Computers & Electronics

Has anyone dealt with Samsung Warranty for SSD? ***UPDATED***

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Has anyone dealt with Samsung Warranty for SSD? ***UPDATED***

Long story short..bought a 256 850 EVO from Canada Computers about 1 and a half year ago...recently died on me..contacted live chat (Samsung CANADA)..got a ticket number and emailed them my receipt (last week Friday). Received a email today to call in and so I did. Samsung Canada is telling me that the place of purchase usually buys the items from the US and they cannot help me, I would have to deal with the Samsung US Warranty department..contacted them today (went through the menus and landed me to Seagate) and was told that Samsung Canada should be looking after it..all this happened today...

I am so pissed off right now going back and forth with Samsung...

Any inputs would be appreciated...

Thanks
Last edited by ninety5teg on May 4th, 2017 8:26 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Thread Summary
After reading carefully this thread that has 12 pages and 175 posts (at the time of writing this) and a long thread on Reddit, If I may add a thread summary that also contains my opinion on the matter and is intended to be a kind of PSA for the benefit of others:

Although "ninety5teg" (the OP of this thread) and others, have had a terrible time dealing with Samsung to honor their warranty, still, many would agree that Samsung offer reliable drives and that the odds are that you won’t have to deal with the warranty.

But like any other reputable brand, Samsung will have a relatively small percentage of its drives go bad prematurely and they will honor their warranty.

Even if, they might not have the most straightforward process to do so, it should not be the main factor in deciding to buy a Samsung drive or not.

Samsung have sub-contracted RMA under warranty with (at least) 2 corporations:

Samtack Inc. in Markham, Ontario and Total Tech Solutions, Inc. in Carlstadt, New Jersey

First, call Samsung: 1-800-SAMSUNG (1-800-726-7864). It probably will be pointless but it should be step #1 and you never know, things might change.

If you don’t get results by calling Samsung, contact Samtack in Ontario:
Return merchandise authorization (RMA) POLICY & INSTRUCTIONS

OR

Contact Total Tech Solution by sending an email to: SamsungASC@totalts.com

Attach a copy of your invoice and a picture of your drive that shows the serial number.

If you bought your drive from a merchant that ships from the USA, maybe you should go with Total Tech Solution in the first place.

Please PM me (Temporel) if you think this Thread Summary should be edited. I would prefer to do it myself. Thank you.
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Which retailer did you purchase your SSD from?
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Aznsilvrboy wrote: Which retailer did you purchase your SSD from?
Oops forgot about that..Canada Computers
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ninety5teg wrote: Oops forgot about that..Canada Computers
Contact the retailer and get them to help out. If they are selling Grey products on the market then maybe tell them people should know about it.
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ninety5teg wrote: Long story short..bought a 256 850 EVO from Canada Computers about 1 and a half year ago...recently died on me..contacted live chat (Samsung CANADA)..got a ticket number and emailed them my receipt (last week Friday). Received a email today to call in and so I did. Samsung Canada is telling me that the place of purchase usually buys the items from the US and they cannot help me, I would have to deal with the Samsung US Warranty department..contacted them today (went through the menus and landed me to Seagate) and was told that Samsung Canada should be looking after it..all this happened today...

I am so pissed off right now going back and forth with Samsung...

Any inputs would be appreciated...

Thanks
All I can say is good luck with that. I bought a 500GB 850 EVO from CC that died on January 8th 2017. Had the same back and forth B/S with Samsung, as everyone fails to mention when selling this SSD that Samsung SSD support doesn't have one for Canada, its through the US and a lot of people have had a hard time RMAing the drive. Majority of retailers know this (including Newegg) thats why if you look at 850 EVO at Newegg, Newegg.ca doesn't offer a "direct replacement plan" for Samsung SSDs. Compared to that of other brands (like Crucial which they do, and etc). You have to choose a Newegg seller, usually there are a bunch and 1 or 2 of them (last time I checked) offered a 2 year direct replacement for $25 or $28, (cant remember) but the price of the drive is usually more expensive when dealing with a 3rd party seller on Newegg. Plus, I've never bought from a 3rd party seller on NE so I don't know how good or reliable they are or where the item ships from.

Had I known this, I wish the staff at Canada Computers were more knowledgeable and offered to sell me a 3 year direct replacement plan in case anything goes wrong with the drive, they would direct replace it.

