i had a wd book duo that failed and i called in at the end of last month. they did some basic troubleshooting, and determined it was dead, and created an RMA for it.
I sent in my drive, following all instructions, and the drive was delivered on march 10th.
it has now been a couple of weeks… i have not heard a word, or gotten the replacement drive. when i look up the rma status, it is all blank… shows the drive and serial, but dashes on every other column.
i cant call in as the phone lines are turned off… the chat function is no longer working (you sit in queue for 30 minutes and it eventually says “canceled”)… i DESPERATELY need this drive and have no way to contact them outside of email, which doesnt appear to be answered either (sent one a week ago, and havent gotten a reply)
i understand that things are tough right now… it is for everyone. but i REALLY need this drive. its my only form of local backup, and i am depending solely on a single point of backup now for mission critical data. i really dont want to go drop another $600 on a drive, but its at the point where i have to make a decision.
does anyone have any official word on this?
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I’m in the same boat. I sent my drive back on the 6th, it was received in the system but no update. Then there was the system update that happened on the weekend just gone and now… the drive hasn’t been recieved.
Try calling support (because in Australia we don’t have the option for chat) and after spending over 2hrs on hold not getting anywhere…
I’ve just given up and bought a new drive, because I have no idea when I’m going to get a replacement drive. If it’s taken 19 days so far and I have no ETA, that’s 19 days I’ve had to run my array degraded and I don’t really like the idea of having to do it for much longer.
Same situation. Submitted an advanced RMA last week and nothing has happened. In the past I’d have a tracking number within 72 hours.
Same situation. I submitted an Advanced RMA last week and nothing has happened. Usually I’m given a tracking number within 3 days. Luckily I can report any credit card charges as unauthorized, so I’m not totally screwed. I would not recommend sending Western Digital your hard drive right now.
Then there was the system update that happened on the weekend just gone and now… the drive hasn’t been recieved.
holy cow… you’re right. same thing has happened to mine. it DID show it was received when i checked last week… now its just a “-” under received date.
i get that things are tough right now… they are for everyone. but you owe your customers SOME form of notification western digital. if you are closing your doors entirely - we need to know so we can plan accordingly.
So I put in a support email. Their response - please provide tracking number of the drive showing delivery.
Um… Yeah, that’s not inspiring confidence…
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you got a reply??? ive emailed a half dozen times over the last 3-4 weeks… have yet to see anything.
This was the only bit that wasn’t a form response:
I understand that you wants to know the status of the RMA my RMA number. I request you to provide the tracking number of the shipment under which you have sent the drive to us.
I put a web question in, and I’ve also replied linking this thread indicating it’s not just me who has this problem…
actually… i got a reply today asking for my tracking number. even though i bought the ups shipping tag from western digital, and even the email receipt was from western digital. did not address a single concern or question i had. this is going to be a long and painful process… im going to have to purchase a replacement for it (which will not be a western digital product)
Mine is for my NAS, so I wanted to keep similar drive specs. I think the issue will only be for the short term most likely. I’m not sure that any other drive manufacturer wouldn’t be in the same boat at the moment.
My drive was arranged for collection by FedEx that WD arranged, so you think they’d know…
I’ve not had a response to yesterday’s email, so I think they aren’t really wanting to say/do much at the moment. I would say they’re running on skeleton staff, and possibly this update they did on the weekend broke a lot of things.
The replacement drive I bought is coming today, so at least I’ll be able to resolve the redundancy issues in my NAS.
actually… i just noticed - their reply was to the email i sent first… way back at the beginning of the month, so there is roughly a 3 week delay on them answering emails right now.
im definitely out of western digital. i understand times are tough… but this drive was received before they shut down… (i know, i called to verify its receipt, and was told my replacement would be out in a couple of days at the most). no notice was given. no attempt to rush through the returns they had on hand already or finish processing anything… they just walked away and didnt tell anyone.
i guess im going to have to respend the $600.
Not that there’s been any actual formal note they’ve shut down.
They did also have my drive before shutdown as well.
