The cost of Bad Service: Samsung HDD: SP 1614N

[dt]

I thought I'd share some of my experience with the news group on a situation
I have, unfortunately, found myself in. On the 10-Oct-2004 my Samsung SP
1614N failed after about 10 months of operation. It just stopped working. No
noise, no vibration, nothing. I must say, that up until then I was quite
happy with the drive. It is super quiet and performs quite well. In-fact
after I purchased the drive I became a big Samsung fan thinking that the
company was solid and actually took interest in the quality of their
products and service. This, perhaps, was a little naïve.



Don't get me wrong, a hard drive failure is not the problem here. These
things happen and are not necessarily indicative of the quality of the
drive. I still happen to think Samsung make good drives. My problem is the
level of service I received after I made a warranty claim with the retailer.
You see, in Australia, Samsung don't support their hard drives. If you have
a problem you are given a phone number of a discount computer operator (QQ
discount) who, going by their website, sells washing machines, DVD, cooking
appliances and printers - everything but computers or hard drives. On my
first phone call they had no idea what I was talking about when I said
Samsung hard drive service. I had to call back Samsung and make sure I had
the correct phone number. It turns out on my second call they found some one
I could talk to, who was very brief and said I should return it to the
retailer where I purchased it, which I did on the 14th of October.



It took four weeks to receive my replacement hard drive. I don't know about
you, but not having a computer for four weeks is a complete inconvenience.
When I picked up the drive I asked the retailer if the replacement was a new
hard drive. He said yes. When I got home I noticed that the packaging on the
'new' hard drive was from Seagate. But it doesn't stop here. At this point I
would have been happy to install my hard drive and all my programs (many
hours of work). When I put in the replacement hard drive I received the
following message on start up:



Primary Master Hard Disk SMART Status Bad



WARNING: Immediately backup your data and replace your hard disk drive a
failure may be imminent:



Press F1 to continue.



I did some research on the net and this is a serious issue and most comments
suggested that I send the hard disk drive back. So I took the drive back
this time explaining to the retailer that I have not had a hard drive for
over five weeks and this is becoming extremely inconvenient. I asked him
politely whether he could give me a new drive from his stocks but he
insisted that the drive must go back to Samsung (um, QQ discounts). Then I
also asked if he could courier the replacement to my home as I did not have
transport to the retailer and couldn't keep coming back. The courier service
cost him $3 dollars (I know this because the courier service gave me their
prices list last time they delivered to me). He said that I would have to
pay the normal $10 courier service and he couldn't do it for free (he still,
mind you, wanted to make a profit from me of $7). I declined and asked if he
could get the replacement to 'Samsung' as quickly as possible. One week
later when I rang to find out the status, the retailer told me he just sent
it that day. When I asked why he didn't send it earlier his response was
that they were very busy because they were moving warehouse. When I asked
how long it would take before I get my second replacement he said between
another 1 - 2 weeks. I now expect it back in the middle of December. That's
over 2 months between the time of the failure and the expected date of
replacement. I suspect I probably won't get my replacement before Christmas.



There are a few morals to this story. If you think you can save a couple of
bucks going to a cheap online computer retailer you are probably right but
make sure you don't have any high expectations when things go wrong. Samsung
also need to get their act together in relation to their hard drives. They
are a hugely successful corporation with sales in 2003 reaching over 35
billion US dollars with a net income of 5 billion US. With those sorts of
figures they can afford to provide in house service of their hard drives
without outsourcing it to a discount operator. After all, the few bucks they
save, only creates experiences like this one and long-term customer
disloyalty.



I will do Samsung the courtesy and send them this letter to engage their
response before I post this publicly. I feel that it would be fair to give
the company a chance to redeem themselves.



_



I sent them this letter via email to Samsug on the 26th of november and told
them I will be posting this on a newsgroup on friday the 3th of December. I
have yet had no response.

 

[Jerry G.]

I don't think they care about posting complaints like this. Infact, this
makes your dealer look bad, not so much as Samsung.

It sounds like the dealer that you have is a very crappy dealer, and you
should find out where you can purchase your computer equipment and have some
type of knowledgeable support.

The best way to buy a computer is to purchase it from a place that gives
contractual service. You have to make a service contract where you can have
same working day service, or they have to give you a loaner part, or
computer to use. You will pay more for this. This type of service can add a
few hundred dollars on to the cost of the computer. But, in considering the
total cost of the computer, and if it is required to run a business, or
serious applications at home, then it is worth to pay for the extra service.

