VERY poor after-sales service with MSI

[mercutiouk]

Well, I think it's about time I made this post in the hope that someone out there is able to see the wood for the trees.

In Jan this year I had to send my MSI GX660R away for repair due no power/dead (turned off a couple of times then wouldn't power up).

MSI europe (I think the Polish base) repaired it over a period of about 6 weeks ("waiting for the part") and was received back all fine apart from one small point: The power plug wasn't a snug fit for the socket, you had to "hold it right" to get it to power. It wasn't extreme, just a bit of adjustment needed.

This was causing the socket to occasionally get a little warm. One day over the summer it was left charging and got rather too warm; the plugs plastic parts had melted onto the pin in the DC power socket. Getting the cable out broke the pin off the middle of the socket. I'm not sure if they are trying to say it's my fault for having to wrestle the plug out of the socket but I can only imagine how much extra damage there would be had if I returned it with the plug still wedged in the back. They'd almost certainly have more excuses to wriggle out of warranty fix on their hands than a crack on the socket.

All this has been explained VERY clearly to both MSI and D&J Henry Ltd, their repair agents in the UK.

Today (after a few mails back and forth re-telling my story and pointing out the previous RMA which D&J had no clue/record of despite me mentioning it) I finally get this mail back:

Dear Customer,



Please find attached photo of damaged DC jack. There is a crack on plastic frame and according to our engineer this is a mechanical damage which cannot be repaired under warranty. Please contact our Repair Agents to inform them how do you want to proceed.



Kind regards,

Now I'd hope it was pretty obvious to ANYONE with half a brain that if the pin inside the socket has been snapped off then OF COURSE there is going to be physical damage to the socket. Attempting to claim lack of warranty on this technicality is simply outrageous.

Anyone think they have much of a case or am I on the right track here? Couple of sternly worded emails explaining what I think and what's fair etc.

 

[mercutiouk]

Aaand it seems they don't appreciate complains on the their main forum. Post about the issue was locked within seconds. You can't PM the moderators so I raised another (asking nicely) how I could discuss the issue:

Sorry mercutiouk, you are banned from using this forum!
You have already been told not to post bash and you although opened a new topic for the same. Therefor you are banned for three days. Behaving like this again will result in a permanent ban.
This ban is set to expire 14-September-12, 22:50:07.

 

[ky54]

I have to say my experience with them has been exactly the opposite. A couple of years ago I bought one of their high end gaming laptops and every time I started it would start dinging. I called their US customer service and they sent me the UPS info and paid the shipping both ways. I marked a couple of things inside so I would know if they actually opened it up and they did replace all the cooling, the PSU, and upgraded the HDD. When I got it back it would still ding every now and then. I have never figured what it was but it didn't seem to hurt anything so I just let it go. Almost three years later it still kicks butt.

It sucks you had this experience. I hope it's confined to the Euro side but the reality is it's a crap shoot when you call tech support as to whether you hit the jackpot with a tech that takes care of you or you get someone that lives to piss in your corn flakes. I've had problems with newegg before and that's almost unheard of. Depends on who picks up the phone. I'd just keep hammering away at them until someone listens. I usually recommend MSI as an alternative to Dell but this will give me pause now.

 

[mercutiouk]

I think if you stick to a reseller that will look after you over here, it's probably ok.

With the first repair i'd not had the laptop for 6 weeks while they put the first problem right (the euro repair/HQ didn't have a motherboard part that's shared between about 7/8 of their main chassis...) so turning it around for a poorly fitting socket would have been another painful wait so it does seem their euro warranty support is a little poor at present.

Rather happy with the laptop otherwise, it's been a decent machine, just a shame about the support being so crappy.