After Allegations Of Knowingly Selling Faulty Products, Newegg Updates Its Return Policy

Online computer parts retailer Newegg is updating its returns policy after a recent scandal involving the company selling a faulty motherboard.

Newegg has posted a customer service update to its official Twitter account announcing the change in policy. The company claims that there were a “very small number of returns [that] may not have been thoroughly inspected before being routed for returns, liquidations or e-waste recycling and were accidentally resold as ‘open box’ merchandise.” As such Newegg has “already changed internal procedures to improve” how it will manage product returns.

Speaking to Windows Central, Newegg said that it intends to accept all returns on “open box” products on a “no questions asked” basis. This policy comes after popular PC hardware review YouTube channel GamersNexus released a video that claimed Newegg knowingly sold them a faulty open-box motherboard, while also refusing to refund them.

The original video from GamersNexus, which has roughly 1.58 million subscribers at the time of writing, released a video called “Newegg Scammed Us.” In the video, editor-in-chief of GamersNexus explained that after buying a $500 open-box Gigabyte motherboard from Newegg, he realized he didn’t need it, and returned it. Burke claims to have never opened it, having just returned it without even opening the shipping box.

However, Burke’s refund was denied, with Newegg citing the product being broken upon arrival. And in turn, the motherboard was returned to Burke, where he found that several pins were bent on the product. After tweeting about the situation though, he did receive the refund. Because Burke knew this wasn’t his fault, he did some research. In a follow-up video, he described how he noticed there was a return merchandise authorization sticker from Gigabyte, the motherboard manufacturer.

Burke then called Gigabyte and discovered Newegg had sent the motherboard for repairs to them, but didn’t pay the $100 repair fee to get it fixed. And as such, the motherboard was returned to Newegg, and eventually sold to Burke.

In the videos, Burke also points out how he isn’t the only one who has experienced something like this. A number of other Newegg customers contacted him to say they have faced similar issues. Now that the policy has changed thanks to Gamer Nexus’ actions, customers likely won’t face the same issues in future.

Burke also plans to meet with Newegg to interview the company over the situation, and are calling on it to be transparent over the situation.