Western Digital warranty claim

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One of my external Western Digital My Book drives died.

Based on past experiences in contacting WD, I was expecting a nightmare of a time with them.
But I got through to a live person without too much hassle.

They do force you to listen to recordings of things having zero to do with why you are calling. That lasts for 1 minute and 45 seconds. So it is annoying.

Imagine how life would be, if anyone you called played a 1 minute, 45 second recording before coming to the phone.

30 seconds or so later, someone answers your call. They sound like they are bouncing around satellites, making it hard to make out what they are saying. They gave me an RMA, without too much hassle. So they are better than they used to be.

They took delivery of my failed drive last Friday morning, 10/20/2023.
I called them yesterday afternoon, to find out if they shipped my replacement drive, and if not, then when.

The poor sound quality made it difficult to understand. But I was given two or three excuses, which boils down to it was not yet shipped, and will take a few more days.

They did mention “non expedited”.
So they are still pulling the “Pay us to do our job, or we will delay your warranty process.”

When I had a warranty issue with Server Part Deals, they shipped my replacement on the day that they received my return.

When I had a Seagate warranty issue, they shipped my replacement drive, within 24 hours of receiving my return.

But WD just insists on adding obstacles.
It is as though they are having a contest with their own customers, and have something to prove.

I doubt that they will ship this week, and I am 50/50 on whether or not they will ship next week.

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I have been buying my refurbished HD from Water Panther they sell either new or refurbished. I get the 20TB Arsenal series lately they have been sending me Seagate’s with Arsenal stickers. The ship air which I get them in a few days. So far have not had any problems.
Amazon has Arsenal series for $219.00, was $209.00 (Tech on Tech) and same ones from Water Panther is $209.99. I checked on line and seems all 3 are the same company at least they have the same address.

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There are reasons things are they way they are… Here is one of those reasons…

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And he couldn’t care less, as he deposits his $32,000,000.00 annual salary in the bank.

He is probably an insufferable know-it-all, and impossible to please. But he likely puts on an entirely different persona when he is dealing with the board members.

He likely treats everyone like a number in a spreadsheet.

I do not begrudge anyone their compensation. But they should have a human side to them, while they bask in wealth of their compensation.

I worked for a company that started off with a President that treated everyone like family, and the company grew and grew, until its parent company took notice of the increased revenue. They ordered him to cut costs and send the skim upstairs. He refused. So they replaced him, after he took that company from a dozen employees to 1,500 employees, and replaced him with someone that made the employees feel like numbers, while cutting all benefits.

David Goeckeler seems like the latter.

With a $32,000,000.00 salary, you would think he’d be capable of getting warranty claims completed without the delays. Well, he sort of did. If you pay a fee, they ship right away.

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I sent WD white disk for warranty cause it had CRC errors and they sent me answer that cause disk is broken they wont do anything and gave me couple options, send it back to me so that i pay posts or they will recycle it. I answered that should i send you working disks for warranty? I did not agree with those options and told them that they need to send me replacement disk and they pay posts. Few days later i got a brand new replecment disk, happy surprice.

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@freepass With previous warranty issues, Western Digital put obstacle after obstacle in my way.

Adding in your experience, I suspect that Western Digital’s first effort is to invent reasons to refuse warranty claims, or just make things difficult for the customer. Then, only when customers are not willing to accept their refusals, do they then honor their warranty agreement.

CEO, David Goeckeler, must think that his company is saving money, by X percent of warranty claims going unfilled. And he is correct. Each drive that the customer gives up on, is a drive saved by Western Digitial.

But it is also a customer that will never buy Western Digital products, again.

His spreadsheet will show him how many claims he was able to get away with denying.
His spreadsheet will not show him how many new purchases, that normally would have gone to Western Digital, instead went to Seagate and Toshiba.

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They took a few weeks from what I remember. I’m not interested in paying for shipping if I don’t need to, so it is what it is.

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I recently got into Chia farming… From reading this post, I’m SO HAPPY I’ve only been buying SeaGate drives… I will stay away from WD going forward…

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Two or three times I had Seagate warranty claims.
One of those times, they shipped me a replacement drive on the day I spoke to them. But they took my credit card info, and told me that they would charge me, only if I did not return the failed drive.

On another occasion, they asked me if I wanted to use their data recovery service (something Western Digital does not offer). It turned out that my Seagate warranty included free data recovery.

They shipped me my recovered date (all plots) on two external drives (I had 14 TB of data, and I guess that they did not have a 14 TB drive handy?), and they also shipped me my replacement 14 TB drive for the one that failed – and told me to keep all of the drives. That made me a happy camper.

Seagate’s data recover lab is in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and their general warranty replacement warehouse is in Calexico, California.

I do not know if all of Seagate drives have free data recovery included in their warranty, or if that was just back then. But Seagate has always been a pleasure to deal with, in both reaching them, and them honoring their warranty agreement.

Although they make reliable drives, I will never spend another nickle on any Western Digital brand products.

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The reason Seagate is better with warranties is because they have great practice. More practice? The better you get. They are the failure masters so it makes sense they have an efficient system to process copious amounts of returns. Buying bad hard drives because they have great warranty service? Kind of laughable. And then some.

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Western Digital has been around for over a ½ century, and they have 53,000 employees.
They are not a struggling mom & pop shop, feeling their way around. They are not practicing.

Their warranty procedures are carefully crafted to frustrate the customers and their own employees who are caught in the middle and catch the grief from the customers.

My personal experience has been that my Western Digital drives have failed at twice the rate of my Seagate drives, and that Western Digital’s warranty process is intentionally flawed, and that Seagate’s warranty process is intentionally customer friendly.

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Western Digital took delivery of my failed drive 12 days ago, and they just shipped me my replacement drive.

Western Digital did not notify me that they shipped. Rather, UPS notified me of a delivery from Western Digital, scheduled for tomorrow.

Twelve days is much better than the 60 days they used to take – but still too slow, compared to other vendors.

And please be reminded that if you pay Western Digital’s “Convenience Fee”, they ship within 24 hours.
And if you make a purchase directly from Western Digital’s on-line store, they likely ship without delay.

So they are set up to provide proper turnaround times. They do know how to ship without delays.

But ask them to honor their warranty, without being slipped extra cash, and they drag out your warranty replacement.

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You’ve yet to see what arrives :wink:

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I was referring to Seagate. WD FTW.