Bought a returned GX701 from HIDevolution.

Another victim by HIDevolution here.

I bought an ASUS gx701 from Hidevolution via Amazon a couple months ago and confirmed it to have been nothing less than a returned laptop by my local Asus service engineer saying that the laptop had its Warranty-Seal already broken, which wasn't done on my part.

Hidevolution indeed fobbed their returned laptop as a brand new one and sold it to me.

This is how things went :

1. On delivery day, my gx701 had weird of sorts of thick dust here and there and even a minor scratch on its back. Given the conditions, I immediately took several pictures via my iPhone, thinking to myself that these might be the signs of secondhand state.

https://i.imgur.com/TeOkWTS.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/3ndk2ck.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/fahOMLR.png

Now, these bad omen has come to life.

2. My laptop was mostly commited to running youtube and light Office works despite its monster specs because the laptop's temp spiked as high as 95'c while running Division 2 and Monster Hunter World and I was super uncomfortable with that.

3. A week ago, on 18 September, My laptop died out all of a sudden. Freezing constantly within 3 mins of each booting. I took it to my local Asus service center and the service engineer there confirmed the Warranty Seal was already broken and most importantly, a secondary thermal paste had been applied.

Who would have done it? Definitely, not me.

Note that I made it very clear prior to shipping that they should never open up my laptop no matter what,
and that I don't want their so called 'quality assurance check' on my laptop.

I have these conversations with them as proof too.

There are several others who have experienced these kinds of blatant fraud by HIDevolution
so watch out for this seller on Amazon.

Usually, I won't ask for a full refund at this point, but now that I found out their
blatant attempt to cheat me, I find it hard to let it just slip.

Whether I can get the full refund from this seller is one thing, YOU all staying away from
these guys is another.

 

@Donald@HIDevolution

 

I apologize for missing this earlier...even though @TheReciever tagged me...I missed that too.

Here are the true facts.

We shipped you an ASUS factory sealed box directly from our warehouse...check your tracking history. It did not come from our Amazon inventory stock that already had Gelid GC Extreme applied and had gone through our Q.C. before sending to Amazon. As you said in your Amazon communication with us you had to break the ASUS factory seal tape on that box yourself when you first received it. We never opened it.

You then reported the 'damage' 28 days AFTER you received it. Any reasonable person that opened an ASUS factory sealed box, with the amount of damage you show in the pictures, would not have waited 28 minutes to report it, much less 28 days.

While you say the time stamp is not editable, that is not true. See - https://www.iphonelife.com/content/how-to-change-date-stamp-photos-your-iphone " Hold down the Shift key while clicking on all the photos whose dates you want to change. Next, go to Images and click Adjust Date and Time. This will allow you to change the dates for all the selected photos at once."

You also claimed twice in your communication with us through Amazon that "I'm nearing 40..." yet your profile here says you are 20.

We will let these facts speak for themselves.

 

I glad you finally respond to this, Mr. Donald.

Here are 'True Facts that have happened on my end'.
One of us is definitely lying here, perhaps someone who is pretty much known for 'dishonesty and fraud'
as in here https://www.reddit.com/r/Alienware/...olution_is_fraud_dell_provided_evidence_need/

Now, let me get the facts straight for you.

1. I made it very clear to Ted@HIDevolution that I didn't want any of
those Q.C process that you guys do.

Ted@HIDevolution agreed to this, saying

'Hello there, thank you for your order! We can assure you that the laptop will be new, but to be frank we wouldn't have any control over the quality of the product since it would not go through our production/QC process by default. Would you like us to QC the product prior to shipping or did you want us to ship a new/sealed unit?'

These are his exact words on 2019-05-13 Monday @ 04:34 P.M delivered to my e-mail.

In response to that I, once again, made it very clear that I DID NOT want those Q.C on my laptop no matter what and Ted @ HIDevolution agreed.

Amazon still has this conversation record between me and Ted as an evidence.

Let it decide who is lying here.

I wonder, taking full price, how many used and refurbished laptops you have been selling customers on the pretext that you are doing Q.C. Especially even when the customers didn't want any of the process.

2. As I told you, at first I was willing to put up with those signs of dust and high temperature of 95'c and more importantly, I was in dire need of using laptop for work. I found it one hell of a hassle to go through the international shipping process on my own especially when the postal office in my country doesn't accept a laptop with lithium-ion battery in it.

16 June, however, change of heart. I decided that I wouldn't let my $2600 go to waste. That's why I contacted you after 28 days had passed but as you were going to charge me both the restocking and international shipping fee, I decided not to return it. After all, I wasn't 100% sure of its being used, refurbished laptop 'at that time'.

