Anyone ever RMAed Kingston RAM before?

I've RMAed a Kingston SD card before. They had me mail the dead card to California, but they sent me a replacement without waiting for it to arrive. I was satisfied.

zentro wrote: ↑Has anyone RMAed Kingston RAM before? Any idea what the process is like, I see the site doesn't have a sign up form for Canada so I assume I need to call them.

I RMAed one during the summer.

In Canada you do need to call them. Have paper and pen ready and the faulty stick in hand. They will give you very specific questions and instructions. They will ask for the original bill of sale, but they know it's ridiculous to expect people to have paper receipts from 20 years ago. It is, after all, a lifetime warranty.

They will send you a prepaid envelope to send the stick back, and they will ship your new one with Fedex.

Thanks for the info, luckily I keep all my receipts for 5 years so still have this one (it's super faded) but I have a copy as well.

Here's what bothered me about the process: mine was an old DDR stick, and of course I didn't have a receipt. They said no problem, but from this point onward I must produce receipts. I was happy at the time, but then I got to thinking.... what if *another* old stick dies? Are they telling me the lifetime warranty is no good on that one because they replaced the previous one and I don't have a receipt?

Not worth pursuing, but it might get interesting if the situation comes up again.

I am confused on why they need a receipt if it has a lifetime warranty?

Does it matter when it was purchased? The only relevant information on a receipt is the date.

I think in this case, lifetime means 5 years.

The reason given to me for requesting a receipt was, "the memory is warranted for life, but only to the original purchaser, so we ask for the receipt to verify you are the original owner."

Make of this what you will, but the warranty is indeed lifetime.

makaturing wrote: ↑The reason given to me for requesting a receipt was, "the memory is warranted for life, but only to the original purchaser, so we ask for the receipt to verify you are the original owner."

Make of this what you will, but the warranty is indeed lifetime.

Your name is not on the receipt. Unless they want the credit card receipt.

Like I said, make of it what you will. It made no sense to me, I'm just repeating what they told me.

Not sure how long the lifetime warranty is supposed to be but for Russia it says 10 years, but has no other country listed. Also they have a separate one for 5 year warranty. But anyways it falls in within my purchase period (2013).

http://www.kingston.com/en/company/warranty

They're going to ask you for numbers off the stick, they have a record for every stick of RAM they're ever sold. As for the length of warranty, I've never seen Kingston memory that didn't have a lifetime warranty, and I've been using their stuff for a very long time. Indeed, the one I sent back this past summer was the only one that's ever failed in 25 years.

For a lot of manufacturers. Lifetime means the lifetime of the product. Not your lifetime.

If the product is discontinued. You're out of luck.

I wondered about that too, since mine was DDR1, but they sent me a brand new one packaged exactly the same as the original. I wonder if they have any SIPPs.

Gee wrote: ↑For a lot of manufacturers. Lifetime means the lifetime of the product. Not your lifetime.

If the product is discontinued. You're out of luck.

Obviously not the lifetime of the person but the product. But what you are saying I think is only partly true. If the product is discontinued then it defaults to another term, probably 5 years or something like that.

Because you buy product X on day 1, product X is discontinued on day 2 (while company still exists) then warranty converts to X amount of years.

Also Kingston says this in its terms:

"In the event a product has been discontinued, Kingston, at its sole discretion, shall
either repair the product, offer to replace it with a comparable product or provide a refund at the lesser of the purchase price or the product’s current value."

I guess it's up to them to decide what to do. So they'd probably deny really old RAM like 8-10 years or something like that, but I doubt they would within a few years of purchase.

Wait til you see the way they ship the replacement. It comes in a box the size of a shoebox, which is then sealed in a PVC shipping bag. These guys don't fool around.

I RMA'd a dead stick of DDR back in 2009, no questions asked about receipt, just had to print off a fedex label and mail it. Got back the same size, but a friend of mine managed to get a higher capacity kit because they didn't have any more of the same capacity.

