On your invoice, what is the seller name?

Hello,
 
Per the page: https://www.evga.com/warranty/rmaprocess/
"The Standard Cross-Ship RMA requires that you are the original owner of the product and can provide proof of purchase in the form of an invoice or receipt."
 
In the past, we did not require an invoice for the cross-ship method, but this has since changed. This new policy requiring the invoice for the Cross-Ship RMA has been implemented for at least a year now.
Please keep in mind that although this was purchased from Amazon, which is perfectly fine, the main thing that would be stressed would be that it was from a third-party seller. This would count as a secondhand purchase and would not place you as the original owner, even if the card came in a sealed box. Due to this, we would be unable to offer the Cross-Ship option for the RMA.
 
I hope this helps clear things up!
 
-Jacob B.

I understand what you're saying, however I'm having a hard time accepting it. After all, your documentation doesn't really explain how you definitions of first and second hand owners are logical in any way.
 
If the box is properly sealed and the serial numbers match, what is the actual problem? In that case, why does it matter whether or not I purchased it from EVGA or Amazon?
 
There's also the issue of practicality: Most folks, especially me, don't do a deep dive into where they purchase something on Amazon. Most buyers check for the "Prime" sticker for the 2 day shipping and check out. To make this even more frustrating, how many people actually know to effectively lawyer-up and read the fine print of the warranty policy prior to purchase? Typically companies keep things a little more straightforward, but it looks like EVGA has changed their policies for the worse. It is a lot less flexible and unfair to customers. And in my case at least, I feel cheated. As a 10+ year customer of EVGA it never occurred to me to check for such a policy change.
 
I am incredibly disappointed. And what upsets me is the lack of logic in this policy, which leaves it feeling like nothing more than a scam.

EVGA has a full listed of authorized retailers and resellers, as well as builders. GrowTechs is not on the list.

https://www.evga.com/Products/WhereToBuy.aspx

Yes, you must verify who you are purchasing from. Everyone should already know there is a third party reseller market on Amazon, NewEgg, and even Walmart.com.

I understand this can be frustrating, but everything is available in very plain language on the website very easily accessible for this purpose.

the_Scarlet_one
EVGA has a full listed of authorized retailers and resellers, as well as builders. GrowTechs is not on the list.



Yes, you must verify who you are purchasing from. Everyone should already know there is a third party reseller market on Amazon, NewEgg, and even Walmart.com.

I understand this can be frustrating, but everything is available in very plain language on the website very easily accessible for this purpose.

Again, I want to stress how easy it is to misunderstand this. Hindsight is 20/20. When I see "where to buy" pages on company websites, that's usually a list of recommended places to buy things. To make this worse, most people don't know (or at least don't stop to consider) the differences between "amazon.com" as a frontend for retail purchase, and as a distributor/seller of the actual thing they purchased. For example, if my mom & dad saw your "where to buy" page and saw Amazon.com, they'd think: "Oh, I can just search "GTX 1080" and buy the one with the lowest price". After all, they bought it on "amazon.com" and even though, in 8 point font it says the sellers name _somewhere_ on the page, they won't stop to consider the RMA issues here due to the unobvious distinction.
 
And as well, sadly, it's not all there in plain language, since I haven't been able to find an explanation anywhere about the logic behind the distinction of "first" and "second" owners. When I think of a second-hand owner, I'm thinking of a user-to-user sale. But EVGA has defined it as purchase through an unauthorized retailer. However, that distinction is meaningless if the box is properly sealed and hasn't been touched. From an RMA perspective, that's all that matters: The physical quality and condition of the product. How it was specifically sold doesn't affect that.
 
Again, this is the best way I can reason about it. I just don't see the logic. It would be nice to see a logical explanation of this policy. It's the one thing that's frustrated me about this whole situation.

Ah, so the crypto miners ruined it for everyone. I thought the issue there was that they were messing with supply & demand due to buying out the market of GPUs, causing retail prices to skyrocket. I'm not sure what problem EVGA is solving by restricting RMAs. Is it that EVGA can work with authorized sellers to keep the pricing more stable or something? But even if that's the case, a broken card is a broken card? Whether someone spent $1500 on it or $500 because they bought it "second-hand", what does prohibiting cross-ship do to the crypto mining issue?

