Rich ordered an ASUS Zenbook from Amazon. It wasn’t cheap, totaling $1415 including tax. When it arrived, it had a stuck pixel. No one wants to drop that much money on a computer with a stuck pixel, so he sent it back to ASUS to have the display fixed. The company has a guarantee that their computers won’t have this kind of defect, after all. He waited patiently for the computer to come back. It didn’t. He became less patient. ASUS has given him two different explanations for why they won’t let his computer come home, and they’ve had it for a month and a half when their own policies state that they won’t hold on to a customer’s computer for more than two weeks.

I purchased an ASUS Zenbook UX32VD-DB71 13.3-Inch Ultrabook for $1299.99 plus $115.37 sales tax (total: $1415.36) on June 18, 2012 (Amazon.com order number 102-3188816-0147464). Immediately after receiving the laptop on June 27, I discovered that the display was defective, with a stuck pixel. I sent the laptop in (immediately) for the Asus flawless display guarantee, which specifically guarantees against this type of defect. They have now had the unit for over a month, and no one there can tell me when I will be getting it back. They told me several times that the unit had a defective camera and they were waiting for a replacement, but then they changed their story and told me that the “camera” was the LCD screen. I have spoken with over 10 people, including 4 supervisors and one person from corporate (who is just as useless), and no one can even give me an estimated wait time. However, their own internal guidelines specify a maximum of 14 days.

This is a ridiculously long wait. I was told on numerous occasions that I would receive a call back, but they did not call me back. This was when I was trying to request intervention from their resolution team because I needed the laptop back by a certain date. In the time this has been going on, this laptop has come down in price, but my $1415 is tied up in this laptop. It is completely unfair for ASUS to hold me prisoner like this. I cannot afford another similar laptop, but ASUS will not send me mine back nor will they tell me when they will send it. I did try to return it to Amazon for an exchange, but Amazon told me that they were out of stock on these and that I should therefore deal with the manufacturer instead.

I would like ASUS to issue me an immediate refund of the purchase price and keep the defective laptop in their possession. I need this to happen so that I can use the money to buy another laptop immediately. I have been without a laptop for a month and a half, and I cannot wait any longer.

He also contacted and has corresponded with someone higher up the food chain. When we asked why he didn’t send this nice note to ASUS, maybe as an Executive e-mail carpet bomb, he said that talking to corporate wasn’t all that productive either. The corporate employee in Taiwan assigned to help him has no information apart from the repair being delayed due to a broken camera. Rich wrote back:

No, I agave up on ASUS long ago to deal with these types of reasonable approaches. I am in touch with someone from ASUS Corporate ([redacted]) through email, but he is just as useless as the phone monkeys. They go around and around the same circle of a “broken camera” resulting in an uncertain wait time. No one at ASUS sees fit to provide me with any more information. Therefore, sending them this letter would be like reading the US Constitution to goldfish. Afterwards, they’ll just stare at you and poop in the water.

If he used a credit card, Rich is technically within his rights to issue a chargeback: the problem being that he would be punishing Amazon, a company that has already done its job. If the regular support aren’t helping, and neither is corporate, this situation seems ideal for small claims court.

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