BFG Tech Sending Out RMA Denial Letters, 'Winding Down Business'

SKYMTL writes "Once one of NVIDIA's primary board partners, BFG Tech has now officially started denying RMA requests for their supposedly 'lifetime warranty' graphics cards. According to a letter from BFG, they are '...winding down business' and are 'unable to replace' any non-working product. A sad turn of events for the thousands who bought BFG's graphics cards and power supplies."

Comments

Whose lifetime?

[line-bundle]

My lifetime?

The product (estimated) lifetime?

The company lifetime?

The receipt lifetime?

Always check which lifetime they mean. Words are wonderful: there are so many definitions to choose from.

Re:Whose lifetime?

[black3d]

Independent of the original intention, most "lifetime warranties" are somewhat shortened by the company no longer existing, the receipt no longer existing, or the user (and in most cases, the only person who cared about the warranty) dying.

Re:Whose lifetime?

[Anonymous Coward]

...most "lifetime warranties" are somewhat shortened by ...

I like to say "whichever comes first"...

Re:Whose lifetime?

[Lemmy Caution]

This is why "no one gets fired for buying IBM." Alternative vendors and small companies are generally riskier to deal with - if they collapse, all the support collapses with them. This reality is why many businesses prefer big, institutional vendors even when they cost more and, in the short term, seem to provide less.

Sad to see them go

[Local ID10T]

BFG made good gear.

Lifetime Warranties...

[Anonymous Coward]

A "lifetime warranty" is for the lifetime of the product, not your lifetime.

You'd think people would have figured that out by now. If the warranty doesn't have a specific period spelled out in terms of days, years, months, etc. then it's essentially worthless. All the company has to do is "end of life" a product, and voila! no more warranty. And when a company shuts down, the warranties are gone forever regardless.

Re:details details

[FlyHelicopters]

+1 to the above... If a company goes out of business, lots of people have a worse day than me with a video card... How about all the employees out a job to start...

Legality?

[Renraku]

Is it actually legal to sell someone a product with a warranty and then refuse to fix it because business is winding down? Don't closing companies have to keep a certain amount of money for problems like this? Can I put a lien on their property if they fail to meet their contractual obligations and I'm shorted money because of it?

Re:Legality?

[jimicus]

Which is why pretty much all "should we go bankrupt, we'll turn off the DRM" promises are worthless. What are you going to do if they don't comply?

Something else which a lot of people (who perhaps don't understand business) need to realise:

If the company goes into administration, the original directors - the ones who stood up and promised "should we go bankrupt, we'll turn off the DRM" are out of a job. Regardless of whether or not they want to instruct their engineers to disable the DRM, they no longer have authority to. New directors are appointed by the administrators and it's their job to get the best possible outcome for the shareholders - be it selling the business as a going concern or winding it up and selling the assets. "Turning off the DRM" is likely to be so low on the priorities list that it'll never happen.

Consoles spelled the doom

[SethJohnson]

Sadly, I don't much care about those consumers affected by denied RMA requests. The larger picture here is that this is another example of how console gaming has brought stagnation to the gaming industry. Companies who profitted from deploying bleeding edge hardware that was demanded by a constant churn of increasing software demands are no longer able to stay afloat. Consoles lock graphics to a much longer generation than does pc gaming. It's hard for companies like BFG to stay afloat when stuff stays the same for five or more years.

Re:Consoles spelled the doom

[assemblerex]

Sadly I don't care what callous people say while they pontificate.

Re:Consoles spelled the doom

[Xest]

It's easy to blame console gaming, yet console gaming continues to produce better looking graphics with existing hardware well beyond the life of equivalent PC gaming hardware. This is largely because the entire hardware pipeline in consoles is focussed towards gaming, whilst the PC isn't- it's more generic hardware bus just isn't as suited to gaming, hence why lower spec consoles can still produce better graphics and better framerates than equivalent and higher specced PCs (within reason of course).

The fault isn't console gaming, the fault is of the companies pushing ever more powerful graphics cards, whilst developers on the PC just outright fail to make use of the last generation- and for good reason. The issue is that the PC is such a fragmented platform and suffers from such high piracy rates that developers on the PC are better off spending their time making sure their game works for as wide an audience as possible, which means far less focus and optimisation on high end graphics.

The fact is, the high end PC graphics card market was always going to be unsustainable, because it's simply a niche market in an era where developer focus is more and more turned away from that market due to decreased profit from that segment.

It's not really anything to do with console gaming. The fact is, it's hard for companies like BFG to stay afloat when their target market is declining on the realisation that they don't need the latest and greatest graphics card coupled with the fact the world financial situation is still shakey and if consumers don't need to spend money right now, then they wont. When you build a company for a niche market that exists based purely on testosterone fuelled competitiveness of who can get the highest FPS then it's no suprise that when money is tight things start to decline somewhat.

As an illutration of my point, my current PC has now just hit 2 years old and I can still play the latest games like Starcraft II in maximum detail at 1920x1200. This would be unheard of a decade or so ago, where even 1 year old PCs would struggle to run the latest games at high detail, or in a decent resolution. The fact is, the PC market is changing and there's not much of a place for overclocked SLI graphics cards in that nowadays- the rise of playable, rather than graphics fuelled indie games over the last few years is also another reason why people no longer need to pay for ultra-expensive high end graphics cards now. The focus has moved back somewhat towards playability and fun for the masses rather than just stunning graphics for the elite on the PC.

Re:Interesting thread from HardForum

[Fross]

That was 3 months ago - looks like BFG as a whole may be winding down now, hence the warranties would no longer hold.

Re:details details

[heathen_01]

The BFG is not a rifle.

Re:details details

[PopeRatzo]

. Generally, when you intend to spread FUD about an otherwise reputable and respected company, it's considered good form to have at least a shred of evidence rather than just a guess.

If they were "reputable" would they be burning people with "lifetime" warranties?

BFG can't have it both ways. You can't be "reputable" and "crooked" at the same time.

By the way, I've decided to tell VISA that I'm "winding down business" and will no longer be paying them for the stuff I bought.

Re:details details

[Minwee]

By the way, I've decided to tell VISA that I'm "winding down business" and will no longer be paying them for the stuff I bought.

If you can prove to them that you have reached the end of your lifetime, as BFG has, then that would be okay.