tips:
1. use credit card with purchase protection, you just need to spend some to ship the stuff to credit card company for refund.
2. buy from big online vendors like buycom, onvia, etc with 30 days no question asked refund policy, they even pay for shipping if you claim defective.
(I had returned not doa but quite defective motherboard and vga card for refund at onvia.)
small online vendors (like newegg and any pricewatch vendor) only let you get replacement for defective, of course no refund, they don't have that much of capital like buycom can just let people refund if defective or they don't like it. most b&m small computer stores also don't let you refund for defective, only replacement.
if you don't like this kind of business model, only go to fry's.
even compusa now charges restocking fee for opened computer hardware.
too many people were abusing refund/return, including me, I used to buy, try and refund new hardware from compusa.