Long story short, its done via 3rd party and no one really knows who that 3rd party is for Samsung Canada SSD RMA, as it keeps changing. There was a thread on hardware canucks about the same issue, going as far back as the days of the Samsung 840 Vanilla SSDs and Canadian's not being able to do a successful RMA. The last links they had posted up it was being done by a 3rd party from some small company somewhere in New Jersey, and you had to ship it with tracking via your cost. In that thread (don't have the link now) I think about 2-3 people were successful in achieving this and they ended up getting back refurbished 850 EVO's that failed months later, in order for the process to be repeated.

The manager at one CC location told me that CC doesn't send them out for customers anymore (this was end of January) while at another location said they will try but it will take 6-8 weeks as its going straight to an RMA department in Samsung and skipping all that phone registration crap that you and I did. So they sent it out, and It came back 8 months later still dead. All they got was a slip that said RMA Denied, Warranty Void and no explanation. CC doesn't have an explanation for me and Samsung has no explanation and no idea WTF is going on. I wish I had taken pictures before because when I got it back it was obvious that someone opened it as the warranty sticker was torn a bit at the top to expose a screw and the screw at the bottom had its black paint chipped white, so obviously someone tampered with it.

I can go on with this for days. Had I known this was such a fiasco, I would have purchased the drive with direct replacement or not buy Samsung at all. Looking like QC is going down the toilet and they are not honouring RMA's. It's May now, this happened in Jan and I have a $200 paperweight here trying to figure out what to do. I got my drive towards the end of March, but have been real busy and annoyed and dealing with other personal life issues to get around to Samsung.

I plan on either visting a Samsung location here, and writing a few nasty emails to some top level email execs at Samsung Canada, that this is ridiculous and complete BS. 5 year warranty on a drive that is not even being honoured. Seriously I can rant to you for days, but like you I am another Samsung SSD sucker that it has failed and I can't get it replaced. I am extremely pissed off.

So much so that I sold my 950 PRO NVMe boot drive and using a Kingston HyperX Savage for the time being, until I decide on another NVMe. Was gonna buy the 960 EVO NVMe but since Samsung pissed me off so much I'm avoiding them at all costs. Boycott from me. I'm waiting around and debating. I might end up getting the more expensive Corsair Force Series MP500 NVMe drive and screw giving Samsung my money.

I wish you all the best of luck, not sure what else I can tell you, I experienced the exact same B/S as you did and had the exact same experience as you posted. Only thing I can recommend is try going to Canada Computers with your receipt and see if they will send it out for you, wait 6-8 weeks and see if you get one back, hopefully a new one but most likely a refurb.

Now that I have some more free time this month, (not much) like I said I'm gonna do some nasty emailing to Samsung and maybe go to a Samsung location, talk to someone in person and get to the bottom of this. I am extremely pissed off right now as I have a $230 paperweight sitting in a box doing nothing. This whole Samsung SSD b/s experience has put me off.

That's why I'm recommending other brands to people now, or if you seriously must buy a Samsung SSD, go through a retailer and pay the extra $$$ to get a direct replacement plan of at least 3 years in case this crapper fails on you out of no where, like mine did.

So 2 guys here (me and you) and 1 from Hardware Cancucks, thats 3 for 3 with 850 EVO drives that have failed and have had 0 success on RMA SSD Samsung. I'm going to email them and CC all to all top exec's divisons a nasty email until something gets done. Its 4 months now (come a few days) and I have a paperweight here. I am extremely P-off.
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if you want a smooth RMA, buy Crucial or Kingston, otherwise, you are just as well off with a low-end grey market drive.

for example, I had an RMA issue with a thumb drive from Silcon Power, expected problems but after filling out a form on the website, they emailed instructions and sent me a newer, larger faster one. Kingston was easy for memory and an old PSP card, but Samsung is a real bitch in Canada. I have a friend who is in pretty well the same boat as you (effectively screwed) and I will never buy another Samsung SSD again.
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I currently have an 850 EVO M.2 and a 960 EVO. I got rid of my other Samsung drives because I was so annoyed with them over how they handled the 840/840 EVO bug (releasing a hack "fix" for the EVO and telling 840 customers to pound sand) . Now heyyahblah's story has me regretting that I gave Samsung another try.

