Frontosa - Sapphire

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h0ll0w

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So I bought a sapphire 6950 1GB from Frontosa last year November, and the thing starts giving me problems last week. **** happens, so I sent it in to Frontosa. From the start I expect a few days to go by before I will get a replacement, especially because some guy at Frontosa told me that they have to send to Sapphire JHB so they can test it again and send the replacement.

Now I know it's only Wednesday now, but so far the people I try to get an ETA from at frontosa don't seem to give a ****. All they can tell me is that it has been sent off to sapphire JHB and that they will test it. Some manager at frontosa even told me that the card hasn't even been delivered yet, and that sapphire JHB only accept deliveries on mondays, tuesdays and fridays, which is retarded. I'm cool with waiting a bit, the things I need to do on my home computer aren't life or death, but to get a lousy attitude from the people at frontosa, and the news that my card hasn't even been tested by sapphire yet, that just brings out the nerdrage in me.

All this more than likely means that I will only get the replacement next week.

I understand that this is what sapphire wants frontosa to do, and that this whole idea of shipping the card to JHB is their brainchild, but what also pisses me off is that the only info Frontosa can give me is : we sent it off to sapphire and they still need to test the card and swop it out.

So if you get nothing else from this rant post, please just think twice before you buy a sapphire graphics card. Until they scrap this whole primitive RMA policy, I will definitely not be buying another sapphire card. I'll probably buy from Frontosa again never had any issues with them, except maybe said manager with his I-dont-have-time-for-you attitude.
 
I am also not entirely sure why they cannot just give me another card like mine, and then just wait for the replacement from sapphire to go back into their stock.
 
Dude, this is common practice... Do you not buy there much?

If you were looking for a higher level of support (i.e faster swapout), you should have spent extra on a premium brand like Asus/Gigabyte.

When you buy cheaper brands, you get slower service. Absolutely nothing wrong with Sapphire though, excellent brand.
 
Common practice ? Lousy attitude is common practice ? Only accepting deliveries on 3 days of the week is common practice ?

The guy at Frontosa told me that this stupid sapphire RMA policy only came into effect this year. Plus any other RMA swop out I've ever had was replaced with items from the supplier's stock.

If you want to get shafted you buy Gigabyte at rectron, and the price difference between ASUS and sapphire is negligible. Also I've had LOTS of problems with ASUS products so I avoid it where I can. Premium my ass, they are just the most established brands in SA so they can ask what they want for the same quality product.

And as I've said, there is something wrong with sapphire, it is the RMA policy. I don't want to wait for more than a week to get my graphics card replaced.
 
Odd i bought a 9800gx2 from esquire and they swopped it out, it was a cheap brand, it was 2k cheaper than anything else in the country.

Don't buy vga cards from frontosa though, expensive and obviously the support sucks ass.

it's not common practice at all. I have never heard of that happening before. They should test it and either credit note you or give you a fresh one. When did saphire become a cheap brand? The pricing from frontosa is about the highest in the country, cheap brand my ass.
 
killadoob said:
Don't buy vga cards from frontosa though, expensive and obviously the support sucks ass..
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Funny you mention that, I compared their CPU prices very recently and they were on average R200 - R400 more expensive than another well known supplier across all CPU's.

I've already said it though, I've never had issues with Frontosa and while I don't buy there much I have bought from them enough times, and it was quick and painless every time.
 
I don't know about Frontosa CPT, but JHB the RMA has steadily gone from excellent (4-5 years ago) to bad, and lately it has gotten absolutely horrid. Frontosa used to have the best RMA policies ever when they started out (around 2005) when Rashied was running things. If you could clearly demonstrate that there was a problem with the hardware items were swapped out immediately if stock was available. The only delays were caused by replacement items being out of stock.

By 2009 they started tightening the screws, and taking their time testing many items at their own pace, which frustrated people, and I suspect is one of the reasons why Rashied got fed up and left. Since then, the RMA department has gotten even worse, due to customers constantly being pissed off that any swap-outs on any items taking for ever. This caused high turnover of the people in the RMA department and since now all that they do is menial booking in of items the general level of knowledge of staff in the RMA department has also decreased.

If i were still dealing in PC's I would by now avoid Frontosa like the plague. Since I now only buy stuff for myself, I still buy there, but each time something goes wrong, I regret it, but it is much easier now, as at least I don't have to explain to clients why they don't have a PC for 2 weeks every single time a component dies.
 
Just contacted the General Manager in CPT for you and he is looking into your display card issue.
 
h0ll0w said:
I'd like to, but try getting their phone number in JHB :p
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0114660038

I used to buy so much stuff i know most in my head :D. there is a lovely lady working in the accounts department called shafika, really brightens up the place and they got a nice hot blonde now who is also rather yummy :D but yea their pricing sucks on most things but i only buy there now because they have such a large volume of goods on offer but cpu's, mobo's vga cards are pretty much more than anywhere else unless you cannot find the product then you have no choice.
 
ITCynic said:
Just contacted the General Manager in CPT for you and he is looking into your display card issue.
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Thanks, appreciate it. I don't enjoy making a scene at all, but I fear that if I don't nag it'll take a month.
 
h0ll0w said:
Thanks, appreciate it. I don't enjoy making a scene at all, but I fear that if I don't nag it'll take a month.
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Quite frankly you are making a scene. It won't take a month. Usual procedures are being followed which are usually around 7 working days. They can't give you an ETA, because Sapphire can't give them one.
 
PostmanPot said:
Quite frankly you are making a scene. It won't take a month. Usual procedures are being followed which are usually around 7 working days. They can't give you an ETA, because Sapphire can't give them one.
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Sorry to tell you that a well run company should be able to give an eta. Are you telling me it is fine to say well we don't know.

Rubbish attitude people have towards customer service and i would flip the F out if a company told me well we don't know.
 
h0ll0w said:
Common practice ? Lousy attitude is common practice ? Only accepting deliveries on 3 days of the week is common practice ?

The guy at Frontosa told me that this stupid sapphire RMA policy only came into effect this year. Plus any other RMA swop out I've ever had was replaced with items from the supplier's stock.

If you want to get shafted you buy Gigabyte at rectron, and the price difference between ASUS and sapphire is negligible. Also I've had LOTS of problems with ASUS products so I avoid it where I can. Premium my ass, they are just the most established brands in SA so they can ask what they want for the same quality product.

And as I've said, there is something wrong with sapphire, it is the RMA policy. I don't want to wait for more than a week to get my graphics card replaced.
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Dont bad mouth

Nothing touches ASUS

Here is a link to what I think ASUS theme song should be

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otCpCn0l4Wo
 
killadoob said:
Sorry to tell you that a well run company should be able to give an eta. Are you telling me it is fine to say well we don't know.

Rubbish attitude people have towards customer service and i would flip the F out if a company told me well we don't know.
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Phone Sapphire for the ETA.
 
killadoob said:
So frontosa should not phone? I wonder do you tell your clients to do the same?

Sorry bud i sell the stuff but i couldn't give a f so phone them and find out FFS. Eish haha not cool.
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So Frontosa are deliberately withholding information in the link between the customer and manufacturer warranty agents.

Again, then phone Sapphire. Their policy.
 
PostmanPot said:
Quite frankly you are making a scene. It won't take a month. Usual procedures are being followed which are usually around 7 working days. They can't give you an ETA, because Sapphire can't give them one.
Click to expand...

Quite frankly I did actually say that I am making scene, and that I am not enjoying it.

Frontosa sold me the card, they can at least pretend like they care and tell me who I can speak to, to follow up.
 
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