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Crucial SSD owner offered $200 refund for 4TB drive now selling for over $500 — company finally caves to warranty demands after protracted back-and-forth
Memory and data storage manufacturer Micron announced its exit from the consumer market earlier this year and pledged to honor warranties for existing products. However, according to a recent RMA case on Reddit, the company seems to be struggling to stick to that promise. Instead of replacing a faulty portable SSD, the company offered the customer a refund that was significantly lower than the product’s current retail price.
Explaining their frustrating RMA experience, u/CarefulMeasurement99 said that their Crucial X9 4TB portable SSD stopped working, after which they contacted support, followed the troubleshooting process, and had their RMA approved. Unfortunately, they were later informed that the company did not have any units available for the particular product because the replacement inventory was exhausted. Therefore, instead of providing a 1:1 replacement SSD, the company would issue a refund of $199.99, the same as the original invoice price from last year.
Due to the ongoing NAND and DRAM crisis, almost every memory and storage product has significantly gone up in price. The Crucial X9 4TB is currently priced at over $500 on Amazon, which basically left the customer facing a loss of nearly $300. The customer explicitly refused to accept the offer and told Micron support that they did not want a refund and requested a 1:1 replacement under warranty. They also offered to accept an alternative 4TB SSD model or wait indefinitely until the RMA inventory was restocked.
After a long ordeal, pushing back eventually paid off for the customer. They sent Micron a firm final email rejecting the refund and demanding a 4TB equivalent replacement or alternative. The customer also mentioned that the case was gaining traction on Reddit and pointed out potential action under the FTC and Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act. Within a few hours, the case was escalated to a different representative, who informed them that a “recent inventory update” had revealed limited replacement stock and approved a direct 1:1 replacement.
While the case raises questions about Micron’s initial claim of no replacement units being available, there is no way to independently verify that. That said, this does not appear to be an isolated case. Earlier this month, we reported a similar RMA horror story in which Micron offered a customer a refund instead of replacing their product due to a lack of inventory. Only after further communication did Micron provide an acceptable solution.
Kunal Khullar is a contributing writer at Tom’s Hardware. He is a long time technology journalist and reviewer specializing in PC components and peripherals, and welcomes any and every question around building a PC.
I take back what I said in response to another story about Micron. They haven't sold off all the replacement inventory. They are either planning to sell it all off, or are in the process of selling it.
Clearly, they have units available in replacement inventory. They'll simply lie about it until a legal threat arises, or until they finish selling it all off.
Yeah sure some inventory just happened to turn up as soon as legal action was threatened.
This is just really scummy. I get they don’t want to refund $500 if someone paid $199 but they should just replace the SSD with the same type or a similar type. Bad enough to lose up to 4TB of data without getting screwed over by the manufacturer of the SSD in the proces.
"The customer also mentioned that the case was gaining traction on Reddit and pointed out potential action under the FTC and Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act. Within a few hours, the case was escalated to a different representative, who informed them that a “recent inventory update” had revealed limited replacement stock and approved a direct 1:1 replacement." They wouldn't comply till the above conversation took. place! And funny how "within a few hours, the case was escalated to a different representative, who informed them that a “recent inventory update”.
Sure, "a recent inventory update", just like that was immediately beamed down to earth!!
The above conversation's legal points (between the quotation marks), should be used by every customer who faces the scummy tricks of the allegedly "respectable, big name" SSD or RAM company.
This story certainly reeks of "we're telling everyone no and hoping it sticks" to minimize outgoing cost and maximize limited stock. Unlike UDIMMs and M.2 drives Micron probably does actually have a finite amount of USB drives. While they won't have Crucial branded versions of the former Micron still makes both UDIMMs and M.2 drives which should serve as a viable alternative if they don't want to give someone market value.
Even if you can't afford it or have no idea how to proceed forward always threaten them with legal action and lawyers it sounds like a karen move but it gets companies like Micron moving faster and sort of forces their hand to honor their own words. It's sad that even has to be an option but that's the state of the world right now you basically have to threaten them to get them to honor their word, cause even they know $600 for 32GB of DDR5 is a ludicrous, overly inflated number made up by fake shortages that never really existed.
or wait indefinitely until the RMA inventory was restocked.
which 100% SHOULD be an option in event a customer doesnt want a cash refund and wants a product replacement.
informed them that a “recent inventory update” had revealed limited replacement stock and approved a direct 1:1 replacement.
funny how that happened after all that time and only after being told about thepossible bad PR about to come out...
Now real question is...how many people have they done to this to?
If they did it to one then they more than likely done it to another and just shows they are actively refusing warranty due to it costing em profit.
Glad I wrote off micron last year when they abandoned the consumer market. When the bubble pops and micron re-enters the consumer market, i will not support them by purchasing their products
Unfortunately we don't read our warranties or think that they will matter. The company writes the warranty that it is "Their choice" to repair, replace, or refund your money. Typically, getting your money back is sufficient but in these atypical times it really hurts.
Should we get angry? It is a very unhappy experience yet there isn't much we can do. It does show the character of the company that you are buying from though and perhaps one should add this company to their boycott list.
