Stop buying those $200.00 bottles of wine and get the cheaper stuff. If you don’t smoke, start on paper then quit, and then use your smoke money to buy stuff!! 
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I called Western Digital today (06/21/2022).
Aside from having to listen to too much babbling to be told which button to press to reach the right party, once I navigated their phone landscape’s ecosystem, Mark answered after 30 seconds.
It took him several minutes to work everything out, but I got my RMA.
This was much better than my last experience. They must have been slammed with complaints to the point where some executive re-organized things.
Their phone system annoyed me with “Listen carefully, as our menu options have changed”, even though nothing has changed.
They make a change X years ago, and they never change the message. Or they use the “change” excuse to get people to listen who might otherwise press the wrong buttons.
Then they tell you that their sale’s number has changed, and proceed to waste my time with their new sale’s number.
And then they waste time telling me that “Due to unusually heavier than usual call volume, wait times will be longer”. That is yet another message they is unassociated with their call volume. If I was the only one that called today, they would still play me that message.
And then Mark answers 30 seconds later (so much for their “heavy” call volume and “longer than usual” hold times).
They hopefully they will work out the unnecessary phone land crap, and finally have a well oiled phone service.
Now let’s see whether or not they drag their feet when they receive my dead drive, which will take a week to get to them in Calexico, CA from NJ.
By the way, they now offer data recovery services with some of their new drives. Apparently, competing with Seagate’s warranty must have something to do with it.
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I brought the box, containing the dead drive, to a UPS outlet that was 1 mile from my apartment.
They quoted me $70 for 3-day shipping (from NJ to CA).
I asked them for their least expensive service, and they told me that that was the least expensive service (which I knew to be nonsense).
The person helping me told me that he is new. So I asked him to call over his manager (Tony).
Tony repeated the same BS. So I told him I will take my package to the post office, where it will cost approximately $22 - $25.
Tony asked me to let him check again. He came up with a lower cost service, and said that he does not recommend that service. It was $40 (and I have no idea what that service was).
So now we go from two people telling me $70 is the least expensive, to them having a $40 option.
I declined the $40, and lifted up my package.
Tony, again, asked me to wait.
More (pretend?) typing at his keyboard, and the price became $30.
I picked up my package, said thank you, and left.
There was no way I would give that unsavory outpost my business, even if they beat the post office’s price.
While driving home, I passed a Staples that had a UPS sign in their window. So I went in.
It cost me $11.93 (that price was ½ of what I was expecting).
The box should arrive at Western Digital (Calexico, CA) on Tuesday, 06/28/2022.
Everywhere you turn there are unscrupulous people. I believe that they are a small minority (maybe 1% of the population). But that is a lot of people, and they are the ones that catch your attention.
Everything needs to be checked, verified, and re-checked these days.
So where in Jersey , I might have bought a drive and brought the bad one back the next day maybe…Then let them handle the RMA
Yeah, it is really a pain, especially when they know that they could pull those little scams here and there without any consequences.
As a group, medical fraud is #1 fraud in US, and it costs all of us tons of money, and it is done by people we basically trust the most (doctors). Here is an example - Medical Fraud: One of the Worst Cases in U.S. History | Law Office of Brett H. Pritchard, and here a more general article - The True Cost of Health Care Fraud in America – NeuFutur Magazine
You can add to that pharma fraud, for instance scum like Sackler family. They destroyed countless of families / communities, killed tens of thousands of Americans, made billions of dollars in the process. Somehow they didn’t get death / life sentences, just $6b slap on the wrist, so they can continue business as usual. Sackler family - Wikipedia
Sorry, didn’t want to hijack your post, but I just cannot wrap my head around that.
That $11.93 price ended up being a mistake of sorts.
Apparently, I transposed the sender info with the receiver info:
I returned to Staples, 10 minutes before they closed.
They corrected everything.
The price was $23.99
I wonder if I took the package directly to a UPS facility if it would have cost the same?
You can always take a ride with a box the same size and find out for future!!!
The drive came directly from Western Digital, as part of a warranty replacement. Now that replacement drive failed and is going back to Western Digital for yet another replacement.
I used to live in Burlington County…
What do you pay yourself per hour to deal with stuff like this? The $11 turned into $24 not including your time and gas. Electricity to replot costs what? All associated costs with perhaps the journey that at one point seemed like a really great deal. I suppose the added costs are x2 with this being the 2nd replacement. I charge myself about $20/hr when it comes to this type of stuff. This tends to shrink down the profit margins or savings from deals. And with gas prices going up, maybe I should up my hourly charge to myself. Or I suppose you can just say you got a great deal on the original purchase.
Are you suggesting that it is not worth incurring the shipping expense to replace a failed 18 TB drive?
If that is your stance, that is fine. People have different priorities. To each his own.
Are you suggesting that $24 is not worth replacing a 18 TB drive?
As to your point on “gas”, please recall that I wrote “I brought the box, containing the dead drive, to a UPS outlet that was 1 mile from my apartment.”
