Faulty monitor casing "not covered" by warranty. I am NOT amused.

As I've mentioned elsewhere, I recently sent my m15x in for repairs. The primary problem was the faulty monitor casing, which had popped off, exposing the underlying machinery. Several pieces of a translucent white material had fallen out of the machine, perhaps dried glue or melted plastic. Additionally, a few pieces of machinery had fallen out, including a small gear. There are several images and more details linked in this thread.

The crack was not the result of dropping or mishandling the machine. It simply "popped open" while I was opening the lid, one day. This same problem has been experienced by other customers.

When I sent the machine in, I had high expectations. The customer service representative was friendly, and I had received confirmation from Armando on these forms that my problem would be dealt with.

I recently received a call from technical support, however, which shattered my expectations. The operator begrudgingly informed me that the monitor casing was considered "physical damage," and that they do not cover "physical damage." I paid extra for the extended warranty.

Quote from the warranty:

I must be blind, because I don't see "physical problems" listed here. My problem was not caused by misuse, abuse, mishandling, or actions outside of Alienware's control, and it certainly isn't a "paint or finish" issue.

Additionally, because the machine is damaged (and it's been longer than 30 days), I no longer have the option of receiving a refund (not even with the restocking fee). In other words, I'm now stuck with this $3600 paperweight, which Alienware is, I assume, preparing to mail back to me without laying a finger on it.

I am NOT amused.

Unless I hear some good news from an Alienware representative very soon, I'll be scheduling an appointment with my lawyer to find out why I paid $3400 for a laptop that broke down after a few months of careful use, and why I paid $200 for a warranty that doesn't cover damage.

 

Sorry to be slightly off-topic here, I do feel your pain there, fex.

But have the "big review" sites heard of these horrendous problems Alienware is having right now?

I think the problem is not enough mass-media, internets, TV is acknowledging the problem, and if they would, Alienware would go down the drain like crazy.

 

Link them to Jaynhavok's case and tell them that if they do not take responsability by their screw up with the M15x you will get several M15x users backing you up with strong data related to GPU overheating to 100C close to the hinge that broke. Alienware was a dissapointment for me... Now it's going down the gutter completely.
Fex, if you need graphs, information on heating problems, etc... let me know and I will try and help you with whatever limited resources I have.
Another fine example of the most outrageous irresponsability and lack of respect for all their costumers.

I share your "NOT AMUSED" in a way that is organic. I'm so completely mad at AW. What a joke. Shame on you AW. I hope you will take this case ahead, make it public and simply ruin AW to the ground. That's the only thing they deserve after the kind of response they gave you.

Hold in there Fex. Good luck.

 

Do you happen to have any temp readings of your GPU while playing? You can use that to justify the hinge breaking.
And Jaynhavok, if he has these reading as well, it would help you guys a lot.

 

Thats shocking, I would have thought that with a name as big as Alienware, they would just replace/fix it. Just bought my m15x thinking that if anything were to go wrong (which seems likely) then it would be covered by warenty but evidently not.

Yeah - not much else I can say other than thats really really rubbish, and I'm outraged and really actually quite angry that Alienware could/can do that.

Keep us posted on how you get on, what with laywers and all, would be very grateful to see where you get with it, hopefully with it being repaired under warenty in the end.

 

Physical damage (ie, wear and tear) is covered under warranty if and only if it occurs within an unreasonable time frame. How long have you had the laptop?

 

I'll be sure to keep you all up to date. If it gets to the point where I need to take legal action, I will certainly pull as many resources from other disgruntled customers as I can.

I'm hoping to hear from an Alienware representative who can set this straight before it gets that far.

 

Keep pestering them. There is no way in hell they can sell you a broken or prone to damages machine and not fix it.
Don't let them mock you, this is outrageous!

 

Fex,

I'm sorry for the experience you've had so far. I will PM you shortly to further assist with this matter.

