ASUS Promises Support Overhaul After YouTube Investigators Allege Dishonesty (gamersnexus.net) 59
ASUS has suddenly agreed "to overhaul its customer support and warranty systems," writes the hardware review site Gamers Nexus — after a three-video series on its YouTube channel documented bad and "potentially illegal" handling of customer warranties for the channel's 2.2 million viewers.
The Verge highlights ASUS's biggest change: If you've ever been denied a warranty repair or charged for a service that was unnecessary or should've been free, Asus wants to hear from you at a new email address. It claims those disputes will be processed by Asus' own staff rather than outsourced customer support agents.... The company is also apologizing today for previous experiences you might have had with repairs. "We're very sorry to anyone who has had a negative experience with our service team. We appreciate your feedback and giving us a chance to make amends."
It started five weeks ago when Gamers Nexus requested service for a joystick problem, according to a May 10 video. First they'd received a response wrongly telling them their damage was out of warranty — which also meant Asus could add a $20 shipping charge for the requested repair. "Somehow that turned into ASUS saying the LCD needs to be replaced, even though the joystick is covered under their repair policies," the investigators say in the video. [They also note this response didn't even address their original joystick problem — "only that thing that they had decided to find" — and that ASUS later made an out-of-the-blue reference to "liquid damage."] The repair would ultimately cost $191.47, with ASUS mentioning that otherwise "the unit will be sent back un-repaired and may be disassembled." ASUS gave them four days to respond, with some legalese adding that an out-of-warranty repair fee is non-refundable, yet still "does not guarantee that repairs can be made."
Even when ASUS later agreed to do a free "partial" repair (providing the requested in-warranty service), the video's investigators still received another email warning of "pending service cancellation" and return of the unit unless they spoke to "Invoice Quotation Support" immediately. The video-makers stood firm, and the in-warranty repair was later performed free — but they still concluded that "It felt like ASUS tried to scam us." ASUS's response was documented in a second video, with ASUS claiming it had merely been sending a list of "available" repairs (and promising that in the future ASUS would stop automatically including costs for the unrequested repair of "cosmetic imperfections" — and that they'd also change their automatic emails.)
Gamers Nexus eventually created a fourth, hour-long video confronting various company officials at Computex — which finally led to them publishing a list of ASUS's promised improvements on Friday. Some highlights:
The Verge highlights ASUS's biggest change: If you've ever been denied a warranty repair or charged for a service that was unnecessary or should've been free, Asus wants to hear from you at a new email address. It claims those disputes will be processed by Asus' own staff rather than outsourced customer support agents.... The company is also apologizing today for previous experiences you might have had with repairs. "We're very sorry to anyone who has had a negative experience with our service team. We appreciate your feedback and giving us a chance to make amends."
It started five weeks ago when Gamers Nexus requested service for a joystick problem, according to a May 10 video. First they'd received a response wrongly telling them their damage was out of warranty — which also meant Asus could add a $20 shipping charge for the requested repair. "Somehow that turned into ASUS saying the LCD needs to be replaced, even though the joystick is covered under their repair policies," the investigators say in the video. [They also note this response didn't even address their original joystick problem — "only that thing that they had decided to find" — and that ASUS later made an out-of-the-blue reference to "liquid damage."] The repair would ultimately cost $191.47, with ASUS mentioning that otherwise "the unit will be sent back un-repaired and may be disassembled." ASUS gave them four days to respond, with some legalese adding that an out-of-warranty repair fee is non-refundable, yet still "does not guarantee that repairs can be made."
Even when ASUS later agreed to do a free "partial" repair (providing the requested in-warranty service), the video's investigators still received another email warning of "pending service cancellation" and return of the unit unless they spoke to "Invoice Quotation Support" immediately. The video-makers stood firm, and the in-warranty repair was later performed free — but they still concluded that "It felt like ASUS tried to scam us." ASUS's response was documented in a second video, with ASUS claiming it had merely been sending a list of "available" repairs (and promising that in the future ASUS would stop automatically including costs for the unrequested repair of "cosmetic imperfections" — and that they'd also change their automatic emails.)
Gamers Nexus eventually created a fourth, hour-long video confronting various company officials at Computex — which finally led to them publishing a list of ASUS's promised improvements on Friday. Some highlights:
- ASUS promises it's "created a Task Force team to retroactively go back through a long history of customer surveys that were negative to try and fix the issues." (The third video from Gamers Nexus warned ASUS was already on the government's radar over its handling of warranty issues.)
- ASUS also announced their repairs centers were no longer allowed to claim "customer-induced damage" (which Gamers Nexus believes "will remove some of the financial incentive to fail devices" to speed up workloads).
- ASUS is creating a new U.S. support center allowing customers to choose either a refurbished board or a longer repair.
Gamers Nexus says they already have devices at ASUS repair centers — under pseudonyms — and that they "plan to continue sampling them over the next 6-12 months so we can ensure these are permanent improvements." And there's one final improvement, according to Gamers Nexus. "After over a year of refusing to acknowledge the microSD card reader failures on the ROG Ally [handheld gaming console], ASUS will be posting a formal statement next week about the defect."
