THREATEN TO CONTACT A LAWYER.

You should know that I am not a lawyer; however, I find that when a large company seems to not care, the possibility of getting a lawyer involved when you have been genuinely wronged by them gets you the attention needed to resolve the situation.

For a couple of years now, Newegg has been rejecting RMAs on motherboards with LGA-style CPU sockets and they always say that “item was received with apparent end-user caused physical damage to the CPU socket contact pins.” There are plenty of stories about this bad behavior all over the Internet. In fact, I have experienced this problem personally and written about it from the persepctive of boycotting the people who engineered the socket that allows for such easy breakage and is exploited by Newegg for RMA rejection.

If you receive a notice that your RMA was rejected for this reason, talk to customer service and tell them that you believe that their RMA technicians caused the damage to void the RMA. If they refuse to process the RMA, don’t waste time asking for a supervisor; instead, tell them that your lawyer will be very interested in this situation and ask them for the contact information for Newegg’s legal department. Also ask for the customer service agent’s name and their internal company identification number so they can be subpoenaed to testify if a lawsuit against Newegg is filed.

This communicates a few things that may magically get your RMA problems solved. One, it tells customer service that you are someone who will not let this issue go and will fight it in the legal arena if needed, a situation that no company wants (especially considering the widespread accounts of Newegg’s behavior). Two, it gives the company an added incentive to not screw you over and could cause a “good faith exception” to the policy be granted to you.

Another excellent outlet for getting your problems resolved is to email the VP of customer relations (or public relations)  or someone relevant under the “Investor Relations” section of the website. These people have a very strong interest in the company’s success. Don’t email the legal department. If you need to get your lawyer involved, your lawyer can do that.

If you buy a new motherboard and want to “cover your ass…”

1. When the package arrives, DO NOT OPEN IT YET!
2. Get something that takes decent quality video. Most phones will take excellent video if you don’t use an “MMS compatible” recording mode which records terrible quality video.
3. Record a video of the entire unboxing process, from cutting the packing tape to removing the motherboard box to opening the board to inspecting the CPU socket closely for damage.
4. That part is important: inspect the CPU socket for damage with the camera. If there is anything wrong, put it all back together on camera, seal the motherboard box with tape, and RMA it immediately.
5. DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES attempt to use a board that appears to have socket pin damage. This could blow up your CPU and could cause your RMA to have other reasons to be rejected.