Blade 15 with Razer RMA for over 2 months and no sign of when I'll get it back

Hi all,

I just wanted to share on this forum what you might expect with an RMA to Razer. It is the worst customer experience I’ve received in my life by a huge margin.

I sent my 2018 Blade 15 Advanced out for RMA 9 weeks ago and Razer Support still cannot give me an ETA for when I will receive a replacement.

It all began with my 10 month old 2018 Blade 15 Advanced that had an issue with a rattling fan and distorted sound coming from one of the speakers since it was new. As an expensive laptop, I wanted it working properly, so decided to send it in for repair prior to the warranty expiring, hopeful I would not end up like one of the many horror stories I had read about regarding Razer RMAs. I was far too optimistic.

I’m now 9 weeks into the experience with Razer support fobbing me off every few days telling me they are “hoping for your kind patience”. I’ve contacted Razer on Twitter, Facebook and tried messaging the CEO on Facebook. They provide nothing other than a hastened response from the support team to tell me they are still working on the case.

About 3 weeks after sending the laptop in, they tell me the issue with the fan and speaker persists after replacing the parts and that they will send me a replacement laptop instead. Since then, all the response from support are along the lines of “we are waiting for our warehouse team to provide an update”.

If you have a Razer product with a few issues but it is still mostly functional, I would strongly advise not to send it in for repair unless you want to be without your expensive product for multiple months.

Perhaps there is a Razer rep on this forum who will be able to follow up for me? For other readers, I'd appreciate if you can upvote my reddit.com/r/razer post and hopefully bring Razer's attention to this terrible affair.

https://www.reddit.com/r/razer/comments/g54c8q/blade_15_with_razer_rma_for_over_2_months_and_no/

Timeline of my experience is below:

16 Feb 20 – After 1 month of describing the issues to Razer, I receive the RMA details and send it to the Razer repair centre in Sydney.

17 Feb 20 – Repair centre receives it.

25 Feb 20 – Razer Support tell me they are awaiting update on status of the repair

01 Mar 20 – Razer Support tell me the issue with the fan and speaker remains after replacing the parts. They are still working on it.

07 Mar 20 – Razer Support tell me they are still waiting for repair centre to update them

11 Mar 20 – Razer Escalations Team contact me to tell me the speaker issue persists after swapping the parts. They will check if they can replace the whole unit for me. “I'll check with our warehouse team if we have one in-stock. Please give me 24 to 48 hours for any update.”

15 Mar 20 - Razer tell me they are still waiting for the warehouse team to update them.

20 Mar 20 – Razer send their usual boiler plate reply telling me they are still working on the case and will contact me once they have an update.

25 Mar 20 - Razer apologise for the delay, and append their usual boiler plate reply telling me they are still working on the case.

27 Mar 20 - Razer offer me a replacement 2019 Blade 15 BASE model. I tell them this is not an acceptable replacement for my ADVANCED model and ask they send me a replacement ADVANCED model instead.

31 Mar 20 – Razer respond to my request and tell me they have no stock of my 2018 model left and please wait for their stock to be replenished. They have no ETA when this will be. “Looking forward for your kind patience”. I reply and ask them to send me a different ADANCED model than my original 2018 model, a variant that they do have stock of.

01 Apr 20 – Razer tell me they are still working on it. I contact Razer Twitter support to see if they can help.

03 Apr 20 – Razer tell me they are still working on it.

04 Apr 20 – Razer tell me my 2018 model is End of Life and there will be no more incoming stock. They have a proposed replacement but need to follow up with the relevant team.

07 Apr 20 – Razer tell me they are still working on it. I contact Razer Twitter support to see if they can help.

08 Apr 20 – Razer ask if I will accept a US keyboard layout model instead of my original UK layout as they have no stock of the UK model. I say yes that is fine, whatever brings me a replacement laptop quicker.

16 Apr 20 - I hear nothing for a week and explain my continued frustration and ask why they have they not found an alternative means to getting me a replacement model if they have had no stock of refurb units for a month.

17 Apr 20 - Razer tell me they are still working on it. I tell them my frustrations again.

18 Apr 20 – Razer support dude tells me he understands the situation and would like to hasten things up but is still waiting for an update from the higher department. “Please give us a bit more time to look into this matter”

20 Apr 20 – Razer tell me they are still working on it.

 

ASUS did this to me one time. It ****ing sucked. It wasn't until I called basically every day, went through the same song and dance, asked to speak to a manager every single time, that they were finally like "Okay we have this replacement for you" (It was way better than the one I sent in for repair, but getting it was like pulling teeth.)

But yeah it took them 2 months.

Best advice I can give is keep reaching out to Razer. Try and tag your tweets on twitter, post on instagram, facebook and other places, try and get your problem to go viral and watch them send you something asap lol.

The good news is, they will most likely be sending you something better to replace it.

It's worth mentioning that this is probably not the typical experience. The world is currently suffering from the worst pandemic in decades, and despite the numbers china is reporting, they are most likely the hardest hit. Razer is a chinese company. They are probably very understaffed right now. Don't mistake my tone, I'm not attempting to defend them, seriously, they should have recognized awhile ago the direction this was headed and just sent you brand new one or some **** to make up for their ****up, but you know, it might help your peace of mind.

 

Thanks for your response. The reddit thread got the attention of the reddit Razer team who messaged me and told me they would try and fix this.

Two days later I was put through to the 'Razer Executive Response Team' who told me they would expedite the replacement.

Three days later they told me they will send me a new Blade 15 240hz 2070 MaxQ version of the laptop, so fairly pleased with getting the upgrade. Suppose that is fair compensation for a nearly three month long RMA.

I received notification of shipment from Hong Kong yesterday and expect to receive a (hopefully working) laptop on Monday.

 

Lol I’m thinking now breaking my advanced 2018, in order to get that upgrade even take 3 months

 

Feel like the headache they put me through in the past I deserve a new blade stealth. ​

 

True in your case it was not headache but heart attack, like almost loosing 2K bucks?

 

I won’t argue that my friend. I was maaaaaaad that day. But, since I made such a huge stink about it they rushed to hush me up. Lol.

@sleepysnake Hopefully they fixed your laptop and it’s all good Monday when you get it. I’ve had a nightmarish experience with Razer twice in the past so I sympathize. Oops missed the part where they updated you to a newer laptop. If it’s brand new that’s very nice. They might finally be doing right by their customers these days.

 

I requested a recovery USB 1.5 years ago and I'm still waiting for it. Razer support is 100% incompetent and slow. It has severely dissuaded me from purchasing another Razer Blade.

 

I received a brand new i7 9750, 2070 unit yesterday which according to the box was manufactured in March. Limited testing suggests there is no backlight bleed or coil whine, and it has lower temps than my my early 1070 model. So quite pleased and thanks to Razer for eventually sorting out the situation in the end.

 

The new unit is a significant step up in quality between my August 2018 manufactured unit and this one. Barely any back light bleed, working fans, much much cooler temperatures, and lower fan noise. Having just played The Division 2 for 90 mins, I have a peak of 85c on the CPU, and 75c on the GPU. The old Blade would have been closer to 100c on the CPU and 85c on the GPU, even with clean fans, undervolt and new thermal paste. Certainly they have improved the cooling system by a fair margin on the 2019 Razer Blades.

I'm happy with how Razer dealt with me in the end, though it's a shame it took the post on Reddit and on here to get in contact with the Support who actually have the power to make things right for the customer.