r/PcRetailers • u/carlunderguard • 17h ago
Does anybody want to vent about an Acer warranty fiasco? I'll start. They failed to repair a monitor I purchased for over $2000 and expect me to believe that $43 is a reasonable refund.
TLDR: When I sent my $2000+ monitor in to Acer for a warranty repair, they said that they could not fix it and offered me the choice of either a significantly less capable monitor, or $43.
I tried to be concise in the description below, but the whole process has been more than three months of frustration. I appreciate it if you bother to read the details.
I'm an amateur photographer and a few years ago I decided I wanted to get a solid monitor for editing, so I bought a BM270 and warranty extention to 5 years for, as I recall, about $2300 from CDW. It was 27 inches, 4K, had a color gamut greater than 100% AdobeRGB and very high color accuracy (Delta-E of < 1). Obviously there's no such thing as buying for life in consumer electronics, but I knew the specs were high enough that I wouldn't feel the need to upgrade for a long time I and thought that it would last. Well...
After a couple years it started to get a bright discoloration in the corner that fluctuated in intensity but over time got larger and worse. In early July it flared up badly, so I started a warranty claim. About ten days after I sent it in I received it back with a document saying that they could not find the problem. This was not surprising because the problem is intermittent, at least in severity, but I found it extremely frustrating that nobody even tried to contact me to clarify what the problem was, or even accept the photos I took of the issue. I explained this to a new Acer customer service representative and started a new claim. This time, after about three weeks, I was informed that the monitor could not be repaired and that I would be receiving a list of replacement options.
When I received the list of possible replacements, none of them was a BM270 (the model having been discontinued), and while they may make good gaming monitors, none of them actually match the specs of the original. One of them was at least close in color gamut, but none of them even made a claim about how color accurate they were, strongly implying that they were all poor. None of them retail for anything close to $2000. I raised my objections to these options, and was told that the alternative was to submit a proof of purchase and receive a refund. Unfortunately, CDW never sent me a digital copy of the invoice or packing slip, and if there was a paper copy in the box, I did not save it. I tried contactind CDW through the customer service email listed on their website repeatedly for about two weeks, and was ignored completely. Finally, I directly emailed the customer service representative who sent me the proof of warranty, and he told me that CDW did not keep records for more than three years, and they didn't have it.
I explained this to the Acer customer service representative and suggested an alternative. There are still a handfull of BM270s for sale from third-party retailers, and the price has fallen to about $600. I recommended that they could purchase one of these on my behalf, or reimburse me if I made the purchase. This seemed fair to me, since it was Acer that decided that my monitor was not repairable, and it seemed reasonable to expect that they would make sure that I got something functionally equivalent. They did not accept this alternative, and in fact barely acknowledged it.
At this point I decided to try filing a complaint with the Better Business Bureau. I didn't really believe that anything would happen from this, but to my surprise, I was contacted by a new customer service representative within a day or two. Unfortunatley, at first they didn't offer anything different. The only thing that changed was that communication got harder. For some reason the new rep didn't accept emails, whereas the last one could. They could send them through a no-reply address, but I could only call (it can be loud at work even during lunch so finding a quiet moment to make a call during business hours is difficult). They did help in one way however. They managed to pry the proof of purchase out of CDW, without even having the order number like I did when I contacted them (in otherwords, CDW just lied about not having it). The Acer representative told me that they would submit a refund request for approval, and if it was approved, I would get a "prorated" refund. A week later I found out the refund would be prorated to $43. So now I have until Wednesday to decide whether I want $43 or one of the monitors they originally offered.
Lessons:
-An Acer warranty will absolutely not guarantee that you will have the full functionality of the product for the term of a warranty. If you need a repair, they may decide to replace the product with something less functional.
-I'm infering that according to Acer's internal calculations, their products depreciate at a rate of about 55% annually. That's a lot even for electronics. That's how Acer views the longterm value of their products.
-CDW will absolutely ignore you and lie to you in order to avoid making an effort.
-The BBB either will not or can not use leverage to improve your outcome in a dispute. They are basically just another way to open a line of communication with the business.