Please also recall that I wrote: “While driving home, I passed a Staples that had a UPS sign in their window. So I went in.”
And when I made the mistake of transposing the sender’s address and the receiver’s address, should I have just left it at that, and eat the $11.93 to have the drive ship ½ mile away to my apartment?
I went back (½ mile drive) and they refunded me the $11.93, and charged me the $23.99.
Based on my car’s MPG, the gas probably cost me 10¢ (remember, my first trip was 1 mile. That UPS store (which, previously, I had no reason to mention) is across the street from ShopRite, where I do my shopping).
My only extra trip was back to Staples (½ mile in each direction). That was an unforced error, and they cost money. In my case, a ½ mile drive in each direction.
Consider that I hired you as an efficiency expert, please report on the waste in the above activities.
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And you forgot to say that when you make that mistake to feel better you bought 15 hamburgers and a case of beer!!
I don’t think it was 2 minutes on the phone with support? I don’t know your time/expenses for the 1st return. I’m saying whatever the original cost or deal on the drive, when you add in the added return costs/downtime/power time to replot, I’m just wondering if you recalculate the actual cost if acquiring the hardware. These are added costs. I personally would but that’s me.
I’m definitely not suggesting it’s not worth the return. As for gas? I was more referring to my own dealings when it comes to aquiring the hardware. Time and gas. Most stores aren’t within walking distances and buying used gear does require travel. Hard for me to ever get one meet up under 1 hour away from my place. 30 minutes there, 30 minutes back. Maybe a big line up at the store etc.
Gas wasn’t a big consideration for me in cost of acquisition in the past but it is real now. I can always say I scored a great deal but it depends on other factors. Some people ignore these costs to make themselves feel better. I’m a stickler for details.
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Feeling better is a good thing.
Me, too.
But even, if after getting the replacement, I never use it, I could still sell it for $200+ or so.
Excellent! I hope everything works out with the replacement.
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Western Digital received my USB G-Drive return on 06/28/2022. So enough time has passed for them to show an update on their site.
I pulled up their e-mail message that they sent to me that has my RMA number and shipping label.
In that e-mail message is a link that reads:
“Your HGST RMA number is XXXXXXXX. You can check the status of your RMA by visiting the HGST Warranty/RMA (High-Performance SSDs, HDDs, USB Drives, & Memory Cards | Western Digital) section of the web and entering your RMA number.”
That link takes you to a general page that has no reference to checking the status of your RMA.
The only reference to “warranty” is their link to their warranty policy. And even that link takes you to a page where there is nowhere to enter your RMA number.
So the e-mail message, for my Western Digital G-Technology drive comes from @hgst.com domain, which has a link to a Western Digital site, which has no mention of checking your RMA status, even though the e-mail message provides the link as the means to check your RMA status.
And the e-mail message neither comes from a Western Digital domain, nor a G-Technology domain, nor any abbreviation of Western Digital or G-Technology, and they send you on a scavenger hunt to find the page for entering your RMA number.
How hard would it be for their e-mail message to take you to the place where you enter your RMA number?
How can a company of their stature not know that they are sending out e-mail with pointless links?
I found the RMA page.
I entered my RMA number and my e-mail address (the only two fields they have for you to identify yourself and the drive).
The result of my providing the above information was:
“No Warranty Replacement Found”
I called them. Their automated phone system tried to direct me everywhere but to a live person. Fortunately, I know what to press. But even with knowing what to press, you are forced to listen to blah, blah, blah that has nothing to do with the reason you are contacting them.
Once their rhetoric finished playing, Charles picked up the phone in about 10 seconds.
I gave Charles my RMA number, and he had no record of it (and he read the number back to me).
I gave Charles my e-mail address, and he was able to find my case.
He told me that due to system maintenance, they were down for a week.
Folks, they are always down for a week. They are in perpetual maintenance mode. They always have some BS reason for never hitting their due dates (which is 7 days after receipt of the bad drive, which I know because they told me it was 7 days when I contacted them to confirm receipt on 06/28/2022).
Charles could not give me the status of my RMA. He told me that he will e-mail me an update. I asked him “when” will he e-mail me the update (you have to ask, or that e-mail will never be sent). He told me by end of business, today.
Charles also told me that I will not be able to check the status on-line. He gave me some mumbo-jumbo excuse why I will not be able to check for myself. Between it being an overseas connection, and his heavy accent (perfect for USA phone support), I had trouble understanding some of his information.
I do not fault Charles. I fault the executive management who run their RMA department like it is a cancer with which they are burdened.
I once worked for a company that referred to such operations as “cost centers”. They did everything they could to cut support and mismanage those centers, because they did not directly generate revenue. They saw it as an expense, and they treated it like a cancer. And when the $h!t hit the fan, due to the problems that the executives caused, they blamed the poor peons that were being dumped on and not appreciated.
Western Digital’s RMA process is 24/7/365 controlled chaos.
By the way, I asked Charles which drive is inside the G-Drives.
He did not know and could not look it up. Yet the phone buttons I pressed took me to G-Drive support.
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