WD Warranty Issues

[rikhav]

Hi friends
Recently I purchased a WD BLACK 1 TB drive specially because it carried 5 year warranty. My PC is on 24X7 and so I wanted peace of mind

Following is the link to the WD webpage where it clearly states BLACK has 5 year warranty


Internal Desktop Hard Drives Overview


The vendor from whom i purchased the HDD had mentioned 2 year carry in warranty but he said no company does not give more then 2 year warranty. I did not argue with him much thinking that he might not know about the WD BLACK warranty and I will get 5 years once i register the product

To my surprise the website showed 2 years warranty after i registered it. I contacted WD helpline and they promised to get back to me after 6 working days.

To my horror I got a reply that the HDD i had purchased was a replacement drive and so the warranty is carried forward from the original drive. They also mentioned that I have deal with the vendor for further queries

I was furious with the vendor but since I know him since long I gave him benefit of doubt and gave him time to clarify with the distributor

Following is the e-mail I got from WD


Dear Customer,



Thank you for contacting Western Digital Service and Support.



This is to inform you that the drive SN: WCATRA625937 is a re-certified drive that was given as a replacement drive under an RMA.



This is not a prime drive and hence does not have a warranty period of 5 years.



The warranty on the respective defective drive has been forwarded on to this drive.



Kindly contact the place of purchase for any warranty related issues.





Warm Regards,

WD Support


Just today i read in FM member Santy's signature and came to know that he has recently purchased the same WD BLACK 1 TB drive. I pm'ed him to know what warranty he has got for his drive and to my horror he was also given the same warranty period and the same excuse given by WD. The other surprising thing was that I received the mail on a Sunday where as they only work from Monday to Friday.

I have no intentions to approach the consumer court for a product costing 5k but my blood boils to know how customers are taken for a ride by these companies. They would not even dare to cheat anyone like this in USA

Also they so easily are passing the blame on the poor vendor and anyone would feel he is the culprit here.

So this thread is just to caution everyone here who are considering to buy WD drives for a 5 year warranty period

 

[harshi_n]

It's an eye opener. I plan to buy a new 1 tb. What's the best place to buy it ?
Flipkart might be better?

 

[rikhav]

It's an eye opener. I plan to buy a new 1 tb. What's the best place to buy it ?
Flipkart might be better?

Price wise Flipakart is perfect
But if you see on the page of Flipkart it also mentions STANDARD 2 years warranty

So best way is to approach a vendor, discuss the price and check the warranty from WD site before making payment. Make it clear to him that you will only buy if it has 5 years warranty as that is stated on the company website

 

[rajadeep]

HDDs havent had 5 yr warranty for a long time now... Everywhere in the market they say 2 yr warranty only... Did the WD customer care indicate in anyway that one can buy a 5 yr warranty HDD??? I ask coz I know the WD distributor through a common friend & he had confirmed that after the thai floods, all the HDDs from both Seagate & WD have 2 yr warranty... The funny thing is Seagate didnt have any facilities in Thailand which got affected by the floods, but as WD & Seagate have a virtual monolopy in the HDD business, they were able to raise the prices & cut the warranty of the drives they sell... If u look at last year's financial report of WD, even though they have to invest a lot of money to get their Thailand factory they still posted record profit growth... The time has come to slowly start pushing towards SSDs... They are faster & more reliable that HDDs anyway...

 

[rikhav]

HDDs havent had 5 yr warranty for a long time now... Everywhere in the market they say 2 yr warranty only... Did the WD customer care indicate in anyway that one can buy a 5 yr warranty HDD??? I ask coz I know the WD distributor through a common friend & he had confirmed that after the thai floods, all the HDDs from both Seagate & WD have 2 yr warranty... The funny thing is Seagate didnt have any facilities in Thailand which got affected by the floods, but as WD & Seagate have a virtual monolopy in the HDD business, they were able to raise the prices & cut the warranty of the drives they sell... If u look at last year's financial report of WD, even though they have to invest a lot of money to get their Thailand factory they still posted record profit growth... The time has come to slowly start pushing towards SSDs... They are faster & more reliable that HDDs anyway...

I opened a similar thread on TE and users there have purchased WD BLACK CAVIAR which do have 5 year warranty

So i also take my words back, WD is not at fault. Its the vendor selling refurbished drives without telling the customer and so the warranty is less

MODS - PLease delete this thread if possible as this is misleading and spoiling WD's name