Now if only another company would release a first tier NVMe drive at a reasonable price... I guess there's the Toshiba/OCZ RD400. In my experience, OCZ is quite good with SSD RMAs - as they should be with so much practice!
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I bought an 840 EVO in 2013. It died on me after 4-5 months. I did call Samsung (yes in the US) and had to fill out a RMA request. Sent the drive back and received a refurb in a couple of weeks.
My 840 continues to run. I'm not sure if they changed their policy but from my experience I was able to get a replacement.

Maybe try calling them again and opening up a new ticket.

I was able to dig up an email from them....

Dear Customer,
If you wish to have your unit replaced, please provide the following information:
1) Name (First, Last)
2) Full Address (PO box is NOT accepted)
3) Email
4) Phone
5) Product Number
6) Serial Number
7) Reason for Exchange

Please be advised as per Samsung policy that upon receiving the defective unit, it will undergo testing. Should the technicians and specialists find the drive to be functional, the unit will be returned to you.

D
Total Tech Solutions, Inc.
Samsung Factory Service - SSD/ODD
d@totalts.com
(removed contacts full name/email)
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heyyahblah wrote: All I can say is good luck with that. I bought a 500GB 850 EVO from CC that died on January 8th 2017. Had the same back and forth B/S with Samsung, as everyone fails to mention when selling this SSD that Samsung SSD support doesn't have one for Canada, its through the US and a lot of people have had a hard time RMAing the drive. Majority of retailers know this (including Newegg) thats why if you look at 850 EVO at Newegg, Newegg.ca doesn't offer a "direct replacement plan" for Samsung SSDs. Compared to that of other brands (like Crucial which they do, and etc). You have to choose a Newegg seller, usually there are a bunch and 1 or 2 of them (last time I checked) offered a 2 year direct replacement for $25 or $28, (cant remember) but the price of the drive is usually more expensive when dealing with a 3rd party seller on Newegg. Plus, I've never bought from a 3rd party seller on NE so I don't know how good or reliable they are or where the item ships from.

Had I known this, I wish the staff at Canada Computers were more knowledgeable and offered to sell me a 3 year direct replacement plan in case anything goes wrong with the drive, they would direct replace it.

Long story short, its done via 3rd party and no one really knows who that 3rd party is for Samsung Canada SSD RMA, as it keeps changing. There was a thread on hardware canucks about the same issue, going as far back as the days of the Samsung 840 Vanilla SSDs and Canadian's not being able to do a successful RMA. The last links they had posted up it was being done by a 3rd party from some small company somewhere in New Jersey, and you had to ship it with tracking via your cost. In that thread (don't have the link now) I think about 2-3 people were successful in achieving this and they ended up getting back refurbished 850 EVO's that failed months later, in order for the process to be repeated.

The manager at one CC location told me that CC doesn't send them out for customers anymore (this was end of January) while at another location said they will try but it will take 6-8 weeks as its going straight to an RMA department in Samsung and skipping all that phone registration crap that you and I did. So they sent it out, and It came back 8 months later still dead. All they got was a slip that said RMA Denied, Warranty Void and no explanation. CC doesn't have an explanation for me and Samsung has no explanation and no idea WTF is going on. I wish I had taken pictures before because when I got it back it was obvious that someone opened it as the warranty sticker was torn a bit at the top to expose a screw and the screw at the bottom had its black paint chipped white, so obviously someone tampered with it.

I can go on with this for days. Had I known this was such a fiasco, I would have purchased the drive with direct replacement or not buy Samsung at all. Looking like QC is going down the toilet and they are not honouring RMA's. It's May now, this happened in Jan and I have a $200 paperweight here trying to figure out what to do. I got my drive towards the end of March, but have been real busy and annoyed and dealing with other personal life issues to get around to Samsung.

I plan on either visting a Samsung location here, and writing a few nasty emails to some top level email execs at Samsung Canada, that this is ridiculous and complete BS. 5 year warranty on a drive that is not even being honoured. Seriously I can rant to you for days, but like you I am another Samsung SSD sucker that it has failed and I can't get it replaced. I am extremely pissed off.

So much so that I sold my 950 PRO NVMe boot drive and using a Kingston HyperX Savage for the time being, until I decide on another NVMe. Was gonna buy the 960 EVO NVMe but since Samsung pissed me off so much I'm avoiding them at all costs. Boycott from me. I'm waiting around and debating. I might end up getting the more expensive Corsair Force Series MP500 NVMe drive and screw giving Samsung my money.