Thank you

 

wow, i am never buying another alienware product unless they step up their game, my laptop was not a lemon as the case with yours but there are quite a few of them and i see below satisfactory replies on alienware's part regarding them

 

Well, legally they're bound by the language of their own warranty document. According to what it says, the only thing that they could claim would apply to these two clauses:

"* Product that has been damaged by actions that are beyond Alienware’s control, including for example, impacts, fluids, fire, flood, wind, earthquake, lightning or similar disaster, war, strike, lockout, epidemic, destruction of production facilities, riot, insurrection or material unavailability;

* Product that has been damaged through misuse, abuse or mishandling, including without limitation the unauthorized modification of the system as a whole or any individual component, and/or the attachment of peripheral devices"

I would assume that legally the burden of proof lies on them to demonstrate that the physical damage to your screen has been caused by one of the above. If they can't prove that (scratches, pry-marks, dents, chips - something that indicates "misuse, abuse, or mishandling"), then they will be bound by law to repair the defect, whether its cause is design related, or materials-defect related.

I really think you're going to get this resolved sooner than you're afraid of, because they have no ground to stand on unless they can demonstrate that you caused damage through "misuse, abuse, or mishandling". If there's no evidence of that, then they have to fix it - period. They know that, even if they say otherwise, and a single phone-call from a lawyer will set it straight.

 

WOW... Alienware-James informed me of the same thing, but he was able to have them waved. I'm thankful they are waved, but I'm enraged, that I am being accused of physically damaging my laptop, when it is crystal clear this is not a single fluke accident. I'm livid...

My wife has a law degree...breach of contract?

 

Not to accuse you of this havok but I worked in a computer repair shop primarilly as a laptop technician for a few years (at compusa) until they closed the store just recently. Now we would get all sorts of people who would bring in their laptops damaged from abuse and would claim no knowledge of it. Now I'm certain this isn't the case with you but people lie all the time because they know if they don't they are out 1500 dollars or more.

Be it liquid, being dropped, physical abuse, etc they will all claim they did nothing to their system and it just stopped working one day.

"my screen just shattered on it's own!"

I can see this from both sides, as they have to deal with liars all the time who are just as angry, mostly at themselves and are trying to get it repaired at the company's expense.

In your case, however, from looking at the pictures, I cannot see any evidence of physical abuse. The tech who was working on it must be a noob or he was just lying through his teeth. But I'm glad Alienware decided to repair it for you, managers are always the people to go to in such cases. After all people are sitll people and make mistakes, the tech could be new or a lazy liar who doesn't want to work .

I just got my m15x yesterday and it appears the memory they put in 4gb configurations is not coming out of sleep mode properly so they are sending me new memory. Other then this the system is working flawlessly.

I wish you well.

 

I am so gutted at this... It's really the most enraging event coming from AW (and I did experience a lot). I'm completely convinced that these TWO (EXACTLY THE SAME) CASES (not one isolated case) have the same root... overheating GPU that just led the right hinge (exactly on the same place of the GPU and GPU exhaust) to break.

AW is criminal in several things here:

1- Not having tested their laptops throughly to make sure they are in working conditions;
2- Selling defective laptops that can start a fire, endagering property and people;
3- Accusing their costumers of misuse of the defective equipment they sold, trying with this to wash their hand of their responsabilities
4- Not paying any attention to the never ending ammount of complaints regarding all kinds of problems. Completely disregarding their costumers.

I think this is the right time to make them understand that they can't continue acting criminally. I'm just ashamed I have an AW laptop. I never felt so infuriated at AW as I do now. AW is really a big dissapointment.

 

So is it safe to get the m15x now ?
No

 

Honestly, isn't there someone powerful enough in this forum to make a case and completely trash AW's image and make them step up to all the mess they have made? I can't understand how can people read all this and maintain their indiference. Even if it doesn't influence you directly, people should make a stand against AW's criminal attitude.

 

Exactly man, I'm still reading topics like " Just ordered an m15x , am so happy"
Doesn't anybody read the forums anymore? sheer ignorance...

