I recently bought a new and sealed hard drive, but not from an official reseller. However, I was informed that I would not be eligible for a warranty as I did not purchase it from an authorized seller. I find this rule quite unreasonable. It seems like people are forced to buy from specific resellers who keep the prices high, which is unfair and doesn’t make sense.
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@onlize
You are on a forum here, you should use the Contact WD link at the bottom right of this page/window.
I contacted them and I received an email telling me that I am not eligible for warranty. When I asked them why, they told me the following. This was the reason I posted it here:
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Note: If you have not visited our community forums, please make sure to do so. You may also find the answer(s) to your question(s) there. Link to WD community forums at: https://community.wd.com
@onlize
I doubt if you will get a response on this forum from someone who works for WD and can legally provide an answer. Did you get a receipt when you purchased your device? Was there anything on the box or inside it about a warranty? When you went to the WD website and entered the serial number for your device what did it say about a warranty?
I had a standard sealed drive. When I entered the serial number, they asked me for receipt. I sent them receipt and they told me that this was not authorized reseller, and because of that I do not have warranty for this drive.
Why is it unreasonable?
Your reseller has your money. In return for a discount from Western Digital or even a third party, your reseller agreed to take care of repairing and refurbishing the drive - for example, your reseller gets a 40% discount from the retail price, he then agreed with his dealer to warrant the drive for at least the duration of the original warranty, this could be 2 years to 5 years. Your reseller then sells it to you for a 10% to 20% discount, so you thought you got a good deal.
Now you are going back to the factory Western Digital and asking ‘where is my warranty’? Well, it is with the reseller, he already agreed to it, whether with or without your knowledge.
A non-authorized reseller means the reseller takes responsibility for the repair and replacement of the merchandise.
I have never seen a consumer (not business) reseller guarantee a warranty. What if I bought it from my neighbor?
In this case, I purchased it on eBay. The price was right, and I have never had issue with WD warranty before. This is not the first purchase from eBay.
Private sales are usually marked ‘as is’ without any warranty unless otherwise written down.
Just because you have bought various disk drives and had got warranty before doesn’t mean that will always be the case.
If you read the experience of those on reddit who had dealt with hundreds of drives, this is what you see:
Out of at least 100 drives returned to WD, I’ve had one come up as OEM when it was purchased from newegg. It happens, its just rare. … What I meant was that I’ve returned a lot of drives bought as OEM with no problems, except one drive that they said was SOLD to an OEM (dell, hp, whatever). They said to contact Newegg because it was their problem.
I purchased a new and sealed drive, but it does not have a warranty for some reason. I find this unreasonable as I don’t want to deal with a middleman in case of any future problems with my drive. My reseller would only be a middleman who would contact WD for help.
