G53 3 time RMA

[Acdrewalex]

The first week of July 2012 my G53 went in for repair of a broken power plug port. 2 weeks later the computer was returned to me without "my original box" I sent with it, computer housing was cracked with part of the plastic broke off, white paint ( or white material ) all over the screen an speaker area, and small surface scratches. I immediately called the Support center and was told to send in pictures and then someone would call me in 24-48 hours. I immediately sent in the pictures and never received a call. 5 days later I called backed was asked to send in the computer for repair. I then sent in the computer and 2 weeks later received the computer back not fixed and with a new problem the fans making a whineing noise at shutoff. I immediately called Asus support again and was told to send in pictures and I would receive a call from a manager in 24-48 hours. 3 days later and no call from Asus so I called again. I was then told to send in more pictures and someone would call me in 24-48 hours. The next day Asus called me and I was asked to send in the computer. The rep that called me said I would be sending it to the corporate office to him and he assured me that it would be returned to me the next day after receipt and he would also contact me when he received it. I noticed the address that i was sending it to was the same place that had damaged the computer the first time. Last Friday I tracked the computer and it showed that the repair center had received it on Wednesday. I called Asus support and was told that I would receive the laptop on Monday. I called back today and was told that I am waiting on parts and there is no expected time of return. No phone calls or emails again from Asus.
This problem Has now been almost 8 weeks, I use my laptop for work and have not had it for 8 weeks. I spent $1400 on it in January and had to sell my Alienware to be able to afford it. I am 40 years old and have had Dell's all my life. I bought an Asus because you get more bang for your buck. Out of the 9 Dell computers I have owned and still own I have had only 1 motherboard repair that took 1 day, because they come to my home. Asus has lied to me and treated me like I do not matter. Unfortunately I am at the mercy of your company because I cannot afford $1400 for a new Alienware ( I am an engineer and require certain power and graphical needs). All I have is this iPad that I am using to type this message that would have taken half the time if I had a computer.
I need an immediate resolution, please or at least my money back so I can create my own resolution?

[chrsplmr]

Zy .. As pointed out by Scott, at the time of the OPposting .. the Unit in questions had already been shipped.
'We' cheerfully await the OPster's review of the Returned Unit.

I think this is very healthy.
We are getting to know Mr. Billings .. love the AppleStories .. hahahhaa .. ROG is growing on him.
Gorman is driving home some very important points. (Rightfully in manyways so.) (Hows that powerpin hold'n up 'this' time Gman?)
Just good healthful banter among Enthusiastic Enthusiasts.
Myself? I continue to point out .. if 'those' techs dont Love the ROG -- they 'need' a 'new' job.
I'd love to give them that opportunity to find it .. and gleefully point to the door >>> over there >>>

The 'new' girl .. if I am correct is also a 'new' 'CL' .. from Dell .. together with Mr.Billings they
are TeamDellApple ... hahahahhaha ... JOKE ... hahhahaa .. best to both of them. hahhahaa
(Im all for sending 'him' over there to bust ROGs .. no more excuses, no more prisoners.)
(or give them (the 'techs') 30days .. and then fly in theGman .. hehe. explain it to him. good luck.)

As to you Sir, Cudos, as Always.c.

[Gorman]

Zygomorphic wrote:
I would be quite surprised if the repair centers really do drill holes in the mobo.

You need to read the forums more often. Within the last few months (or so, definitely this year) there was a thread by a guy who RMA'd his machine and got an email from ASUS saying that the board had been customer damaged. He called to ask what was going on, and they told him the board had a hole drilled in it and was damaged in other ways. Since the warranty seal was not broken the service center admitted that someone on the floor damaged the board.

I wouldn't be surprised if ASUS returned a machine snapped in half and claimed it was customer damage. Disgusted? Yes. Surprised? Nope.


@Chrs: My pin is fine... this time. 😉 My local center replaced my charger and I purchased a L-shaped connector. Contrary to what cl-scott may claim, my local repair center is great, and they are always helpful... ASUS online support, ASUS official policies, ASUS workmanship and ASUS quality on the other hand.......... Not to mention their refusal to acknowledge and deal with problems..........

[cl-scott]

Gorman wrote:
Not to mention their refusal to acknowledge and deal with problems..........

There's a reason for that, and it has to do with people who will take anything you say, and find some way to turn it into a negative. So it's just easier and safer to just say nothing.

I might try and be helpful, and tell someone that a part is on backorder, and so the repair will be delayed a little. My intentions are about as pure as can be, trying to simply let the person know what is going on with their unit. Now I'm not saying that the owner doesn't have the right to be a little disappointed about the delay, but what I would expect is the person to say something along the lines of, "Not what I was hoping to hear, but thank you for keeping me updated anyway." A simple reciprocation of professionalism. Instead, often times what you end up getting is a tirade about pretty much everything under the sun, sometimes you get some pretty fanciful conspiracy theories cooked up by the more... creative... people out there.

The truth is generally far more boring. You could write a book, and numerous people have in fact, on supply chain management. The current popular system is called just-in-time, where you basically try and operate on zero inventory, bringing in parts as you need them, or "just in time". Which is great from a cost savings angle, since you don't need to pay for a huge warehouse to stock a bunch of parts, those parts aren't sitting on the books so the capitol you might otherwise have to dump into warranty parts can be invested in R&D or some other area, and it generally means you operate with less overhead and can charge less for products. The problem is that if there's any disruption in the chain of companies that goes from raw materials all the way up to the finished product, it can have a huge ripple effect that just gets bigger as it makes its way along the chain. If there's a disruption in the raw materials, that is your worst nightmare come to life. So you might try and counter this by having a small buffer inventory, like enough materials to sustain normal operations for a month. If the delays are only 1-2 weeks in duration, then you're fine, but if you have a situation like the flooding in Thailand not too long ago, which caused a spike in HDD prices, what exactly are you going to do? Even if you have contracts with 2-3 different companies to supply parts, if all those companies are knocked out of commission for a couple of months because of some natural disaster... Anyone who has a viable solution to that problem could buy and sell Bill Gates hundreds of times over with the money they stand to make.

Of course the above is really a very oversimplified version. A proper analysis would be several hundred pages long. So let me ask you something Gorman... Just for the sake of argument let's say you are a waiter at a restaurant. You take a customer's order, give it to the cooks in the kitchen, and then pick it up when it's ready to take to the customer. Let's further assume that there are normally 3 cooks, but maybe one called in sick that night, and it just happens to be busier than usual... So being the conscientious waiter that you are, always thinking of the customer, you go over to apologize and try to explain that their food will be a little longer than expected. The customer then just loses it, accusing you of either intentionally neglecting to put their order in, or being incompetent and forgetting to put it in. They then accuse you of having some part in how the host(ess) told them the wait would be 30 minutes for a table, and it ended up being more like 45.

In that scenario, what would you tell the customer?

[Zygomorphic]

@cl-scott is right, supply management is hard...not that I would know, I'm not in management. If I were in that case (and restaurants, I have) I graciously accept it with: "Bummer. OK, I understand." Bad things happen. I try to be courteous to someone because I like others being courteous to me. It is sort of like letting the motorist into your lane. They probably aren't going to be able to repay you, but you would like them to remember you and be nice to someone else, who is nice to someone else, who two weeks later is nice to you.

[chrsplmr]

This is a family forum Gorman ... hahahaha .. send a PM. (If you would tell'm what I would tell'm..haha>>>door.)
(scott .. climb over on our side of the fence bro .. Welcome.).c.

[Gorman]

chrsplmr wrote:
This is a family forum Gorman ... hahahaha .. send a PM. (If you would tell'm what I would tell'm..haha>>>door.)
(scott .. climb over on our side of the fence bro .. Welcome.).c.

When I PM they just say "sorry we can't help"...

cl-scott wrote:
Unfortunately, if he's already initiated a BBB complaint, I'm not allowed to touch it anymore. Anytime the BBB or a lawsuit is involved, it gets handed off to someone else, and I am probably pushing things a little just posting this. If OP wanted to retract the BBB complaint, I could probably kind of skirt the rules saying technically there wasn't a BBB complaint anymore, but that has to be the OP's call.

What is a BBB complaint and how does one start one?

[chrsplmr]

Accepting pay for 'less than agreed' work is theft. From all of us.

The One hands down, above all others thing that Asus is ..
.. is the top of the mountain Research and Development Company.
Every dollar 'stolen' through apathy is a precious dollar stolen
right from the mouth of R&D .. That's Maximus VI .. ect.
The gems of ROG .. above 'we' faithful are ROG LabTechs ..
Like gymRats but more crazed .. obsessed.(imagine that for a sec.)

The unNamed .. quite a few are here among us ..
if you saw some of the "Zero" video .. you saw a hint of their fever.
"Sweat'n to Ln2 and N" .. hahhaha

Get some enthusiastic techs in these 'minor' but critical rolls.
Love it .. or get Out .. Find something you are thrilled to do ..
One thing is for sure .. they lack effective leadership there.imho.of course.

As to what do you tell a customer ? The Truth, as you know it.
They 'go off' ? .. hahaha .. click. There are great people on hold.

Supply management .. exactly, leadership.
Maybe 'they' should 'have to' manage a huge restaurant or fresh market ..
before applying ... live ahead of the game ... geesh .. c.

[Acdrewalex]

I did receive the computer back with the help of Mason, unfortunately with some new problems. Although they did repair their previous damage. I have attached a copy of the letter I sent to Mason.
Just to clarify the screw that is broke off is under the keyboard not part of the keyboard.

Hello,
Thank you for the help.
I did receive the computer back in good exterior condition except for on the left side keyboard the keyboard release notch was reamed out with a screwdriver and will not sit all the way down.
When I first turned on the keyboard everything started great. The only problem was the keyboard did not work. I turned it off and looked below the keyboard. The keyboard in coming apart from underneath, a screw is missing that I guess holds it together, the wires were not hooked up, and under the keyboard there is a screw broke off. I replaced the wires and the keyboard started working except the A and S button has to be hit a few times to work.
When I start the computer when it is hooked up to an external monitor the laptop monitor and the external monitor is black screen until windows desktop is up. Never had that problem before.
I called last Tuesday for help and was told someone would call me back in 24-48 hours and they would have me send back the computer for repairs. Today is Monday a week later and no one has contacted me from Asus. I am out of time and patience, I am going to look at trying to get an Alienware and just throw this Asus in the trash. Sorry for my rudeness, again thank you.

[dstrakele]

Words fail me.

[chrsplmr]

You are sorry ??? ... +dstrakele ...

... but AlienWare ? .. no need to drink the kool aide .. yet.
This needs to be made right .. long ago.first.c.