 

I will be doing what I can on monday.

 

So wait...if you did drop your laptop and break the lid or whatever you couldn't just pay them to fix it?

 

Well, yeah, you could pay them to fix it. But these two didn't drop theirs, and so shouldn't HAVE to pay. AW should fix it as a faulty screen enclosure. But AW is saying they won't fix it under warranty, because it isn't faulty, because the owners damaged them somehow. Even though there's no demonstrable evidence of such damage...

 

I definitely understand the other side of the argument. If I was a business owner, I wouldn't want fraudulent, manipulative customers walking all over my repair department every time they did something stupid and damaged their machine. I do think it somewhat rash to brush off a case so quickly, but I get the honest feeling that my case never even made it as far as we're extrapolating from the brief conversation I had with tech support.

In other words, I don't know why they responded with "not covered by the warranty" so quickly, but I don't think they even got to the "whose fault is it?" discussion.

Regardless, I've been contacted, and they're saying they'll take another look.

We'll see what that leads to, this time.

Oh, and for those who asked, my machine was shipped to me on February 1st, and it's been in for repairs for about two weeks, to date, so the machine was about 4 months old when the problems started.

 

Alienware needs to clean the cob web out of their closet because this will hurt them in a long run.

A busines cannot rely on one pond for customers. For a business to survive in a vast pace of consumable world they will need to fish in a new pond for new customers too. That being said word of mouth will hurt them and as a consequence they will not be getting repeat and referral customers. So what are they going to do to clean up their farcicle business operation?

Clean out the Cob webs from their closets and employ readily trained new staff to deal with customers that folked out so much money for dodgy products. They definately need readily trained new vibrant intelligent fast thinking and well actioned customers to implement good customer survice.

You cant charge those prices without backing it up with poor quality below sub standard customer service then expect repeat and referrals business.

Dont be a farce get smart and act on it by implement at pick up a sight and signed before pickup of acceptable goods. Put simply Alienware must ensure a customer signs his/her acceptance of the product in good and working order.

 

I don't know what it it, but I would not shout SMART.. blind from the bling?

But you can see the same with cars.. the one you have pictured.. service every 20 or is it 30.000 mile? A Ferrari every 5.000?

 

Honestly I feel bad for the people who cannot get this issue fixed because they do not come on these forums. If any of you guys get into any trouble with your laptop and absolutely nothing can be done by AW then send me a PM and I'll talk to my half-brother who is a lawyer about it.

For example, if James did not help you out in this case, I would have recommended you contact me because this problem is not isolated, it is happening pretty "commonly".

 

Off the record, Porsche is #1 in terms of quality, according to some wall street post . Forgot where, and it's followed by Ford and Infiniti

 

Yeah I never accused him of dropping it,lol sorry if it came out that way, I just wanted to know b/c i'm ordering a m15x and I wouldn't want to buy one and have a accident and them not fix it, if it was my fault I don't mind paying. In response to the the guys faulty lid, I don't understand why they just wouldn't replace it...it's just bad business, seriously how much does it cost to make that plastic? a dollar? lol

 

yeah, exactly. The poor reputation that they gain from not fixing it is a far greater expense than whatever it would cost them to fix it.

 

I sent this to them a couple seconds ago. I'm also going to be making some phone calls on monday. I'm willing to take this as far as needed...

"I was recently notified by Alienware-James on notebookreview.com that the damage to the laptop, was considered physical damage, and not covered under warranty. Alienware-James waved the fees for the repairs, but this does not satisfy me. Actually I'm extremely angered that this would be considered something not covered by this 3-year warranty that I have purchased. You are accusing me of damaging my laptop and trying to turn it in under warranty. The only things you could claim would be from your warranty below.

