Is it possible that Microsoft's attitude toward software warranties is starting to rub off on its hardware business? That's what one reader had to wonder after discovering he could not get a customer's failed Microsoft Mouse replaced under its warranty.
"I work for a company that is a Microsoft System Builder," the reader wrote. "We sold a customer a Microsoft Wireless Mouse earlier this year. Nine months later the mouse died, just flat-out stopped working. Okay, well, this is no big deal we thought, because Microsoft tells OEM system builders on their website that the wireless mouse has a three-year warranty. They tell the customer the same thing in the booklet that comes with the mouse."
But that's not what the reader's customer heard when they called Microsoft. "The customer calls the number in the front of the booklet that came with mouse and is told to call tech support," the reader wrote. "They call tech support and are told that there is no warranty on OEM products, and they really need to talk to the company they got the mouse from. So the customer gives it to us. We start calling Microsoft, and at first are told again that there is no warranty on OEM products. Then we're told to call back and tell tech support that we are the customer. We get the same answer the customer got. Everybody we talk to gives us either 'No Warranty on OEM products' or they tells us as the System Builder to send it back to our distributor."
So the reader called his company's authorized Microsoft distributor. "They tell us that we are out of their RMA return window, which is 30 days, so we should call Microsoft," the reader wrote. "You can see where this is heading -- a nice little circle. I've tried writing an e-mail to the OEM support people, which is the only way you can contact them, but they won't respond. I've called the local Microsoft office, got nowhere with them, they say send an e-mail to somebody who is supposed to call back. So far, no call."
Ultimately, the reader says he and his colleagues called ten different phone numbers at Microsoft. "We would either get no response, or be told to try calling another number," the reader wrote. "It's just amazing. Here we've called about a broken product that Microsoft claims has a three-year warranty, that they won't support, and that nobody can provide an RMA number for. After several hours wasted on fixing a $39.00 product that should have been easy, all we've got is a frustrated customer. At this point we have to give the customer a new mouse, and then continue to pursue this based on principle. Oh, and I don't plan on continuing to sell a lot of Microsoft hardware."
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