I wish you all the best of luck, not sure what else I can tell you, I experienced the exact same B/S as you did and had the exact same experience as you posted. Only thing I can recommend is try going to Canada Computers with your receipt and see if they will send it out for you, wait 6-8 weeks and see if you get one back, hopefully a new one but most likely a refurb.

Now that I have some more free time this month, (not much) like I said I'm gonna do some nasty emailing to Samsung and maybe go to a Samsung location, talk to someone in person and get to the bottom of this. I am extremely pissed off right now as I have a $230 paperweight sitting in a box doing nothing. This whole Samsung SSD b/s experience has put me off.

That's why I'm recommending other brands to people now, or if you seriously must buy a Samsung SSD, go through a retailer and pay the extra $$$ to get a direct replacement plan of at least 3 years in case this crapper fails on you out of no where, like mine did.

So 2 guys here (me and you) and 1 from Hardware Cancucks, thats 3 for 3 with 850 EVO drives that have failed and have had 0 success on RMA SSD Samsung. I'm going to email them and CC all to all top exec's divisons a nasty email until something gets done. Its 4 months now (come a few days) and I have a paperweight here. I am extremely P-off.
Exact same BS I am going through..went out last week and got my self a Crucial MX300 525GB and couldn't be happier...I find it much better than the EVO...I am going to call Samsung again and see where it goes to..CC will be my last resort as I know they will be a little help or no help...

I won't be buying Samsung SSDs anymore.
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i bought an 840 pro from staples that died. when i contacted Samsung they kept telling me to call staples that will handle the rma.

when i called staples and talked to a manger at staples they didn't believe Samsung told me that they said Samsung should handle it for me. so i told the guy put me on hold call Samsung and they will tell u the same thing. so he puts me on hold and does that and Samsung tells him the same thing they also provide him with the contact info of this company.

http://www.samtack.com/contact_us.html

so the manger at staples contacted this company and spoke with someone named Andrew Wong and provided them my invoice. a couple days later this samstack company emailed me my RMA number and then i mail the 840 pro to samtack in markham on. after they got the drive took about 2 weeks and then i got a 850 pro drive back.
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aaron158 wrote: i bought an 840 pro from staples that died. when i contacted Samsung they kept telling me to call staples that will handle the rma.

when i called staples and talked to a manger at staples they didn't believe Samsung told me that they said Samsung should handle it for me. so i told the guy put me on hold call Samsung and they will tell u the same thing. so he puts me on hold and does that and Samsung tells him the same thing they also provide him with the contact info of this company.

http://www.samtack.com/contact_us.html

so the manger at staples contacted this company and spoke with someone named Andrew Wong and provided them my invoice. a couple days later this samstack company emailed me my RMA number and then i mail the 840 pro to samtack in markham on. after they got the drive took about 2 weeks and then i got a 850 pro drive back.
Boggles my mind as to why Samsung would be pulling this crap... it doesn't look good on their behalf
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Yeah Samsung generally expects the retailer to initiate the warranty process. And even then it's not very clear.

It's why you should be careful where you purchase from and why I stay away from used/3rd party sellers for Samsung (but even then hearing about the gong shows makes you question is it even still worth it to get Samsung if something goes wrong). Plus if your buying an OEM drive like a PM961 that frequently pop up you're basically buying as-is, there's no contact for warranty.

Those reduced prices may look tempting in BST or eBay but you're hooped if you have an issue.
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tkyoshi wrote: Yeah Samsung generally expects the retailer to initiate the warranty process. And even then it's not very clear.

It's why you should be careful where you purchase from and why I stay away from used/3rd party sellers for Samsung (but even then hearing about the gong shows makes you question is it even still worth it to get Samsung if something goes wrong). Plus if your buying an OEM drive like a PM961 that frequently pop up you're basically buying as-is, there's no contact for warranty.

