When will companies learn that if you treat people badly, it will appear all over the Internet? According to this chat transcript between a Seagate hard drive owner and an online tech, Seagate has an interesting warranty policy that states the advertised one-year warranty doesn’t start when the drive is purchased, rather when it left the factory. So if the drive sat on retailer’s shelves for four months, the purchaser would only have eight months left to claim the warranty.
- Brandon R.: You have a one year warranty for the time the retailer gets the drive. That is what is covered by our warranty policy. Any extended warranty from that point will be covered by the retailer
- Chad Miller: How can one possibly know when the retailer got the drive? Do you timestamp the box?
- Chad Miller: If i’m in a store and see a Maxtor/Seagate box, I have to find out when they shipped it to the store?
- Brandon R.: The warranty is tied with the serial number, so when we ship the drive out from the assembly plant it is entered into our system. It also makes a difference on who buys the drive, retailers. Different drives will have different warranties based on what Seagate and the retailer agree on.
- Chad Miller: Yeah. So, how can I know when I pick up a box whether the warranty expired yesterday?
Nice. Seagate’s Warranty Policy.
Official Seagate response after the break.
Hello Matt,
You got our attention. Thought, I’d drop you a note about our policy. for
posting to CrunchGear. I feel that we are not given a fair shake on this.
Seagate’s consumer warranty periods are 1 year, 2 years, 3 years or 5 years
from the documented date of purchase, depending on the type of product and
where it was purchased. Only consumers purchasing Seagate or Maxtor
products from authorized Seagate retailers or resellers may obtain coverage
under our limited warranties. Any and all warranty disputes are resolved by
a valid proof of purchase from an authorized reseller. If there are any
issues, please feel free to call Seagate at 1-800-Seagate for more
assistance. Seagate’s currently shipping FreeAgent product family and the
Central Axis NAS all carry an industry-leading five year warranty. The full
description of Seagate’s warranty policy can be viewed here:
http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=46593ba94282b010VgnVCM100000dd04090aRCRDNathan
Apparently a fair shake doesn’t including linking to the official policy. My bad. Next time we’ll not report any thing negative about Seagate ’cause we wouldn’t want to shake ‘em wrong. Might get the herp.
Wow! Chad is way too cool.
I’d a been…”WTF! Get me a new *uckin’ drive or I’m gonna @hit all over any Seagate product I see. You …” Etc, etc.
Crappy service.
Your warranty link leads to a 500 Internal Server Error.
“How Long Does The Coverage Last? Our warranty periods are 1 year, 2 years, 3 years or 5 years from the documented date of purchase, depending on the type of product and where it was purchased.”
http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/support/warranty_&_returns_assistance/warranty_statements/
The CSR later says: “Brandon R.: Also if there is a mistake with the date of purchase then you will be able to send us a receipt and we can get that changed in the system and you will be covered.”
Kinda contradictory, but that’s a problem with Brandon, not the warranty policy. It’s nice that they’ll cover it at all based on the manufacture date if you don’t have proof of purchase.
My 2 cents worth:
I would tend to believe that the service rep has had seriously poor training and doesn’t know what the hell he is talking about.
Yeah they absolutely suck.
I actually had a hard drive of theirs crash after a month of use and they wouldn’t replace it because I purchased it through dell.
I ended up suing them in small claims court and winning the judgment (for more than the actual drive cost)
I’ll never buy another seagate again.
It has been my experience that this is true for all manufacturers of hard drives. I have returned no less than 10 hard drives that were still under warranty and the warranty was from the manufactured date, not the date the drive was purchased. Also, out of all the drives I returned, none were seagate. Also, all the Seagate drives I have are 5 year warranties.
If you have a receipt, of course, the date of purchase should indicate the start of warranty. Especially if the drive has been sitting on the shelf or hiding in a warehouse for a long time.
Without a receipt, the serial number is the only indication a manufacturer may have to indicate a reference date.
SO keep thos receipts handy, and make sure they are dated!
Really unfair that a bunch of consumers that didn’t keep track of their reciepts can hurt a companies image like this. Seagate has an amazing warranty, but they can’t tell when you bought the drive by magic.
The rep just used bad wording. he should have just said according to his records the drive was out of warranty but any inaccuracy could be corrected with a proof of purchase.
I Just had a seagate 500gb drive fail this morning, I like thousands of others have bought the drive off ebay, when i try the check my warranty page, it just comes back as unknown…..
Guess I should have bought the drive through an official channel, but I only know that after reading the bit above that they only warranty that way, so in effect they do not really stand behind there products, unless there have to….
never had that with a failed samsung i got from ebay, 2.5 years in of 24/7 use it started to make a grinding noise, samsung online warranty showed it to still be under warranty, shipped it off, new drive back in 3 days, go samsung.
guess what i’ll be replacing this ticking seagate with……..
Yes, always buy hard drives from an authorized retailler. NewEgg is a very good source for hard drives. Thier pages list reviews, ratings and warranty information links for each product. Check the warranty. Some Seagate drives now only have a 3 year warranty. Keep proofs of purchase and if possible, register the drive with the Seagate immediately after receiving the drive.
The registration page is: https://www.onlineregister.com/seagate/
Sounds like Brandon R didn’t know what he was talking about. Too bad the customer had to go through this kind of experience. It’s always good to get a second opinion though, and write down the names of everyone spoken to. Hopefully Brandon got at least a slap on the wrist. The customer might have had better luck getting his GM or Chrysler covered under warranty with people like Brandon working at customer service.
I just had my second Seagate 200gb 7200RPM laptop drive fail. I had my first one fail two months after I bought it. Dummy me hasn’t made a backup in a month, I lost alot of important data unfortunately, and data recovery is very expensive but at least Seagate is willing to replace the drive so I’m not out the 130 bucks I spent on it. I’m so paranoid about hard drive failure I’m going to buy two portable externals for backups just to be safe.
Just remember that hard drives endure a hellish life. Moving, heat, spinning. They do fail and can be unpredicatble. Always backup important data more often than you think you should – especially with laptop drives as they are more prone to failure. It is far cheaper to replace a hard drive periodically (or buy an external or spare for backups) than it is to recover if it is even possible.