Asus has been in the spotlight lately for its abnormal or outright ridiculous RMA costs. One user was quoted $3,758 to fix a broken power cable lock.
The story starts with Gamers Nexus reviewing Asus’s RMA service using an ROG Ally. After sending a handheld with a defective thumb stick to be fixed, Asus demanded $191.47 from Gamers Nexus to fix a tiny indent that wasn’t even part of the original claim. The brand stated that, to fix this cosmetic issue, it needs to swap the display too. Following some back and forth with the support team, Gamers Nexus managed to get the handheld fixed without these extra charges.
This unusual behaviour prompted the team to further investigate this and found that many owners have faced a similar problem. One of the most egregious ones comes from a user who was quoted $3,758 CAD to fix a broken plastic power cable lock. Just to be clear, the card works just fine, no burned 12VHPWR connector or broken fan, just a missing bit of plastic meant to hold the power cable in place. Funnily enough, the card itself cost less than that at $2,799. At this point, I’d rather just get a new GPU while keeping the old one to sell second-hand.
Unfortunately, these are not the only stories recalling bad RMA experiences. Gamers Nexus said that they received more than 100 emails from users complaining. While some relate to shipping or unscrupulous owners, at least some of these claims are true. In this case, the damage was ruled as the user’s fault, but it still doesn’t explain the price tag. Thankfully, this user managed to get things sorted after contacting the CEO’s office. Since Asus didn’t have that model in stock, the brand offered to refund the GPU price entirely.
At least Asus cares about customers in some capacity, but it probably needs to reform its RMA service if it has any hopes of regaining trust. I hope it sorts things out soon, as the brand can’t let this get out of hand. I’ve reached out to Asus to see what the plan is, if there’s anything at all, and will update you once I hear back.