My take on it, and I could be completely wrong because I only see the same thing you see...

My guess would be that some people were requesting a cross ship RMA, and getting the new card in without sending the old card back, which would deplete the RMA stock. At that point, EVGA would just charge their credit card and they would have effectively purchased a “new” gpu. To combat that, EVGA had to change many of their policies.

I cannot say it was 100% cryptominers, but it was during the crypto boom.

void.pointer
Well that sucks...
 
I appreciate you guys being patient with me. Now that I've heard the logic of things, I'm a bit more satisfied. Heck if you guys wanted to even bump up the collateral charge, say $2000 regardless of the GPU, I'd be OK with that too. From a credit card perspective, it's just a pending transaction and completely harmless (assuming you return the defective GPU!). It would also curb that abuse because no one in their right mind would buy a video card for $2000 (assuming the problem is as you say).
 
Anyway, we're not going to negotiate policy changes here, for sure. Again I can only hope for an exception in my case. And I know I'm not being completely denied an RMA, but the thought of not having a functional PC in my household for weeks bothers me a bunch. Cross ship RMA is one of the things I love the most about EVGA and it's a shame I made assumptions as a long time customer on my latest purchase.
 
Happy holidays.

Hello,

After the further review, we can allow for a one time exception and assist you with a Standard Cross-Ship RMA. Please keep in mind that in the future, if you want to do a Cross-Ship RMA on a product, that you will need to have purchased that product from an authorized retailer or distributor. I have left a voicemail since you did not pick up your phone but please give us a call back at 1.888.881.3842 so that we can help you set up a Cross-Ship RMA.
 
-Jose C.

EVGATech_JoseC

void.pointer
Well that sucks...
 
I appreciate you guys being patient with me. Now that I've heard the logic of things, I'm a bit more satisfied. Heck if you guys wanted to even bump up the collateral charge, say $2000 regardless of the GPU, I'd be OK with that too. From a credit card perspective, it's just a pending transaction and completely harmless (assuming you return the defective GPU!). It would also curb that abuse because no one in their right mind would buy a video card for $2000 (assuming the problem is as you say).
 
Anyway, we're not going to negotiate policy changes here, for sure. Again I can only hope for an exception in my case. And I know I'm not being completely denied an RMA, but the thought of not having a functional PC in my household for weeks bothers me a bunch. Cross ship RMA is one of the things I love the most about EVGA and it's a shame I made assumptions as a long time customer on my latest purchase.
 
Happy holidays.

Hello,

After the further review, we can allow for a one time exception and assist you with a Standard Cross-Ship RMA. Please keep in mind that in the future, if you want to do a Cross-Ship RMA on a product, that you will need to have purchased that product from an authorized retailer or distributor. I have left a voicemail since you did not pick up your phone but please give us a call back at 1.888.881.3842 so that we can help you set up a Cross-Ship RMA.
 
-Jose C.

Thanks for the help JoseC.

Op, still considering another company? ;-)

Never mind, called into tech support and got it taken care of. Thanks again to everyone. 
 

Ok you must really want an answer to that lol.
 
EVGA is still the best quality brand for GPUs, has been for the past 10+ years for me at least. Now that I understand the new RMA policy I'm a bit less upset and discouraged, so I'll stick around. Also the support team has gone above and beyond to not only put up with my irrational and emotional fit throwing, but to make sure that I'm taken care of. So next time I need a video card, EVGA will still be my first choice, I'll just have to be a bit more paranoid before I buy anything next time... things aren't as simple as they used to be.
 
Keep EVGA strong guys!
 

Just another Example of Evga having awesome customer service and great warranty. i just had a closed loop cooler fail made by a different company and they refuse to do any type of cross ship. Needless to say i will be replacing the defective part and company with an Evga product. They lost a customer because they treated me like a number. Their loss i  will share the experience with everybody that listens and they will lose more customers