Dave owns an Asus laptop. Well, he kind of vaguely remembers owning an Asus laptop. He’s had it for four months, but it’s spent the last month at the repair center, not being repaired. The system claims that it’s waiting for parts, but no one is able to explain what that means, or when he might expect to see his computer again.

On January 19 of this year, I ordered a $1000 Asus Republic of Gamers laptop from Amazon. After a few weeks, I noticed the battery would intermittently fail to charge. Re-inserting the plug would usually fix the problem, but it got progressively worse. A little over a month ago, I noticed the plug was hot to the touch and far more “droopy” than a plug should be. I unplugged it, called Asus, and arranged for warranty service. I shipped the laptop back at my own expense (their RMA process does not include insurance, nor does FedEx allow you to add insurance to an RMA shipment) on April 5th. Now, more than a month later, it’s still in repair. Their RMA tracking site shows that it’s waiting for parts, and everyone I talk to is generously described as “unhelpful”. Between their broken English and comically cliche promises to “resolve this promptly”, I still don’t have a laptop.

It’s not like I went with the cheapest laptop manufacturer I could find. I thought Asus was a reputable brand with decent quality control. That’s a large part of why I chose them. Now, as a result, I’m left without a laptop for five weeks and counting while they “promise to escalate the matter to the urgency attention and escalate it”.

Is there anything I can do? Asus doesn’t seem to be able to give me a working laptop, so can I just get my money back? Is this sort of thing covered under the Magnuson Moss Warranty Act? Help!

Magnuson-Moss may come in to play depending on what the Asus warranty says, and how long it states repairs are allowed to take. Yep, that means tracking down the actual warranty and reading the fine print.

Alternately, if you used a credit card (and some debit cards) to purchase the item, they extend your warranty and may provide additional protection. Same with the retailer where you bought the computer, Amazon.

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