A WARNING about buying monitors from Newegg.com

TourGuide · Post by **TourGuide** » Mon Jan 13, 2003 8:57 pm

I know there are LOTS of guys here who use Newegg as the standard price point and in fact throw a lot of business their way. Well, I have a warning for you regarding some of their policies SPECIFICALLY regarding buying new monitors from them.

One of the things Newegg has recently started to do MORE and MORE of is to charge a 15% restocking fee with certain items in their inventory. This is my story regarding buying a new monitor from Newegg.

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In the current upgrade cycle I figured it was time to do the monitor on my box. So I went to Newegg (naturally) and checked the prices on a Sony G520. They are currently doing a free FedEx Saver shipping deal, which I thought - sounds good to me. So I ordered from Newegg. Well, the monitor got here and was good for 24 hours, then it started to phase in and out of focus after it had been on for about 30 minutes. So I decide, the heck with this, I am sending this sucker back for a refund and ordering an NEC from Dell. I mean it is defective right, so I should not have any trouble getting my money back, right? So I call Newegg today and low and behold THEY DO NOT process returns on defective monitors without a 15% restocking fee. Now on this monitor that is going to cost me $105 and change.

I fully realize that this was my fault for not reading their policies ahead of time, but heck I thought - this is Newegg, they have awesome customer service so why worry?! Well, I found out why.

Two things to take from this story:

1. If you order a new monitor from Newegg be aware that it is YOUR responsibility to deal with the manufacturer if there is a problem.

2. If you want to return a defective monitor to Newegg (EVEN WITHIN YOUR FIRST 30 DAYS) you will be looking at a 15% penalty.

I had to learn the hard way. Now you don't need to.

nexus_7 · Post by **nexus_7** » Mon Jan 13, 2003 9:14 pm

here is another warning. dont have anythign to do with newegg.

Greg

honz · Post by **honz** » Mon Jan 13, 2003 9:14 pm

dam. srry to hear that man. i've only ordered once from newegg, but it worked great, so i've never had to deal with their customer service. i'd just taken the word that it was great. altho, i usually by the heavy and big stuff at best buy or something. heard to many monitor shipping stories. (etches another in a book)

thx for the warninig tho

TourGuide · Post by **TourGuide** » Mon Jan 13, 2003 9:22 pm

dont have anythign to do with newegg.

I'm not sure I am suggesting this. For many things they are fine, but in this instance I took it without the lube and it hurts bigtime.

I know I will NEVER order another monitor through them ever again.

nexus_7 · Post by **nexus_7** » Mon Jan 13, 2003 9:42 pm

na, the company is evil. the reason they can sell many things so cheap is cause they cheat. They are actually a second teir PC maker so they get the stuff cheap and use it on there system builds, but instead they shuffel it down to the website and sell it that way. newegg.....no good

Greg

TheBattousai · Post by **TheBattousai** » Mon Jan 13, 2003 9:56 pm

Well, I just got most of my stuff for the rig I'm currently running from Newegg and I didn't have any problems with them. But, I will listen to Greg's advice since I've heard he knows what the hell he's talking about. Of course, maybe everyone has been telling me lies...

Anyway, who do you suggest to buy from? I'm going to be setting up some rigs for a few people and I would like to know what the best place would be to get stuff from.

TourGuide · Post by **TourGuide** » Mon Jan 13, 2003 10:05 pm

what the best place would be to get stuff from.

Good question for Greg. Greg?

nexus_7 · Post by **nexus_7** » Mon Jan 13, 2003 10:08 pm

tcwo is good for alot of stuff.

directron & axiontech I also concider good and honost.

I mean newegg is allright, they just arnt honost about stuff which I cant stand...I mean if they were Not trying to hide the fact that they are a different company and can offer the prices they offer then I would atleast concider spending my $ there. I used to until I found out about all this.

Greg

Slugbait · Post by **Slugbait** » Mon Jan 13, 2003 10:11 pm

About eight years ago, I went to the Incredible Universe store (owned by Tandy) for their "Midnight Madness" sale. Everything was 20% off. And they had a section of return/refurbished stuff, which was 50% off regular price (plus the additional 20% off of that). They had several Nokia 447L monitors sitting there (back then, Nokia tried to pull an "iMac"...multiple colors). The customer reason for returning the monitor: bad colors. Tech explanation: colors were fine. It turns out that person meant "I changed my mind, I no longer like black, I'm going with beige after all...". I got a great deal.

I was a warehouse lead at Silo for a year. Saw a lot of returns for refunds, accompanied by claims that there was something wrong. My job was to test it...if it works fine, we can't send it back to the manufacturer, we have to keep it and sell it AS USED, which drops our profit by quite a bit.

