Beware Terrible Local Warranties!

Just to share some experience buying some electronic products in Thailand and the pitfalls, be careful.

We bought a brand new PC Power supply (Corsair 850 RMX - pretty reasonable spec. PSU) - It was bought online via Lazada a while back and came with (I believe) either a 5 or 10 year warranty.

After some use, the PC began switching itself off and randomly back on again, it would do this for hours, but generally still working in between. The PSU was at fault as Windows was not shutdown during these "power offs" it simply died and restarted, still with Windows operating.

After a day or two of this annoyance, it finally gave off an almighty BANG and flames shot out of the rear of the PC. Luckily someone was there at the time as the fault did not trip my main RCB's. There could have been a major fire if it was unattended .

The company the PSU was purchased from had since ceased trading, so I contacted Corsair for a replacement. You would have thought a straightforward task, swap the faulty PSU and do an autopsy as to why it caught fire.

Well, not so! Corsair then requested that the PSU be returned to Taiwan under warranty and supplied the required RMA. They also wanted the PSU to be tracked (they said they could not guarantee receipt without tracking) so I sent it via EMS. This cost about $USD 40 -45 in shipping.

They sent a "replacement" PSU, in a box marked "Refurbished" within about two weeks (obviously I had to buy another PSU to keep my PC going during the repair period) The replacement arrived and my son decided he was claiming it as his old 650W PSU was struggling and a bit long in the tooth.

The replacement PSU immediately began powering his PC off, exactly the same as the previous PSU, but this was a different PSU and in a different PC! But same exact symptoms. Then came the explosion, the PSU went up with a bang, flames again shooting out of the rear of the PC case. Thankfully this time it did trip my safety breakers and the fire was put out.

When I contacted Corsair about this problem, they simply issued a new RMA and again, they expected me to pay another $45 USD to ship it back to Taiwan again for another replacement! You can see that this is going no where, the shipping costs are ridiculous and the PSU is not worth the expense. Searching online, there are multiple complaints from customers with this same PSU model, having the very same problems. Rather a dodgy product eh? Burn your home down for the sake of a PSU.

I contacted Corsair again and copied their CEO and QA management. Not even a response! They wouldn't even acknowledge the problem. The only reply was from some poor tech or admin trying to sort this mess out.

It appears that there is no local service centre for their products in Thailand and if your retailer has shut up shop, Corsair will only warranty their products if shipped at ridiculous cost, to Taiwan. They are not interested in solving a potentially lethal fault, they are not interested in their Thai customers, they effectively cripple your warranty - 10 years seems a lot for a warranty, but not if it is going to keep costing $45 in shipping every time, and this is multiple PSU products failing for a serious fault.

We took the PC to a tech store in the city (I was convinced a new PSU could not be the root cause, it seemed impossible) The Tech powered it up and it nearly blew his face off, flames and smoke shot out of the rear of the PC and another huge bang. The technician confirmed that it was indeed a bad PSU - We fitted a Thermaltake (same make as the old 650W, which is still working 15 years or more ) and everything has been fine since.

I will give Corsair a point for making this thing indestructable, but it is a hollow prize when you realise this thing could kill you and wipe out your home.

I have had a similar with ASUS regarding local warranty, and it is a lousy situation. I spoke with some Thais and in general, they do not even bother with their warranty as most of them think that they will get nothing from it, so it lets these manufacturers off the hook.

It seems so unfair that the people here who need the most protection and support are the ones who get the least and are given useless warranties from useless companies just trying to screw them out of their money - For me, the cost is not a big deal, I had to buy a new PSU, but if you are on a tight budget, you are even screwed with your warranty.

Wouldn't you think a large company like Corsair would be interested in finding the root cause and more so, fixing a fire issue and keeping a happy customer base.

Over the past few years Corsair product quality has gone down again and again, no longer reliable, in this case dangerous, I noticed that their last CEO has just quit too.

Anyone else on here suffering from worthless warranties? what can we do? Is there legal recourse when faulty junk almost burns your house down twice?