3. Despite very mild use of youtube and excels, on 19 Sep, my laptop died all of a sudden, unable to boot, a total brick.

I had to take it to my local ASUS service center where one of the engineers named 'Peter' confirmed to me that 'the seal of some kind was already broken' (I can't recall what seal exactly) and signs of someone else having applied thermal paste on CPU to reduce temperature were present.

Now, I can't help but wonder what this seal the engineer was referring to. Clearly not the one I cut out on the package box side on 17 May. This seal the engineer referred to must have been inside laptop. Perhaps, something those engineers themselves can check out on only if the laptop is dismantled piece by piece? He was very certain that the product was in the secondhand state before my use. I still have this after-sales service slip as an evidence.

I don't even know how to get inside of those laptops. So that leaves me out, for one.

In other words, it was found on 18 Sep that the laptop you sold me for full price of $2600 on 12 May was handled somewhere else before it got to me.

 

I am nearing 40. I am. I was born in Dec, 1982. The reason I said I was nearing 40 to you was to emphasize the point that I'm not one of those irresponsible kids trying to take advantage of any kind.

My profile here doesn't mean a thing as I couldn't care less when I first joined this community. Even the nickname I use on this very website is totally randomish and indicates I could be 8 years old.

Evidence again, let my account at Amazon speak for itself.

Mr. Donald. I couldn't care less once again about the link you provided regarding editing time stamps. I didn't do it. I haven't been involved with any kind of fraud attempts nor have I ever tried to rip someone off in my life.

Do you remember kanth_vinay on reddit? Another victimized customer by HIDevolution US? You sold him a used, refurbished DELL laptop for full price. Moreover, you broke your very promise that you would reach out to him. Now hes taking a legal action against you. I would have done it long ago as well only if I were in the states too.

Let me end this by quoting the words of Amazon employee whom I spent about 30 mins chatting on Amazon 2019-10-17 Thursday @ 1:45 P.M, my local time.

'09:33 PM PDT Meenakshi: 33% negative review within 30 days. definitely, something going wrong with this HIDevolution guys.'
09:34 PM PDT Meenakshi: I've reported this seller too, and added notes in your investigation.

 

You are going to need more than a reddit link to convince anyone here.

I work as a middle man for Dell and how that company doesnt go bankrupt from the lack of logistical black holes they create are the most baffling thing I can ever imagine. In fact I have a crew of 6-8 people sorting out their shipments to me because every delivery I get from them is literally shotgun level crap in the toilet. This is with handling multi-million dollar contracts for the government and private sector.

tl;dr Dell's "word" is meaningless. Especially with your laptop thats on fire.

Going to need time stamps, receipts to prove a point.

If the machine wasnt suitable for almost anything at all why would you wait 2 months to make it fail when you could've simply returned it the next day? I do that with Amazon all the time.

 

@grrr1241 Please understand the only real important key to this mystery is what you stated here: " Clearly not the one I cut out on the package box side on 17 May."

The ASUS factory seal tape was intact before you cut it to open the ASUS box that came inside the outer shipping box, which means that seal had not been cut, or the box opened since it left the ASUS factory, until you did it.

We shipped you exactly what you asked for, an ASUS factory sealed box that we never opened.

 

Let me be very clear here.
There are three very obvious facts here.

Fact 1. It is I who cut open the seal tape THAT IS ON THE ASUS BOX on 17 May.
Fact 2. As soon as I touched it, I couldn't help but notice there were clear signs of the laptop having been handled, used elsewhere. So I took pictures on that very day.
Fact 3. Considering what the ASUS engineer said at the end of Sep, 'a sort of inside seal in the laptop itself' exists that can only be checked out upon dismantling it. And according to him, my laptop that I bought from you HIDevolution US CLEARLY HAD BEEN OPENED BEFORE IT GOT TO ME and hence doesn't quality as new.

Now that I'm through 'Fact 3', puzzle pieces are now put together.

Why it had odd dusts in the first place.
Why it, though temporarily, reaches as high as 95'c in temperature just for entering Windows.
Why despite very mild use of not much gaming, it bricked all of a sudden in Sep.

Had the laptop itself not bricked in Sep, I would still be using it to this day, unaware of this blatant fraud.

 

Over the past month, I've talked to more than 4 supervisors on Amazon and finally got the final decision on 26 Oct on the word of Noluvuyo, one of the Customer Service supervisors at Amazon.

