I had a Hitachi 320GB drive fail after a bit more than a year of use. I followed the RMA procedure and shipped it to Hitachi. When I received the replacement drive, it was non-functional. This is when my problems started.
I tried to call Hitachi on the Friday evening that I discovered the problem, but discovered that their phone support hours listed on the web site did not include evenings or weekends. Strike 1.
I sent an e-mail. Hitachi did not reply until Monday.instead of taking responsibility for sending me a bad replacement drive and immediately sending a new replacement, Hitachi basically told me to submit another RMA, pay (again) to ship the drive back, and wait (again) for a replacement. Strike 2.
The intent of a warranty is to ensure that the customer gets a working replacement as soon as possible when an item they bought fails within a given time frame. When I pointed this out to Hitachi Customer Service, and repeated to them that I have not yet received a working replacement and that my warranty has not yet been honored, I was stonewalled. Eventually, Hitachi told me that they would offer me a drive upgrade to compensate me for my additional shipping cost. However, the "upgrades" offered for me to choose from included only 2 options: a 320GB drive no different (as far as I could tell) from the drive that had failed (this is an upgrade?) or a 400GB drive that, while technically an upgrade, is such a minimal improvement as to make the overall upgrade offer, considering the fact that the other "upgrade" option was no upgrade at all, an insult rather than a serious offer. Strike 3.
I have already paid over 35% of the value of the drive in shipping and packaging to send Hitachi my failed drive. Now Hitachi wants me to spend another 25% of the value of the drive (I can re-use Hitachi's packaging this time) to correct their error. This is an EXTREMELY POOR example of customer service.
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