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

Posted by timothy on from the at-least-that's-a-good-excuse dept.

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."

12 of 327 comments (clear)

  1. Whose lifetime? by line-bundle · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Whose lifetime? by black3d · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

      --
      "The true measure of a person is how they act when they know they won't get caught." - DSRilk
    2. Re:Whose lifetime? by Lemmy+Caution · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

  2. Sad to see them go by Local+ID10T · · Score: 5, Insightful

    BFG made good gear.

    --
    "You want to know how to help your kids? Leave them the fuck alone." -George Carlin
  3. Lifetime Warranties... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  4. Re:details details by FlyHelicopters · · Score: 5, Insightful

    +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...

  5. Legality? by Renraku · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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?

    --
    Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
    1. Re:Legality? by jimicus · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

  6. Consoles spelled the doom by SethJohnson · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    --
    $5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
    1. Re:Consoles spelled the doom by assemblerex · · Score: 4, Insightful

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

  7. Re:Interesting thread from HardForum by Fross · · Score: 4, Insightful

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

  8. Re:details details by Minwee · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.