Issue: big ticket items cost a lot to receive back. And there are customers who decide, for whatever reason, they no longer want something, and they SAY something is wrong in order to quickly get their money back. NewEgg doesn't know until they get the item back whether or not it's truly defective...nobody does.

Had a problem about six months ago with an Antec True330 that I bought thru NewEgg...it sounded like a jet airliner with flaps down. Got an RMA. They had plenty more, said they'd send a new one upon receiving the bad one. I sent it two-day, needed a PSU immediately.

They suddenly ran out. Not just the 330's either, they had no Trues at all. I'm guessing they got a bad shipment, and were getting tons of RMA's.

So they send me email saying my CC would be refunded...but I had a complete system sitting here, unpowered.

Called them. They wouldn't talk about the Trues. I pleaded that I needed a PSU, just swap for the Enermax 350. They said, "cool".

The guy said he would refund my return shipping costs. Great, I thought, some companies don't do that.

Then he offered to refund my original shipping cost. Huh? Where the hell did that come from? I expected they would send a replacement without charging me additional shipping, but refunding my original shipping cost? Without my even asking? What other company is this insane?

I'm sure they would have sent a replacement free of charge. The G520 is a really nice monitor. Free shipping on a monitor was a great deal. You scored like a bandit. You shouldn't have backed out.

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Mon Jan 13, 2003 10:32 pm

I can also recommend Directron.com - I use them a lot.

Well I order a LOT from NewEgg and have been very satisfied. I admit I've never had to deal with their customer support though.

I had a Lite-on CDRW drive fail on me but it was just after 30 days so I dealt with lite-on directly.

I never buy their OEM stuff - I only buy their retail boxes. I also avoid their refurbs (heard a lot of bad stories about people buying their refurbs and I don't like buying refurbs anyway).

Frankly their prices are good, selection is good, and shipping is great when it's an item they're shipping for free.

I understand what you're saying Greg, but as long as I'm getting a good price and a fair deal and they're not cheating me (like selling OEM hardware as retail as some vendors do), I couldn't care less how they run the internal works of their company.

TourGuide · Post by **TourGuide** » Mon Jan 13, 2003 10:35 pm

You shouldn't have backed out.

This is true. I probably should have just waited another 2-3 weeks while Sony straightened it out. I wish I had 2-3 weeks to be without my rig.

The G520 is a really nice monitor.

This is also true.

If there had been nothing wrong with the original 520 that showed up at my door, there'd be no story here. I'd be happily staring at the damn near prefect geometry and razor sharp text that I had for the first 24 hours. You've no idea how much I wish that were the case, it simply isn't.

This is an example of one of the gambles you sometimes take shopping for stuff mail-order. In the past, this was less of an issue with Newegg. It seems to be changing now and I find that sad.

PreDatoR · Post by **PreDatoR** » Mon Jan 13, 2003 11:10 pm

FP newegg OEM drives are warrantied for 1 year through them. My 24x10x40 i had was 10 months old and went out... they replaced it with a 48x24x48

NascarFool · Post by **NascarFool** » Mon Jan 13, 2003 11:31 pm

Newegg autho'd an RMA today for my Plextor 40x12x40x that I purchased 7 1/2 months ago. I thought I was going to have to fight with Plextor to get it fixed but Newegg pulled through for me.

Slugbait · Post by **Slugbait** » Tue Jan 14, 2003 2:31 am

I probably should have just waited another 2-3 weeks while Sony straightened it out

Other than naming the manufacturer of the monitor you purchased, at no time did you point out that Sony would have to "straighten it out". In fact, you didn't have a single negative thing to say about Sony...only NewEgg.

What exactly was there for Sony to "straighten out"? You didn't purchase the monitor from them...you purchased it from NewEgg.

When I go to Best Buy, and they sell me a lemon, the manufacturer doesn't straighten it out...Best Buy does.

When I go to Sears, and they sell me a lemon, the manufacturer doesn't straighten it out...Sears does.

When I go to Circuit City, and they sell me a lemon, the manufacturer doesn't straighten it out...Circuit City does.

When I went to NewEgg, and they sold me a lemon, Antec didn't straighten it out...NewEgg did.

What, is there something in your purchase agreement that sez if the monitor is fubar after 24 hours that you have to go thru Sony to get it replaced?

TourGuide · Post by **TourGuide** » Tue Jan 14, 2003 6:48 am

What exactly was there for Sony to "straighten out"? You didn't purchase the monitor from them...you purchased it from NewEgg.

This is my point. If Newegg sells me a dud of a monitor then it ought to be Newegg who makes it right, but that is curretly NOT their policy. They make you deal with the manufacturer. This is their 'new policy' and it ought to be different.