No prepaid return on DOA drive

Just purchased a WD5000AADS for use on a home system.  Ran the Lifeguard Diagnostics, which reported “too many bad sectors”, and WD tech support told me to replace it. 

Seems to me that any manufacturer with a DOA product should pay the return freight, but WD makes the customer pay.  So in addition to uninstalling the bad drive, waiting another week for the new one to arrive, installing the new drive and going through the hours of formatting, I have to pay to return a drive that never worked – like pouring salt in the wound.  I could understand it if the drive was a year or two old, but this was brand new.  Definitely something to keep in mind when choosing where/what to buy next time. 

WD should reconsider their policy – you never know if the person who buys a $50 drive for home also buys a million dollars of hardware a year at work (like I did last year).  The bad taste of this transaction could be expensive for WD down the road…

Follow up – Heard from WD (both email and phone) within 2 hours.  They resolved the issue quickly and well (refunding my return shipping cost).  Although the knowledgebase articles I saw did not mention it, WD policy is to prepay shipping on DOA.

Thank you WD – this was great customer service!  :smiley: