Chris Curtis dot Org

Wow, that bites, Derek.  I’ve never had a problem with Newegg, but then whenever I ordered anything from them it arrived as expected and worked.  I’d definitely be pretty mad if I’d had an experience like yours.  I’ll certainly hesitate to order from them in the future, that’s for sure.

By Chris Curtis on April 15, 2006 at 11:55pm link

Well, the product got very high reviews from Newegg users, and on other sites as well.  But I should have went with my gut that it was just too many features in an enclosure that no other manufacturers were offering.

By Derek Jones on April 17, 2006 at 06:46am link

Of course I don’t run a mail order business.  That doesn’t mean that I don’t have an understanding of retail P&L;and customer service necessities in any of its forms.  All businesses have acceptable losses.  In any industry where a company acts as a retailer / wholesaler, i.e. any relationship where one party can be accurately labeled as a “customer”, you plan for these acceptable losses.  They are already built into your product and/or service’s price, and the accounting classification is simply “cost of doing business”.  This deserves a qualifier that in this particular transaction, there was no cost of doing business, nor any losses involved with handling the transaction.  They didn’t pay shipping, and they aren’t paying the manufacturer for the defective product.  They are, however, collecting $7.50 from me for the heck of it.

So: I appreciate the link, but be assured that I understand when and why restocking fees are used by some companies.  That link actually proves my case, in the last paragraph, noting that there are times where a restocking fee is absolutely uncalled for.  Notebooks, computers, etc., sure.  On products that a manufacturer has an auto-destroy agreement with merchants, there is no need for the restocking fee to be applied to defective returns.  There is also no need for a large, well-established merchant to disallow exchanges, with or without a restocking fee.

At first glance i could tell right away you don’t run a mail order business.

I would also like to add that the implication in that statement is just silly.  Are you really saying that a consumer should dynamically lower their expectations based on the business model?  This isn’t Manolio Ugly One’s ‘Lectropawn, this is a large, national company dealing thousands of transactions daily.

By Derek Jones on April 17, 2006 at 10:33pm link

No worries, sorry I misunderstood.

By Derek Jones on April 19, 2006 at 04:14pm link

Next time call your credit card company up. They will credit you back. At least the 15% restocking fee. I know citibank will.

By Joonhee on September 13, 2006 at 01:45am link

I just experienced a similar situation, but after submitting my RMA on the newegg site, I emailed customer service and let them know of my dissatisfaction. After a few hours I received an email with a link to a prepaid return shipping label and was told that my restocking fee had been waived. I was pleased with this response, but I feel that I should have not had to do this, as others may not have been as fortunate.

I will note that my item was $29.99 and was found defective on arrival. Return shipping was going to be around $7.50 and the restocking fee was $4.50. Thankfully, this has been waived so I am only out my initial shipping charge of around $7, which kind of stinks, but whatcha gonna do?

By Dan1 on August 11, 2007 at 12:03am link