But yeah, it’s definitely disappointing. I was fortunate enough that I was able to purchase a replacement drive. When I finally get the warranty return for this drive, it’ll just end up being a cold spare drive when another drive fails, at least I won’t be without one again.
cool… except for those that are out hundreds of dollars.
or for those waiting on mission critical drives.
i get that things are tough… but to bail without a single word of notice… without doing anything about existing rma’s… is a bit of a rookie move. id expect that from a little mom and pop company - not the largest hdd manufacturer in the world.
it is not as if this came out of the blue and happened overnight. they had weeks to months of notice. they failed to let anyone know ANYTHING.
ps - maybe try not to be such a ■■■■ next time.
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sorry you are dealing with that. i have no idea where in the world it is… but its not here in the states. even our worst areas are still well stocked with food and supplies (family in both new york, and seattle dealing with it currently)
i dont disagree with anything youve said… but again - you are hyper focused on your environment. i believe they should have shut the entire country down weeks ago… and we wouldnt have lost the 2,000 people we have already lost… and could possibly even be getting back to normal in a couple of weeks. but at this point, its simply too late.
but again… not sure what you have to offer this thread outside of simply complaining.
I don’t think any of us were less… enlightened.
We were making a comment, others were in the same boat. Most if not all companies have updated their website saying what they were doing in relation to COVID19. WD didn’t.
Is it the end of the world I don’t get my warranty replacement within a set time frame? No. Am I concerned that the drive has been lost since the last update - yes.
I don’t think you really added anything to the thread, other than a bit of basic trolling really.
Also looks like the backend systems of WD are failing at the moment, I can’t even get the status page to load now.
Another post seems to indicate RMA’s are disabled, so yeah, they’re going into lockdown. Which doesn’t surprise me. As long as I get the drive back in the end, that’s all that matters to me now, but like I said above, I don’t think any other drive manufacturer would be in a different boat.
I pretty much gathered you didn’t care what I thought. Although if you really thought that, you wouldn’t have posted in the first place.
My original post was before a lot of the world went into lockdown, I get your anxious, but take a deep breath.
You came on here to insight a response. You got the response. I’m done feeding the troll for now.
Since WD has made no announcements, they want us to figure it out for ourselves. Here what has been learned:
They have a new RMA system. Massive changes include:
-
Limit of 1 advanced RMA per account (used to be unlimited, or max 5 out of region)
-
They are charging you $25 to process an advanced RMA, you won’t get this back. You will get back the total amount they hold for the model though.
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You have to manually type your card number if doing Advanced RMA (used to be able to copy paste), now its 4 separate boxes for each 4 digits for AMEX cards its really confusing, but you just put 3 digita in the final box
-
You cannot do an advanced RMA for any model that costs more than $200 (it’s ok if the $200 limit is exceeded if it is the tax that exceeds it)
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You now have to upload proof of purchase when registering a serial number.
All seem fair, except being unable to submit an Advanced RMA for a model that exceeds $200, so no 16TB EX2 + or 16TB My Book Duo + etc.
And also, demanding proof of purchase is absurd when a lot of times bought on ebay or craigslist. If it’s in warranty it’s in warranty.
Tried submitting multiple advanced RMA for a few models for our office, none of them went through except a 10TB Red because it was under $200 total.
jesus man… stop. read. then read again.
nobody is saying they should be open. quite the opposite… everyone in this thread is pissed off that they shut down without stopping RMAs, with no notice of any kind, and to make matters worse… doing a software change literally in the middle of all this (someone is obviously working somewhere for WD). a simple auto-reply message saying “due to the coronavirus, we had to shut down all RMAs - we will pick up where we left off once the crisis has been resolved” or something… and then ALL issues go away. i can make plans and work around it.
whatever angst, anger, fear, or whatever the hell you have going on is not helping here.
They are shipping. Processed my RMA and shipped March 27. It was a 8TB Red.
They are not shipping larger sizes because they are wiped out. China hasn’t reloaded them.
And they also are not allowing any advanced RMA over $200 model price now. But you learn the hard way trying to submit, they take $25 from your card every attempt, but STAT358 error message. Do a smaller size, and it goes through… They don’t care to make any announcement about their new RMA system or anything, or that users need to re-actvate their accounts, or submit proof of purchase of their pending RMA’s. horrible customer service & communication.
that makes sense.
and makes it all the more difficult to try and plan for… no idea if mine would be one they are out of currently.
thankfully, someone is answering emails… just REALLY slowly (several week delay)
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