the motherboard(albeit begrudgingly).

This was a really unnerving situation to say the least-if they hadn't agreed to replace the motherboard,i would have been stuck with an useless product as there was no way i could have proven to them that i was in fact innocent and the mobo was damaged right from the beginning.And no one ever checks a mobo for such issues during purchase as most people automatically assume that a new motherboard will be completely undamaged and in immaculate condition.I wonder what the official stance of gigabyte(and also of other companies like asus,msi etc) is in cases where a new mobo is found with damaged pins-do they actually accept such boards for RMA or reject such claims entirely by stating that its the customer's fault?Has anyone else here faced a situation like this before?If yes,please do share your experience here.

(sorry about the lengthy post-however it was required to describe exactly what had happened to me in detail)

 

[billubakra]

Man I am so sorry about that. I think the retailer ripped you off. How much did you pay for it? Were the seals intact when you unboxed it?

 

[whitestar_999]

It all comes down to "service centre/retailer". All companies have a policy that "physical damage" is not covered under warranty so in the end it all comes down to whether the service centre/dealer would accept the damage as pre-existing before selling the mobo.Some service centres would refuse warranty for even superficial physical damage which has possible no relation whatsoever with mobo functioning.

 

[quicky008]

Yeah the box was sealed-if i had observed any signs of tampering then i would have rejected it right away at the store itself before purchase.And the retailer happens to be one of the more reputed ones in our locality-i have bought several other products from him in the past but had never experienced such issues before-so i was quite shocked with this whole incident.

I think the mobo was shipped in a damaged state-as incidents like this are quite rare,most retailers and shopkeepers automatically assume that its the customer's fault and outright refuse to replace the faulty product.However i was quite fortunate that the retailer eventually did replace my mobo-perhaps he did it reluctantly as i was an old customer and so he didn't want to get into any serious altercations with me.If i had purchased the mobo from some other shop that wasn't familiar with me then this incident could have had a way more bitter and frustrating outcome.

There's no way to prove that the mobo was physically damaged from the factory itself and the customer had nothing to do with it-also as the consumer protection laws in this country are really lax or simply non-existent,a retailer can simply sell you a damaged product and still manage to get away with it citing that the warranty was rendered void due to physical damage(even though the damage was caused due to negligence/mishandling on the part of the manufacturer,not buyer).This is a really grave issue that needs to be taken very seriously-if a product is found damaged and there's no way the customer can manage to get it RMA'd then all the hard-earned money that he might have spent on buying it would be totally wasted!

 

[billubakra]

Yeah the box was sealed-if i had observed any signs of tampering then i would have rejected it right away at the store itself before purchase.And the retailer happens to be one of the more reputed ones in our locality-i have bought several other products from him in the past but had never experienced such issues before-so i was quite shocked with this whole incident.

I think the mobo was shipped in a damaged state-as incidents like this are quite rare,most retailers and shopkeepers automatically assume that its the customer's fault and outright refuse to replace the faulty product.However i was quite fortunate that the retailer eventually did replace my mobo-perhaps he did it reluctantly as i was an old customer and so he didn't want to get into any serious altercations with me.If i had purchased the mobo from some other shop that wasn't familiar with me then this incident could have had a way more bitter and frustrating outcome.

There's no way to prove that the mobo was physically damaged from the factory itself and the customer had nothing to do with it-also as the consumer protection laws in this country are really lax or simply non-existent,a retailer can simply sell you a damaged product and still manage to get away with it citing that the warranty was rendered void due to physical damage(even though the damage was caused due to negligence/mishandling on the part of the manufacturer,not buyer).This is a really grave issue that needs to be taken very seriously-if a product is found damaged and there's no way the customer can manage to get it RMA'd then all the hard-earned money that he might have spent on buying it would be totally wasted!

Happy for you my dear. Party to banti hai ab.
The consumer protection act dates back to 1986. No wonder why we are years behind the developed countries.

 

[quicky008]

^Thanks buddy,despite the fact that i managed to get the board replaced this incident left a bad taste in my mouth and to some extent also tarnished the goodwill that existed between me and the dealer earlier-i dont think he was convinced that the mobo was already damaged when it was sold and so he could think that i had actually damaged it and then lied through my teeth to get it replaced-thus i cant really be very delighted about this whole fiasco as it might have portrayed me as a deceitful person before the shopkeeper(even though i was innocent),which in itself is a very unsettling thought.