"* Product that has been damaged by actions that are beyond Alienware’s control, including for example, impacts, fluids, fire, flood, wind, earthquake, lightning or similar disaster, war, strike, lockout, epidemic, destruction of production facilities, riot, insurrection or material unavailability;

* Product that has been damaged through misuse, abuse or mishandling, including without limitation the unauthorized modification of the system as a whole or any individual component, and/or the attachment of peripheral devices"


Considering there is no damage to the outside of the laptop case, I would like for whoever diagnosed the problem to explain to me how he/she found this to be true, especially since this is not the only case of this problem. Another customer on Notebookreview.com has the same EXACT problem. I would also like a Supervisor to respond. I am outraged and have no desire to do business with a company that insults it's customer's by accusing them of misuse, abuse, or mishandling of the product, when there is no evidence to support the claim, and it is obvious that it is a design or material defect. I am demanding a refund of the m15x.

Sincerely,

Jayonhavok"

 

Dang man you sound seriously mad,lol Good luck with getting your refund though, even though i'm not sure they'll do it...see they should of just replaced the piece of plastic and it would of made their customer happy but it's a little late now unless they offer you something amazing which i doubt they'll do

 

no kidding? I am somewhat disagree.

to OP, yea AW's assemble lines are getting out of control. they need 200 points inspection on their 200 points inspection team.

 

Surely we can do something regarding all this AW nightmare. Isn't there anyone that knows about law and can start a legal action against them?

 

since newfie already started a complaint to the bbb, if ppl make enough complaints to the bbb AW will have to join the rating system no matter what. if they get a bad enough rating it will hurt their business.

website is bbb.org i think

 

That's a good suggestion exiled. But as an European costumer, can I use that website as well?

 

we could email the bbb and ask if people from europe can complain. bbb seems to be only for americans and canadians but AW is an american company.

 

Just go to to the Complaints Form on "bbb.org". Anyone from any country can file a complaint against any US or Canadian company. Just fill out the forms.

 

I'm going to see how they respond on monday. If I'm not satisfied, I will file a complaint with the BBB, and let AW know so. I'm gonna take this step by step.

 

there is actually enough evidence on this site alone to bring real legal action against AW.
After showing these threads to my parents, i was advised not to buy from them, because if something happened with my system, I would be the camel that broke the camels back.

I could easily see the dell case repeating itself on AW........ hmm both companies owned by the same corporation, sued for the same reasons...... that will make good headlines.

The problem though is that legal action like this would take a huge amount of time and effort. For instance all the email from each unhappy customer that we can get has to be rounded up ect, or one very organised lawyer.

it can be done if you want to go at it. I think ill just watch though.

 

look at alienwaresucks.com there is a guys blog there who went through a very similar thing and took the same steps..... took him a few months though.

 

Don't the company have to be part of the BBB to be filed a complant.

 

Well even though I don't have a M15x anymore I iwll gladly help in any way I can. I will be making anoter formal complaint to the BBB tomorrow. It seems they are unwillig to refund me my total amount plus teh Shipping I incurred shipping it back to them.

I purchased my system from AW Canada. Paid in Canadian funds, and was refunded in US funds of about $200 + $200 shipping less. AW have now ripped me off for over $400. If you guys want to take legal Action I have every correspondence with AW document. I am completely and Utterly pissed at AW.

So for all you Canadian buyers be aware your going to get shafted by the currency exchange, even if you purchased it through a Canadian website and paid in Canadian FUNDS.

I still can't believe how not one major site has ran with any of this info. AW aren't going to do anything for Current M15x owners. And I feel so so sorry for any upcoming purchasers.

Tomorrow I am making another complaint with the BBB. I have my visa statement and all corespondence stating a FULL REFUND. I would strongly encourage everyone to file a complaint with the BBB regarding AW. If enough complaints are filed, the BBB will then be forced to start a full investigation.

 

if enough complaints are made AW will have to join the BBB if they want to or not.

 

they are not a part of it anymore???? they were at once

YAY! IM DONEMY TESTS!!! no school EVER AGAIN! maybe i will help orchestrate this a bit.

