EVGA Rejects Warranty for Confidential Reasons

It's bad enough when a vendor stiffs you on warranty repair. But graphics cards vendor EVGA recently added insult to injury with a form letter telling a reader that its refusal to honor his warranty was confidential.

"You may want to warn your readers who might be considering an EVGA graphics card -- my experience has not been good," the reader wrote. "An EVGA GeForce 7600GS 256 MB graphics card faile

It's bad enough when a vendor stiffs you on warranty repair. But graphics cards vendor EVGA recently added insult to injury with a form letter telling a reader that its refusal to honor his warranty was confidential.

"You may want to warn your readers who might be considering an EVGA graphics card -- my experience has not been good," the reader wrote. "An EVGA GeForce 7600GS 256 MB graphics card failed after about one month. Contacting their tech service, they readily recognized the problem - artifacting -- and 'encouraged getting a RMA.' I got the RMA and sent the card, noting that one small coil showed partial melting of its plastic covering."

"A few days later, EVGA tech service advised they could not process my RMA because the card had been 'damaged due to mishandling.' I contacted EVGA to ask about this and was told the PC board was damaged. I told them it was not damaged when sent from here, and asked if the package showed damage in shipping. This was never answered. I telephoned the Tech Service Manager, discussed all the previous communications, and asked the RMA be reconsidered, which he agreed to do. When no response was received, I escalated my request by emailing the Customer Service Manager describing the problem, but received no reply. I then emailed the Marketing VP, but got no reply, so I attempted to telephone him, but was never able to make contact. Several days later the card was returned to me with a form letter listing many possible "reasons", none of which made any sense in this case."

What made even less sense to the reader was the final paragraph of the form letter, which read:

"Confidentiality Warning: This e-mail may be privileged and/or confidential, and the sender does not waive any related rights and obligations. It is intended for the named recipient(s) only. Any distribution, use or copying of this e-mail or the information it contains by other than an intended recipient is unauthorized. If you received this e-mail in error, please advise me (by return e-mail or otherwise) immediately and do not disclose the contents to anyone or duplicate."

Of course, one perplexing aspect of this was the fact that it wasn't an e-mail at all, but a form letter. But whether in a letter or an e-mail, what gives EVGA the right to tell the reader he can't share this information? It would be a neat trick if you could get away with it - give the customer some bogus as to why you're not going to honor their warranty, and then tell them have to keep it a secret.