I was following this (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I was following this (Score:5, Insightful)
When Steve talked to a lawyer about this and Louis Rossmann, they made the point that if enough complaints came in about the practice, it would start an FTC investigation.
I sincerely hope the consumers that were affected by these practices put in a report to the FTC, because Asus wont do anything about it otherwise.
And it is clear, regardless if third party repair or Asus themselves, they were attempting to draw profit from their repair centers. FTC should have a field day with Asus practices on repairs.
The fact is, their shit is cultural at this point, and a rot from within. Good luck changing that without the law going after them and removing key people. Fact is, if this isnt done, those same people will stay in and eventually return to this method.
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Yeah, this was going on last year, when using some memory overclocking features was deemed to violate the warranty of AMD processors (it only applied to Ryzen CPUs). ASUS motherboards had those features enabled by default and ASUS would claim flashing the BIOS with an update would void the warranty. So it was a choice between the defaults possibly voiding the warranty on your processor, or flashing a fixed version that voided the motherboard warranty.
They eventually recanted on that, but it appears the prob
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The fact is, their shit is cultural at this point, and a rot from within. Good luck changing that without the law going after them and removing key people. Fact is, if this isnt done, those same people will stay in and eventually return to this method.
You have just described the normalcy of business. It is difficult to find a company to do business with that would not make the exact same decisions. Something is definitely broken in this world. Too lazy, greedy, and entitled.
Never buy this kind of shitty Laptop (Score:2)
Rule No1:
Never ever buy a shitty laptop that is intended as a consumer device.
Always get enterprise grade stuff, best is to get from leasing resellers, getting rid of 2-3 year old devices at a nice price.
Consumer laptops just fall apart after a few years of daily use.
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Rule No1:
Never ever buy a shitty laptop that is intended as a consumer device.
Always get enterprise grade stuff, best is to get from leasing resellers, getting rid of 2-3 year old devices at a nice price.
Consumer laptops just fall apart after a few years of daily use.
MacBooks don't.
But maybe they are "Enterprise Grade".
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Macbooks fall apart when they come close to a drop of water.
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And they contain moisture sensors that purport to tell if your machine has ever been immersed, but which also will eventually claim that has occurred if you've operated in a typically humid environment...
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Macbooks fall apart when they come close to a drop of water.
Hmmm. My 12 year old MacBook Pro would beg to differ. Quite humid where I live, and until this year, no Central A/C.
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The posters claim about them being unusually susceptible to water damage is false, the but the next posters claim about the "moisture sensors" is true. If you needed to get a repair you would likely find that they would claim the sensor shows water immersion.
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The posters claim about them being unusually susceptible to water damage is false, the but the next posters claim about the "moisture sensors" is true. If you needed to get a repair you would likely find that they would claim the sensor shows water immersion.
Those moisture detectors are nuanced, like pH-paper. I've seen them. Unless you regularly shower with your MacBook, it ain't gonna show up as "immersion".
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It does not need immersion to show "out of warranty"
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It does not need immersion to show "out of warranty"
He said, she said.
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Always get enterprise grade stuff, best is to get from leasing resellers, getting rid of 2-3 year old devices at a nice price.
Generally true however there are things to consider. For my current company I had one laptop that had the motherboard replaced every 18 months or so. The IT department said my model had a lot of failures but since it was under support they did not outright replace all of them. When it was time for a hardware refresh, IT replaced the laptop. For the consumer, they may not know which enterprise models are problematic and repairs are probably not under support so the consumer will have to pay for all repairs.
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Steve, the new super journalist (Score:2)
We are not your partner.
John Dvorak would be proud
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Yup! Steve from Gamers Nexus, and to some extent Steve from Hardware Unboxed, seem to be genuine with their integrity.
To see informed Tech YouTubers being authentic is such a change of pace from wannabe Tech Youtubers The Verge [youtube.com] and crap like Linus Tech Tips.
Re: Steve, the new super journalist (Score:2)
LTT is just entertainment. they provide little value and they're not the channel to watch if you're interested in serious reviews. it's just a guy with lots of money doing stupid things for fun.
he is also a major asshole as a boss.
Support not the only problem (Score:5, Interesting)
Certainly good to improve support but can we talk about Asus desktop software like Armory Crate? I can't even believe how bad it is and how it just does not improve. My RBG is completely dark right now because I'd rather that than have to deal with their software. So, so terrible.
Please, fire your devs and outsource it to someone who has a clue what they're doing.
Re:Support not the only problem (Score:5, Insightful)
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Most times a company replace in-house devs with external ones is to save money, which generally results in lower quality. If you can point to any cases where a tech company has outsourced to their devs to improve quality, please give us an example.
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It's weird that their Android software stack works quite well. Or at least it did on my old ROG Phone 2.
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If only that was an ASUS thing. Gigabyte's RGB software has on several occasions managed to nuke my BIOS, presumably by writing something faulty out on the SMBUS, and seemingly fails to update the motherboard's onboard addressable controller (only PWM LEDs work). SIV (their fan control software) often claims it is writing a change in settings which never actually applies, and seemingly every time I reuse it their fans need to "recalibrate" (because the software insists on showing RPM as well as % as if anyo
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I seem to recall that Microsoft was creating an API for RGB, and GamersNexus also tried to start and effort to at least document publicly how to interface to various RGB implementations, so users aren't tied to the manufacturer's software.