Many of the computer shops where I am located, carry a lot of spare parts,
because they are constantly building and selling computers. This way, if you
take your computer in to them, you will most likely walk out with a new
drive, in the time it takes to put it in, and for them to re-install all
your backup (if you have a backup).

I recommend to all our clients to have a backup drive of some type. We
generally put 2 hard disks in a computer, and have the client do a full
archive to an outboard drive as well. As for the internal drives we either
go with mirror, or making a weekly image, with daily data backups.

In the event a drive goes down, it is a matter of about thirty to several
hundred minutes, depending on the amount of data to be restored. The client
is able to do his work as soon as we are finished, with a new primary or
secondary drive installed, depending on what failed.

In a very bad situation for us, we can have the client working on a single
disk drive for a day or two, until we can have his both drives up and
running again.

We mainly do IT support, and technical consulting. We deal with another
contractor for the actual work. If we or the client is in a problem where
things have to be done right away, then we will do all the work required to
get him going.

--

Jerry G.
======


I thought I'd share some of my experience with the news group on a situation
I have, unfortunately, found myself in. On the 10-Oct-2004 my Samsung SP
1614N failed after about 10 months of operation. It just stopped working. No
noise, no vibration, nothing. I must say, that up until then I was quite
happy with the drive. It is super quiet and performs quite well. In-fact
after I purchased the drive I became a big Samsung fan thinking that the
company was solid and actually took interest in the quality of their
products and service. This, perhaps, was a little naïve.



Don't get me wrong, a hard drive failure is not the problem here. These
things happen and are not necessarily indicative of the quality of the
drive. I still happen to think Samsung make good drives. My problem is the
level of service I received after I made a warranty claim with the retailer.
You see, in Australia, Samsung don't support their hard drives. If you have
a problem you are given a phone number of a discount computer operator (QQ
discount) who, going by their website, sells washing machines, DVD, cooking
appliances and printers - everything but computers or hard drives. On my
first phone call they had no idea what I was talking about when I said
Samsung hard drive service. I had to call back Samsung and make sure I had
the correct phone number. It turns out on my second call they found some one
I could talk to, who was very brief and said I should return it to the
retailer where I purchased it, which I did on the 14th of October.



It took four weeks to receive my replacement hard drive. I don't know about
you, but not having a computer for four weeks is a complete inconvenience.
When I picked up the drive I asked the retailer if the replacement was a new
hard drive. He said yes. When I got home I noticed that the packaging on the
'new' hard drive was from Seagate. But it doesn't stop here. At this point I
would have been happy to install my hard drive and all my programs (many
hours of work). When I put in the replacement hard drive I received the
following message on start up:



Primary Master Hard Disk SMART Status Bad



WARNING: Immediately backup your data and replace your hard disk drive a
failure may be imminent:



Press F1 to continue.



I did some research on the net and this is a serious issue and most comments
suggested that I send the hard disk drive back. So I took the drive back
this time explaining to the retailer that I have not had a hard drive for
over five weeks and this is becoming extremely inconvenient. I asked him
politely whether he could give me a new drive from his stocks but he
insisted that the drive must go back to Samsung (um, QQ discounts). Then I
also asked if he could courier the replacement to my home as I did not have
transport to the retailer and couldn't keep coming back. The courier service
cost him $3 dollars (I know this because the courier service gave me their
prices list last time they delivered to me). He said that I would have to
pay the normal $10 courier service and he couldn't do it for free (he still,
mind you, wanted to make a profit from me of $7). I declined and asked if he
could get the replacement to 'Samsung' as quickly as possible. One week
later when I rang to find out the status, the retailer told me he just sent
it that day. When I asked why he didn't send it earlier his response was
that they were very busy because they were moving warehouse. When I asked
how long it would take before I get my second replacement he said between
another 1 - 2 weeks. I now expect it back in the middle of December. That's
over 2 months between the time of the failure and the expected date of
replacement. I suspect I probably won't get my replacement before Christmas.



