Having experienced some earlier joy from my favorite company Verizon, I wasn’t expecting to receive a call from a Toshiba confused Toshiba RMA center employee pertaining to my RMA transaction with Toshiba and their PCS, Inc. warranty department in California. Having twice failed, I had only recently received my third MK2018GAS 20GB 2.5″ laptop disk from Toshiba. Apparently, Toshiba received my original drive — a previous replacement under a similar RMA — and realized their mistake. The Toshiba representative claimed my warranty had expired and he insisted I send my already received replacement back on my dime.
Yes, that’s right. Toshiba wants me to return a replacement they sent to me, presumably after verifying I was within my warranty period, at my expense. The best part is I actually let them take $350 of my money as a deposit in exchange for a warranty replacement, to be credited back upon reception of my broken hard disk. Yes, quite a stupid thing to do in retrospect.
Given the ridiculousness of the situation, I asked to speak to the Toshiba representative’s manager. He refused, claiming she directed him to call me. Not being in a particularly appreciative mood, I asked to speak with the head of the department. Again, the Toshiba representative declined, claiming his manager was the department head. Finally, I asked as politely as I cared to muster whether I could speak with someone in charge of the RMA department. Surely, there must be someone else I can speak with? The answer, of course, is no. Whacked.
While a prepaid shipping envelope was finally offered and later sent to me, I was hardly satisfied with sending back a drive I had already put back into production. Had I know the RMA was going to be an issue, I would have simple bought another drive from a different vendor. Instead, Toshiba wasted my time by sending me a drive and then claiming they want it back. After threatening a charge back on my credit card, the Toshiba representative continued to blow me off. After explaining my life’s purpose will be dedicated to screwing with the Toshiba RMA department, the conversation ended as I hung up in disgust.
Speaking with an account manager at MBNA, moments later, brought back the horrors of being screwed over by Surplus Computers and Mike Mak. The end result of that dealing was nearly my termination of my MBNA credit card. However, not every place takes Discover, so I decided I’d retain it. And lucky for me, Toshiba RMA only accepts Visa and Mastercard for RMA deposits. Lacking any resassurance about the appeals process through MBNA, I decided I’d call Toshiba back and yell at them some more for what it was worth.
The next person I spoke with, having heard my previous conversation with the other Toshiba RMA representative, claimed that his manager had decided to let me keep the drive and credit back my $350. I have not yet received a credit in that amount, however, so it’s entirely possible Toshiba’s RMA manager feels she needs to teach me a $350 lesson. I need to call MBNA to confirm whether any credit was posted. They don’t seem to show up only on your paper statement, not online, and if I wait until then my window for attempting a credit dispute will have closed.
Update, February 17th. After a couple more calls, the last person I spoke with said he’d actually forward my credit request to the accounting department and on the 16th I finally received my credit. It seems if I had merely take PCS Inc at its original word that I would actually receive my deposit back and forgotten about it I would indeed have been screwed out of $350. Whether it was merely incompetence or intent, who is to say.
In either case, I’m never buying a Toshiba hard disk drive ever again.