Those reduced prices may look tempting in BST or eBay but you're hooped if you have an issue.
More manufacturers need to take a serial # based approach to warranty like the one used by MSI and Asus (and others) for GPUs, motherboards, etc. They warrant the product for a minimum "x" years based on serial number, which is based on date of manufacture. No questions asked, no dealing with retailers (authorized, 3rd party, grey market, etc.), no receipts. Why is this not the industry standard? Does it really benefit companies to deal with angry customers, multiple warranty channels, extra paperwork/complexity, and general confusion? I have a hard time imagining how this saves them money.
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birthdaymonkey wrote: More manufacturers need to take a serial # based approach to warranty like the one used by MSI and Asus (and others) for GPUs, motherboards, etc. They warrant the product for a minimum "x" years based on serial number, which is based on date of manufacture. No questions asked, no dealing with retailers (authorized, 3rd party, grey market, etc.), no receipts. Why is this not the industry standard? Does it really benefit companies to deal with angry customers, multiple warranty channels, extra paperwork/complexity, and general confusion? I have a hard time imagining how this saves them money.
For a company as big as Samsung very good questions...

I mean ASUS service for example isn't great but at least they have a process.

With Samsung you're at the mercy of which retailer you got it from which adds another layer of confusion/complexity and well let's just say some retailers have pretty bad service themselves :/.
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tkyoshi wrote: Yeah Samsung generally expects the retailer to initiate the warranty process. And even then it's not very clear.

It's why you should be careful where you purchase from and why I stay away from used/3rd party sellers for Samsung (but even then hearing about the gong shows makes you question is it even still worth it to get Samsung if something goes wrong). Plus if your buying an OEM drive like a PM961 that frequently pop up you're basically buying as-is, there's no contact for warranty.

Those reduced prices may look tempting in BST or eBay but you're hooped if you have an issue.
OP bought from CC though. I don't think they're an unauthorised retailer.

Also, Samsung should take responsibility for their products. When they promise 5 years warranty, don't BS their customers.
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Sicklyslick wrote: OP bought from CC though. I don't think they're an unauthorised retailer.

Also, Samsung should take responsibility for their products. When they promise 5 years warranty, don't BS their customers.
This is what really pisses me off about Samsung
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birthdaymonkey wrote: I currently have an 850 EVO M.2 and a 960 EVO. I got rid of my other Samsung drives because I was so annoyed with them over how they handled the 840/840 EVO bug (releasing a hack "fix" for the EVO and telling 840 customers to pound sand) . Now heyyahblah's story has me regretting that I gave Samsung another try.

Now if only another company would release a first tier NVMe drive at a reasonable price... I guess there's the Toshiba/OCZ RD400. In my experience, OCZ is quite good with SSD RMAs - as they should be with so much practice!
I have bought 3 Samsung 840 and had same problem. So I decide never purchase Samsung SSD (also their cellphone, TV as well) . I bought about more than 10 SSD for my family, no problem yet with Intel and Crucial.

Thank you guy for sharing bad experience with Samsung support
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ninety5teg wrote: This is what really pisses me off about Samsung
ive been in the same situation as you before but with different manufactures. the retailer (regardless of CC, best buy, etc.) offers usually 30 days return on products. and after that, it is the manufacturer's job to honor their MANUFACTURER WARRANTY on their product. they should stop jerking people around left and right. you should not be contacting the retailer anymore after 30 days (or 90 days for some retailers like walmart).

it is very frustrating but you just have to fight it. manufacturers do this so they can save money instead of sending you a new/refurb one. If you purchased it through credit card, you may be eligible for some extended protection on your products.
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Sicklyslick wrote: OP bought from CC though. I don't think they're an unauthorised retailer.

Also, Samsung should take responsibility for their products. When they promise 5 years warranty, don't BS their customers.
I'm not saying they aren't, but most likely Samsung Canada want's the OP To go through CC. But this does raise a point with retailers like Newegg who ship stock out of their American warehouses, you'd have similar issues here.
And agreed, especially on the PRO line which boasts a 10 year warranty, there's no way any of them are out of warranty at this point. I realize they may not want to warranty stolen good and such but they can't deny that they should all be under warranty. PLUS what happens if the retailer goes out of business since, I mean a decade is pretty long time... Neutral Face

But even among major retailers you never know, like even Costco is an "Unauthorized Retailer" for some products, but not a big issue cause they back it up with their great in-store guarantees and they do usually display a disclaimer that the warranty is through Costco only as they are not an authorized retailer.
Last edited by tkyoshi on May 5th, 2017 2:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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I think everyone should boycott Samsung SSD altogether
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