Not sure on the ram, but their flash drives and Sandisk cards have a asterisk with a disclaimer in the fine print stating it's a 10 year warranty in Canada.

makaturing wrote: ↑Wait til you see the way they ship the replacement. It comes in a box the size of a shoebox, which is then sealed in a PVC shipping bag. These guys don't fool around.

+1. Mine came sandwiched in a 2" thick layer of that wavy/bumpy foam all around, antistatic bag and the plastic hardshell package with the ram stick inside that. The packaging and shipping must have cost them as much or more than the stick lol

Crucial gave me 4 extra gigs of regular ram because they no longer made the Sportster ddr2 2x2 gig

So I did the RMA thing, if anyone is wondering here are the steps.

Called them yesterday on the Canadian number, they asked me some questions (name, address, product, part, etc) gave me a customer case number and forwarded me to the RMA department over the phone. A few more questions, then they emailed me and told me to reply with an email copy of the receipt for proof of purchase. Once I did that, they then emailed me a PDF file with instructions and an invoice. There was a minor mistake on the first invoice, so I called them back and it was resolved in like a minute, with another email.

I placed my faulty RAM stick in my own box with some extra bubble wrap I had, taped it all up. Added a shipping address and included the RMA number on the box, also added my customer case number just in case. Then I went to a FedEx Authorized ShipCenter, as they required it to be sent via FedEx and as uninsured via economy international to a US address. Kingston provided me special instructions/number to be charged for the recipient at no cost to me. The person at the FedEx Authorized ShipCenter filled in all the info for me and I asked them to add the RMA number to the waybill and to attach the 4 copies of the invoice to the front as requested by Kingston in the instructions.

So that's pretty much it, person at FedEx wrote the tracking number for me, but I didn't get anything else. Upon checking the tracking number, I can see the RMA number and city it's going to, so should be good, hopefully no mistakes.

Now I guess I wait for it to be shipped and wait for Kingston to ship me a replacement. Pretty simple process and the staff at Kingston are quite responsive, no waiting times on the phone or anything from my experience. Person at FedEx Authorized ShipCenter was also nice and it was pretty simple overall.

zentro wrote: ↑So I did the RMA thing, if anyone is wondering here are the steps.

Called them yesterday on the Canadian number, they asked me some questions (name, address, product, part, etc) gave me a customer case number and forwarded me to the RMA department over the phone. A few more questions, then they emailed me and told me to reply with an email copy of the receipt for proof of purchase. Once I did that, they then emailed me a PDF file with instructions and an invoice. There was a minor mistake on the first invoice, so I called them back and it was resolved in like a minute, with another email.

I placed my faulty RAM stick in my own box with some extra bubble wrap I had, taped it all up. Added a shipping address and included the RMA number on the box, also added my customer case number just in case. Then I went to a FedEx Authorized ShipCenter, as they required it to be sent via FedEx and as uninsured via economy international to a US address. Kingston provided me special instructions/number to be charged for the recipient at no cost to me. The person at the FedEx Authorized ShipCenter filled in all the info for me and I asked them to add the RMA number to the waybill and to attach the 4 copies of the invoice to the front as requested by Kingston in the instructions.

So that's pretty much it, person at FedEx wrote the tracking number for me, but I didn't get anything else. Upon checking the tracking number, I can see the RMA number and city it's going to, so should be good, hopefully no mistakes.

Now I guess I wait for it to be shipped and wait for Kingston to ship me a replacement. Pretty simple process and the staff at Kingston are quite responsive, no waiting times on the phone or anything from my experience. Person at FedEx Authorized ShipCenter was also nice and it was pretty simple overall.

That about mirrors my own experience, glad to see their service hasn't slipped one bit!

I have recently RMA a set of Fury memory as well. I opt for "cross ship" advanced replacement option since only one stick is defective. Received the replacement memory in 3 days by FedEx. Returned the defective memory in the same box.

It is an industry exception that consumer don't have to pay for shipping the defective unit back to the manufacturer.