She said as long as I return the laptop back to you, even if it has been quite some time since May, the Customers Service Department will fight their way to you and make my refund happen, though I will have to pay 10% of the restocking fee, which is about $250. Totally sick and tired of this, I agreed to the terms.

Mr. Donald, I sent the laptop via expedited international shipping 4 days ago and It's about time you received it now and processed my refund. You may want to contact the Amazon employees at Leadership Team and Customer Service during the process.

 

Sorry.... but I agree with @Donald@HIDevolution.

He shipped you exactly what you asked for, a system with the seal tape on.....

28 days... Really, any genuine person would have opened immediately and returned.

I suspect foul play by the buyer, seen this myself over the years and makes me sick, had my fair share of illicit scam attempts on platforms like eBay too...

How anybody can allow a buyer to return there item after 1 month on the basis it arrived with marks etc, is a joke!

 

Do you have photos of those "seals"?...

Customs like to open packages to inspect them and to apply import/VAT charges...

Couldn't it be that the laptop box was opened by your country customs?

I would avoid buying anything like a laptop from outside the EU just due to the crapshot that is passing customs..

 

@senso

If I understand this correctly, he isnt claiming that the box seal was opened before he got it, but that the warranty sticker (that he states as some internal seal) was already opened/voided before he got the item in question. I dont think customs is going to tear down the laptop.

the most suspect thing here for me is that he claimed to get a marked up laptop that overheated by just browsing, and didnt immediately return it, like any sensible person would do with such a high price machine.

 

This establishes that only 3 known parties had their hands on the laptop that was in that box, none of which include HIDevolution.
1. ASUS who put it in the box and applied their factory seal,
2. You, after you cut open the factory seal and opened the box for the first time after it left the ASUS factory, found the 'damage' but did not report it to Amazon, ASUS or HIDevolution for 28 days.
3. Your local ASUS facility that opened the laptop itself over 4 months later and gave you their report.

Potentially a 4th would be anyone else that had their hands on the laptop itself between the time you cut the factory seal to open the box, and the time you gave it to your local ASUS facility.

No, this only shows that either ASUS put it in the box that way, or someone opened the laptop itself during the 4+ month period between the time you cut the factory seal and you gave it to your local ASUS facility.

The bottom line is, HIDevolution offered you our Q.C. so as to avoid 'out of the box' issues, but you declined and received the factory sealed box just as it came from the ASUS factory.

Final question...do you think you may be shooting at the wrong target?

 

The Asus internal sticker is a "Warranty void if damaged" paper sticker usually in screw number one of the heatsink, but its not a legal enforceable sticker, and its easy to peel it slowly and not even damage the sticker, its not some magic sticker that is can sense movement, its just a run of the mill scary sticker that repair centers use to scam people out of money, because they are not legal in the US, and they are not legal in the EU.

 

Your preaching to the choir dude. The rest is moot, irregardless of legality, my point being customs isnt going to tear down the laptop to void the seal to begin as they dont care.

 

In my honest opinion , if you report an error too late, it's gonna come back and haunt you.

Whenever I buy a laptop, in new condition and received it looking like it had been sitting outside the box and boxed up as new, this is what I would do, even if I am going to keep it.

First thing is to report to the selling agent that the laptop is used. Now they have a record of this on the day you received and when you opened the laptop.
Second, Even if you keep the laptop when noticing the quality of the product , you should report it always. That way it won't be you on the hot seat.

I buy " A lot " of merchandise on eBay (Maybe not anymore since they started charging taxes). I hold the seller to their listed product description. When i do received the item(s) i check to see/test the item to make sure it is aligned with the listing. Everything checks out, then it's all good.

 

Yeah, I am not really buying what your selling @grrr1241 . None of this really makes sense. @Donald@HIDevolution 's account of this sounds far more logical then what your trying to paint.

HIDEvolution runs a pretty clean shop - I have personally given them thousands in business and intend to continue doing so - and I don't see them nickle and dimming and potentially ruining their rep over some used- system scam. I mean anything is possible, but it seems a bit far fetched.

Good luck with @grrr1241 with finding a replacement system. No one likes a burnt deal.

 

I can recommend HID also.

 

Just FYI, 30 day return policy is normal in the Netherlands. It was 14 days couple of years ago, some shops still go by the 14-day rule but other big players give you 30 day of return time.

 

doesn't take 30 days to check an items condition... it takes 30 minutes max.

 

At least a couple of days if you work daily and want to try out games, benchmarks, audio etc.