There are a few morals to this story. If you think you can save a couple of
bucks going to a cheap online computer retailer you are probably right but
make sure you don't have any high expectations when things go wrong. Samsung
also need to get their act together in relation to their hard drives. They
are a hugely successful corporation with sales in 2003 reaching over 35
billion US dollars with a net income of 5 billion US. With those sorts of
figures they can afford to provide in house service of their hard drives
without outsourcing it to a discount operator. After all, the few bucks they
save, only creates experiences like this one and long-term customer
disloyalty.



I will do Samsung the courtesy and send them this letter to engage their
response before I post this publicly. I feel that it would be fair to give
the company a chance to redeem themselves.



_



I sent them this letter via email to Samsug on the 26th of november and told
them I will be posting this on a newsgroup on friday the 3th of December. I
have yet had no response.

 

[Wayne Stallwood]

I will do Samsung the courtesy and send them this letter to engage their
response before I post this publicly. I feel that it would be fair to give
the company a chance to redeem themselves.

That is a terrible story sad to hear you had such a bad experience and no
response from Samsung.

However reading through I feel that the retailer should get at least some of
the blame, can you post to the group who that retailer was ?

Speaking as someone who also makes a living selling computer equipment I can
assure you that any customer of mine who had been unfortunate enough to
have a bad experience with a product I had sold would be given a drive from
stock while I waited for the replacement to replenish my stocks (this is of
course assuming that a similar value drive was available from my stocks)
Given the long wait (2 weeks plus for a RMA replacement is not unusual with
drive manufactures, however resellers can get advance replacement stock if
they register with some of the bigger names) plus the fact that the
replacement was also faulty would usually prompt me to replace the drive as
quickly as possible even if I had to order one in.

That said I am a small reseller who has to value each and every customer and
survives on repeat custom and good "word of mouth" I simply couldn't afford
to treat anybody the way you have been treated.

Cheapest does not always mean best value, and some of the cheapest retailers
make such a small margin on each sale that they probably can't afford to be
that helpful.

 

[Jan Alter]

LOL, but not at you.
I guess I can relate to your problem. It reminds me of when I was about 28
(about 30 years ago) and I had a flat tire on my motorcycle at 2 am in the
morning. I stopped at the gas station and asked if it would be OK for me to
take apart the tire and fix the tube. The surly codger grunted yes. After
taking the wheel off and pulling out the tube I was able to patch it. I put
it all back together and asked where the air pump was. The bugger said the
air pump was out of order. I ended up pushing the bike a mile up the road
where I could get the tire filled with air. They make SOBs in all shapes
sizes and companies.

 

[dt]

Hi Jerry,

Thanks for your reply.

I take your point about this being more a problem with the dealer than with
Samsung. There is something to be said, however, about manufacturers
standing behind their products. Surely it is a cost saving exercise for
Samsung to pan off their hdd support to discount outlets. Think about it.
Who really takes responsibility for the product when it has a fault? You
contact their third-party discount support provider and they can cry, 'it's
not us, we didn't make the product'. You contact Samsung and they cry, 'you
need to call xyz for support'. No one takes responsibility and no one really
knows about the problem. The discount operator probably doesn't have the
resources to track complaints or detailed information about faults and
Samsung don't reply to complaints (assuming because they don't support the
product). I also feel a little uneasy with a company that won't give
customer support for a product they created. Luckily, in this case, it is a
quality product. In future, we might get manufacturers creating poor quality
products and handing their customer support to a third party operator. This
allows them to resolve the responsibility of the poor workmanship. By the
time you find out that the product you bought was a lemon, it's too late and
no one takes responsibility.

Demetrio

-----------

 

[kony]

I thought I'd share some of my experience with the news group on a situation
I have, unfortunately, found myself in. On the 10-Oct-2004 my Samsung SP
1614N failed after about 10 months of operation.

<snip>

It is unfortunate that you're being put through all this but
for your benefit you might consider purchasing makes of
drive with a service center (as near to) in your area. I do
agree with other posters that the dealer was partly to blame
but it might also be partly Samsungs fault for allowing such
low quality support from dealers and service centers.

I also had a SP1614N fail recently and being in the US I was
fortunate to avoid your problems. Here in the US one can
get RMA @ http://www.fesvc.com , then I sent drive to
East Rutherford, NJ per their instruction and received a new
replacement about a week later. Even so, I'm leery of
Samsung's current-gen drives now and won't buy another.
Mine failed in about 6 months (IIRC), running in an ideal
environment with good cooling and power, light use too...
wasn't running an OS or even accessed very often relatively
speaking.

