Last week, Brian received a package from the ASUS repair center. It was a freshly repaired tablet, the same model that he owns. Except he hadn’t sent his in for repair lately. Someone else’s address appeared on the return merchandise authorization (RMA) form inside the box, but the label on the outside had Brian’s information. He wonders: how much time and money should he invest in getting this package home when Asus doesn’t particularly seem to care?

On April 19th, I got a package from Asus’ repair center. In it was a tablet PC. I have the same model, and had it sent in a long time ago because its USB cable went out (I believe I was able to send in just the cable, however). The package also had an RMA paper, which included the name and address of the person that the tablet was supposed to go to (I have no idea how my name and address got in there, nothing is even remotely close to my info from my old RMA).

Being the nice and honest guy that I am, I called Asus to tell them that I received this tablet, and wanted to know what to do with it. They said they’d get back to me within 2 business days and made an escalated case. 4 business days later, I called back to try to get a follow-up. They said they’d escalate the case even further to try to give me a call back and that they’ve been pretty busy lately. Frankly, I’m not very hopeful of that.

I could send the thing to the address inside the package, but that would obviously come at an expense to me and I shouldn’t have to pay for something that was obviously not my mistake. I also don’t feel like I should have to be investing a ton of time and phone tree navigation into making things right. Would it be unreasonable to make a deadline before I could say “screw it, I’ve made a reasonable attempt to return this, and Asus hasn’t worked with me to get it taken care of?” If I were to go that route, how should I make an official notice that can’t bite me in the butt later on?

If it were me, I’d ship the package on to the address on the RMA form, since I hope someone would do the same for me. But taking responsibility for mailing the device himself means paying for it, buying insurance, and taking the blame if something goes wrong and ASUS comes after him for it in the future.

What would the Consumerists do?

Hey, if it draws straight lines, maybe he could send it to Sita.

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