 

How Alienware handles my case over the next week or two will determine my participation in all this.

I must admit, I'm chomping at the bit to go raise hell with some tech review sites and tech blogs, and I'm certainly adequately suited to do so. I want to be very careful, however, not to become involved in any serious retaliations while still working through my own situation: I know I'll be able to present a more informed review once the whole ordeal is over.

The simple truth is that this all could have been an honest mistake that Alienware will correct promptly. For their sake, let's hope so.

As soon as my machine is safely back at home, I'll start writing up a review for the BBB, and taking whatever other actions I feel necessary. Hopefully, the outcome of all this will be satisfactory enough that not much action will be required.

I'm compelled to remind everyone to remain organized and professional while we're all dealing with these issues. A handful of calm, bold, stern, and refined complaints will accomplish much more than an angry mob of forumers, and it's very easy to empathize and become vicariously angry to the point where you're more harmful than helpful.

As for legal action, I will [personally] be giving Alienware some more time, now that Alienware-James has contacted me. Assuming he's able to correct this problem (which I hope, for their sake, was an honest mistake), I don't see the need to raise any legal issues.

 

fex, wise words. As I am not the calm one here , if you need any further help with some data about temperatures, let me know and I will be able to provide you with that.
Good luck for both you and Joy. Keep us posted.

 

Absolutely, sounds like the temperature data will come in handy, if hell need be raised. I'll be sure to let you know. :]

 

Finally somebody suited to draw Aw's attention on the matter.

 

Sorry to hear about the problems you are having with ur m15x! It is truly shocking how they just break and completely unacceptable.

I've worked in customer service for a few companies and would just like to give me 2c about AW response. Where i was working we were under instructions to take all warranty claims regarding breaking of the product with a grain off salt as A LOT of people drop their thing and break it and then try and claim it under warranty, this is a fact and u'll notice it urself if u ever work in a customer service department.

Correct me if i'm wrong, but they are fixing ur laptops under warranty now so why are you demanding a full refund for your computer? Because they started out saying that it was not covered, and then corrected themselves to cover it under warranty? I think it has been handled quiet nicely as to be expected by a profit run companies customer service department?

Remember that if they would just have repaired ur computer without asking any questions, then everyone would start expecting the same treatment (even the people that had damaged their computer out of abuse or misuse) which would ruin their warranty policy saying that accidental damage and abuse or misuse inflicted damage is not covered.

And saying that the screen splitting is a commonly occuring event after 2 known cases out of i think they sold a total of 400,000 laptops (not completely sure here, correct me if anyone know the correct figure) is an overstatement.

 

they said that chasis damage is not covered. thats what they said, not "we have to check if its ourfault"I think thats what bothered him most.

 

I'm definitely trying to take this as cautiously and calmly as I can. As I mentioned earlier, I can see this issue from their point of view, too: I wouldn't want customers walking all over my repair department every time they did something stupid and damaged their machine. Alas, I've already talked about that, a couple pages back.

I also definitely wouldn't claim [and haven't, to my knowledge] that this problem is "common," you're right. The fact that two distinct users had virtually identical problems surface at the same time, however, simply seems to indicate that the problem is either a rare manufacturing defect that makes the machine prone to damage from the "stress" of opening and closing the lid, or a matter of freak coincidence.

To rule out freak coincidence, I'll do a little research in the morning, and see if we're not alone. I am curious to know if anyone else has had this problem, and not spoken up about it, yet (or at least not on these forums).

Long story short, Svarto, I agree with what you've said. Aside from whatever slipup happened between Alienware-Armando telling me that TS would fix the problem and TS telling me they wouldn't fix the problem, I've been moderately pleased by customer support. It's not too late for them to salvage this experience, for me.

I'm just waiting to see what happens.

 

I'm happy to see you calmed down Fex You were very angry a few days ago, but at least you understand AW is more likely to help you if your calm about things and your not going crazy on them, let us know how things turn out...I'm sure you'll get your lid fixed