Install Chimera OS (Score:1)
These handhelds all have the same problem, they don't, and possibly can't, hide the underlying OS.
Try installing ChimeraOS [chimeraos.org] on the ROG Ally. It's supposed to make the experience as good as on the Steam Deck.
I have watched this saga and still depressed. (Score:2)
Will they do what Gamer Nexus want? Eh, maybe. At least till the next model of their shit steam knockoff comes out. Being that this joystick issue is known and expensive as hell to RMA, I am sure they have been kicking back all those devices as hard as they could. Hell they properly subcontracted to the US to fix the issue and give a "bonus
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What did you do when the controller broke? Did just you buy another one? No consequences to the company? Gee, I wonder why they make them so weak.
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Then again it was like that for everything back then. Fallow the script the support person used and get an RMA. Worked for anything as phone suppo
Late stage capitalism (Score:3)
Sorry we made many obvious mistakes in our favor on your warranty repairs, it won't happen again
Sorry we automatically signed you up for prime shipping, it won't happen again
Sorry we tacked on the optional protection plan even though you specifically declined, it won't happen again
Sorry for taking those government subsidies after we spent billions on stock buybacks, it won't happen again
Dealing with a corporation on a day that ends in Y.
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How is that late stage? Could it be normal evolution?
Psychopath excuse (Score:3)
They say they are sorry for wrongdoing. ... in reality they are sorry of being caught red handed.
They won't fix the issue. The issue is structural. They on know about using the PR department to try to paint it with goodwill.
The alternative is even worse (Score:2)
Still, when you decry "late stage capitalism" the implied premise that you have a better alternative. As someone that was born in a communist block, let me tell you that the alternative you foolishly advocate results in simply not having any of this. You get your weekly allotment of vodka and 3 channels of state propaganda and that it for digital entertainment.
ASUS, You've Made the List! (Score:4, Insightful)
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There aren't many companies not on my list
That's sort of the problem isn't it. ASUS has been on my list for a long time. But when I just bought a new GPU I bought ... ASUS, because I realised every major company was on the list already, and didn't feel like going to some small reseller who does nothing but paint a logo on a fan.
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More than a decade ago some other data center customers and I were on an email chain with an ASUS engineer about Ethernet data corruption.
I eventually found a reproducer for a packet that would always be corrupted. Bad PHY was my guess, not BIOS fixable.
ASUS went radio silent - completely stopped responding like Legal had told them to.
They will screw customers if it would cost money to stand behind their product, was my impression.
We switched to SuperMicro until Snowdon.
Sigh.
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On the other hand, I bought an ASUS 1080p LCD monitor what... 14 years ago? It's so long I can't even remember, but I know it's several years older than my current PC, which is now 10 years old. and it's still working without a hitch, like day one, no broken pixels, nothing wrong with it, ever.
Aren't these things supposed to break at some point?
Headline (Score:2)
YouTube, or YouTubers? There's a difference FFS.
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Probably, but it's better than the egotist/narcissistic terms "influencer" or "creator". Note I'm not saying "YouTuber" is a good word, in fact it's dumb and shitty .. just that it's better than proclaiming oneself a "creator" just for being willing to make a fool of yourself.
And that's still not all of it... (Score:4, Insightful)
Look at this guys experience with Asus Europe trying to get a replacement motherboard under warranty: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
For those who don't want to watch, in this case Asus didn't contest the warranty, but he ended up receiving 5 other used & in different ways broken motherboards (one among those he bought as he was so done with the warranty system sending him motherboards that were clearly used, but even the "new" one he tried to buy was used), before he got one that was actually new, and he had something that worked properly...
No warrenty for on sale products (Score:2)
Re: No warrenty for on sale products (Score:2)
To your last question, depends on where you live. It absolutely wouldn't be legal in France and probably many other EU countries. But the US is the land of freedumb. This probably varies by state. IANAL.
Not only ASUS (Score:2)
I'm pleased to see this. (Score:2)
I didn't know this video series had been happening, but ASUS has been on "my list" for many years since refusing to replace a graphics card that broke under warranty. I've mentioned it before in comment on ASUS related stories. I once sent them an email telling them of all the lost sales because of it (my own PCs, and also all the PCs I've bought for work).
I'll have to watch the video's when I get home.
Another great story from Gamer's Nexus (Score:2)
Seriously there's a list of people you don't want to cook your company online and GN is one of them, if I did any press or marketing for a tech business and my company is a featured story on GN I am gonna be sweating bullets the next week.
They also did a similar set of stories on Newegg last year about their mediocre support [youtube.com] that also culminated in an hours long interview with their staff.
Surveys and/or NPS should always be standard... (Score:1)
whoopie de doo (Score:2)
this is like the 3rd time in 5 years they promise overhauls in their support, fuck them at this point
more Steves (Score:2)
we need an aerospace Steve to take on Boeing.