 

[The Sorcerer]

A friend bought an Intel NUC from a store who is also a seller at Flipkart. From the outside, it looked all fine but the specs were wrong, incompatible driver. Turns out the motherboard for that particular NUC was not the same. The NUC didn't have a seal at the time of purchase. After bringing it to retailer's notice, he checked it out, apologized and swapped for a sealed unit. Turns out the store sold that unit via Flipkart but was returned. Whoever bought it must have swapped the motherboard.

Its always best to check the physical condition of the box, contents and the stuff you're paying for at the store itself. I am not a fan of buying some stuff from an online store. When you buy from a shop, it gives you the ability to physically check the product after billing in front of them. This way, nobody has any way to suspect anything.

 

[patkim]

Instances like this do happen, I remember there was a post on this forum itself where a user bought M2 SSD online and what he/she got was a weird product looking like RAM stick interface.

I read somewhere in project mgmt books that in manufacturing sometimes in order to speed up the production they may not test each and every item produced, rather only a sample of population from a batch. Alternatively the QC process might have been flawed due to some instrument or may be human error. So it's highly likely that some physical defect in the board went totally unnoticed and landed in the market.

Though I never had this kind of damaged product received incident so far, sadly there have been numerous incidents where the computer component received was faulty out of the box, confirming that QC was very poor.

 

[quicky008]

It may be possible for someone who's purchasing something from a retail store to inspect the product at the store itself to ensure that everything is in order-but what if someone buys some pc component from an ecommerce site like amazon/FK/mdcomputers etc,only to find that its damaged.Will the online store in that case even listen to the customer's complaints and be kind enough to replace the faulty item or refund his money?Or are they most likely to state that the damage was not pre-existing,it has been caused by the customer and therefore he's not entitled to any replacement/refund whatsoever?

This very thought itself makes me wary of buying any hardware or peripherals from sources where checking the item physically is not possible before purchase.

 

[topgear]

but still there are many things you can't find offline - anyway, if you have buy online just buy fulfilled products- but there cost more than retail stores though not always.

Got a motherboard with CMOS battery missing from amazon but they replaced the motherboard - hope this helps.

 

[quicky008]

what exactly does "fulfilled"mean?Amazon sells certain goods under this tagline-does it imply that if any defects are found(irrespective of what it might be),they will issue a replacement or refund to compensate the customer?

 

[topgear]

what exactly does "fulfilled"mean?Amazon sells certain goods under this tagline-does it imply that if any defects are found(irrespective of what it might be),they will issue a replacement or refund to compensate the customer?

Not necessarily but they usually do this.

 

[whitestar_999]

"Fulfilled" or not,biggest risk it seems is tampering of package by courier company employees.That is how some people get "fake memory cards/similar stuff" even when buying from seller Cloudtail which is amazon's own seller.

 

[quicky008]

^Which courier company does this the most?Once we sent some money concealed inside a book to a relative via dtdc-the money was hidden in such a way that it would be very difficult for someone to find it unless he searched through the book very thoroughly.However when the book was delivered the relative couldn't find it anywhere-also the package in which the book had been sent appeared to have been tampered.

So its pretty obvious that dtdc's employees must have pinched the money from the package before delivery,so it was missing! This wasn't the first time that something like this had happened-once we sent some other stuff via dtdc(which weren't that valuable)and some of them were missing from the package after delivery.When we enquired about this they denied all responsibility and claimed that they had no idea how it could have happened!

 

[whitestar_999]

You may not know this but all packages sent by courier(& possibly india post too) are X-rayed/scanned at some major dispatch centre(as required by security agencies) & at that point identifying hidden cash is quite easy.More than courier companies,it is employees/area dependent.e.g.In certain areas of UP,Bihar,Rajasthan,MP etc there are more chances of such tampering & one of the main reason why some very costly items are not available for delivery in some of these areas in such states.In my opinion,courier companies need to install CCTVs in their dispatch centres along with automating the scanning process & e-commerce companies need to hide details of product instead of pasting a sticker on top saying 128GB memory card or Redmi Note.

 

[ULTRON 17]

Now you got same company mother-board or another company.

 

[topgear]

going by the posts i think Op has got the same company motherboard .

 

[Zangetsu]

Lessons learned, never open the product after 'N' no of days to get a shocking experience.