 

[Jerry G.]

That reminds me of the time when a customer came in to a snack-bar and saw a
very cute little dog sitting on the floor.

He asked the man at the counter of his dog bites. The man at the counter
said, "No".

The customer went to pet the dog. As quick as a flash the dog snapped at
him, and give him a nick on the hand.

The customer turned to the man, and asked him, "I thought you said that your
dog does not bite!".

The man at the counter replied, "That is not my dog!!!".

The moral of the story is, that you must check out all the possibilities and
effects you can before attempting anything.

--

This applies to everything in life that we do. When it comes to people that
we do not know or have no experience to trust, we have to be cautious. Trust
is something that has to be earned. The opportunity must also must be given,
but with caution. I have had some bad experiences in dealing with people,
until I learned how to deal with this type of thing.

As for working in support for my clients, I am very careful that they are
kept satisfied, and have confidence that I will take care of their needs. I
keep them informed of what is going on, and how I will be able to resolve
their problem. I never exaggerate anything that I tell them.

I am sure that this fellow who had the bad experience with the Samsung
drive, is next time going to get something else, and also make sure that the
distributor he had to deal with will no longer have any of his business. I
would certainly do that.

--

Jerry G.
=====

LOL, but not at you.
I guess I can relate to your problem. It reminds me of when I was about 28
(about 30 years ago) and I had a flat tire on my motorcycle at 2 am in the
morning. I stopped at the gas station and asked if it would be OK for me to
take apart the tire and fix the tube. The surly codger grunted yes. After
taking the wheel off and pulling out the tube I was able to patch it. I put
it all back together and asked where the air pump was. The bugger said the
air pump was out of order. I ended up pushing the bike a mile up the road
where I could get the tire filled with air. They make SOBs in all shapes
sizes and companies.

 

[CBFalconer]

.... snip ...

The moral of the story is, that you must check out all the
possibilities and effects you can before attempting anything.

.... serious snip of sig ...

The standards for sig-lines recommend a maximum of 4 lines. 160
odd is stretching it by a considerable margin. Please don't do
that.

 

[Trent©]

... serious snip of sig ...

The standards for sig-lines recommend a maximum of 4 lines. 160
odd is stretching it by a considerable margin. Please don't do
that.

LOL!!

He didn't even USE a sig line!!

Pay attention! lol


Have a nice one...

Trent©

Follow Joan Rivers' example --- get pre-embalmed!

 

[Grinder]

The standards for sig-lines recommend a maximum of 4 lines. 160
odd is stretching it by a considerable margin. Please don't do
that.

How do you keep your cape from getting caught in escalators?

 

[dt]

Hello All,

I just thought I'd give you an update on the situation. The SP1614N was
ready for pickup on the 17th. Finally, I thought. I got the store to check
it just in case (he was quite reluctant to do this) and it did fire up
without any errors and windows recognised it ok. I'm not sure whether this
is an issue or not but I looked at the SMART status on the drive and whilst
the other drive in my system shows 100% this drive shows only 64% in its
fitness measure. I find it a little odd that they keep replacing their
drives with old ones. The initial drive that was faulty did very little work
and I'm feeling like the replacement is of lesser quality. Anyway, I might
post this SMART question on the news group as I know very little about
SMART.

By the way, the retailer told me that if this drive is also faulty then it
must be something wrong with my system. He said that there is no possible
way that the drive could fail three times. I did point out that I received
the second drive faulty so it wasn't an issue with my system but he wouldn't
listen. I doubt that he would accept another waranty claim.

I'll leave the retailers details below. You can make up your own mind as to
whether you will use them. I certainly won't.

Thanks,

Demetrio

Just in case your wondering who the retailer was (I think Wayne asked) here
are their details. This is from their web site
(http://www.computermarket.com.au/)

On Line Marketing Australia Pty. Ltd.
Postal Address: P.O.Box. 150 Artarmon N.S.W. 1570
Office/Warehouse Address: Unit 10, 2A Herbert St, St Leonards
Techno Park, St Leonards N.S.W. 2065
Business Hours: 9 a.m. - 5.30 p.m. Monday - Friday; 10.30
a.m. -12 p.m. Saturday
Phone: 02-94390033
Fax: 02-94390219