Anti-Terrorist Oath Required for Seagate RMA

With all the hoops manufacturers are making customers jump through, getting a warranty honored is getting almost as complex as getting a rebate check. But Seagate appears to have taken that trend to another level by making their customers promise not to use their repaired hard drive to make a nuclear bomb. "We had to get an RMA for a defective hard drive to Seagate the other day," wrote a reader at a small compu

Sure enough, though, after waiting several hours all three emails arrived. "The first two were useless, but the third one promised requisite information when we clicked on a link," the reader wrote. "We clicked and ... you guessed it ... it turned out to be a dead link. We tried on two different computers using two different browsers, still dead. So another phone call, work through the phone tree, more time on hold, and eventually another foreigner struggling with English. After some time he actually DID process the RMA, but before activating it he said he had to read a 'disclaimer.'"

Disclaimer? Not your typical RMA process. "I then listened in amusement as he read a page-long statement in which I essentially had to promise that I would not use the replacement Seagate hard drive to build or disseminate information on building a nuclear bomb, or participate in any other 'terrorists activity.' I was laughing so hard that I had to calm myself down in order to give the 'proper' answer to this ludicrous question. By the time I finished assuring the Seagate representative on the phone that I would NOT use the replacement hard drive to build a bomb, even he was laughing."

Once he took the anti-terrorist pledge, the reader's RMA was duly processed, but still not quite the way he would like. "Disappointingly, Seagate has abandoned the long available industry-wide policy of cross- shipping or advanced replacement in which they would ship the replacement hard drive immediately, and take a valid credit card number and hold it as insurance that we would promptly return the defective drive. This means that after getting the RMA number, we have to ship the defective drive to Seagate, and wait who-knows-how-long for the replacement. This extra delay means that our customer will have to wait longer for the repair, unless we replace his hard drive with one we have in stock, but this means when we finally do get the replacement back from Seagate, and put it into our stock, its warranty period will be mostly used up. And usually refurbished or replacement drives are less reliable."

Unfortunately, as the the reader points out, it's getting harder in the storage market to vote with your feet when you don't like a manufacturer's RMA policies. "I would like to say we will replace Seagate with another brand, but with hard drive companies either going out of business or buying each other up, such as Seagate acquiring Maxtor, our options are becoming more limited," the reader wrote. "In summation, Seagate's 'quicker and easier' means several hours of company time, but at least we can all sleep well knowing that no terrorist would ever even think of using his Seagate hard drive to foster his evil ends, lest he risk voiding the warranty."

What kind of warranty hoops have manufacturers had you jumping through? Tell us about it on the Gripe Line voice mail at 1 888 875-7916 or write me at Foster@gripe2ed.com.

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