Don't support Western Electric: shameless warranty runarounds

This is the kind of service I expect from an Amazon/Etsy drop shipper.

 

Or anyone selling computer parts. I think most pieces of my last computer build had something like this. Except instead of 10 days to return it, you had like 30 or maybe 90. So maybe the Chinese companies are actually -more- honorable, although I've had my warranty runarounds there too.


One of the few things that justifies super high price tags is extremely good customer service, honestly. I can stomach spending large sums of money on something if I'm sure the company is going to take care of me if I have problems. Apparently, that's not Western Electric?

 

This is sleazy given that you purchased directly from WE, both parties have proof of purchase, and you probably qualify as an at least somewhat "qualified and known figure" at this point - i.e. not some idiot trying to BS their way to a new product for something they broke. Hopefully management or technical staff can sort this out for you - just in case 1st level staff is there to be a filter.

Also, not that this justifies it, but my understanding is Elrog, RK KR, and several of the other "new high end tube mfgs" are also like this if not worse. EDIT: Elrog responds in post #34. Seems like I may have just had a bad experience with their retailer.

Sadly - I suspect this was [edit: *partially*] done to cut down on people trying to extend their warranties unethically by saying things like "I bought it used... uh I mean new... last week and now it's broken" instead of fessing up and saying things like "I bought it 2 years ago and when I was traveling with these I stuck the tubes into this amp I was trying. Oh I can't force these things into the wrong sockets? Oh this country has 220V and not 120V - what's that?????? Oh I bypassed the fuse and then I had a power surge why are tubes broken???"
The above is based on true stories at my last job, but converted into amp terms. Needless to say after I performed my 2 second "technical review by an engineer" I had people deny those fraudulent warranty claims.

 

It wasn't till after march 2022 was it removed from their product page claiming the 5 years, no asterisk, no hyper link to warranty from it.

Even Steve G said they have a 5 year warranty instead of the typical 90 days.

MOD EDIT:

 

Oh gawd, I hope this isn't true, but I may have been the person who started this.

In the Theta days, when stuff was sold only by dealers, Theta wanted a way to contact their customers directly. They had a 5-year warranty and the usual warranty card, but of course many people didn't fill out the cards. So I told Mike, "Hey, I got a great idea--give them a 90-day warranty standard, and a 5-year free extension if they fill out the card."

Long story short, it worked. However, the warranty terms were clearly stated, people were encouraged to fill out the "warranty extension," and I don't think Theta ever denied any real warranty claims if there was no card on file.

So, if it was me, I apologize. This made sense in an era of dealers and no direct contact with customers, especially for a company in the business of doing upgradable products. It makes zero sense today. Zero.

 

I'm sorry to hear all of this about WE, this is really unpardonable and inexcusable from a tried-and-true company like WE. But thank you for bringing an originally-drawn soyjack meme to an SBAF thread lol. Gave me a good laugh.

 

Even though they want the product to be registered,
it should be online and not by filling a piece of paper and then shipping it to whatever address they are located at. This is so old century way of working.

 

The very trusty https://web.archive.org/
https://web.archive.org/web/20220331003816/https://www.westernelectric.com/300b/

 

A consumer friendly company would have replied

Hi Marvey,

Sorry to hear about the issue you had with the tubes. We are happy to take a look into it. However we see you haven’t registered your product yet with us. Here is the link for the same :

once registered, please send out the tubes to us.

I think they have taken the word “Vintage” from tubes in literal sense and implemented it in their business.

 

Went to the website, there's a customer interest form for other tube types. You can add a comment at the end. I added
'Really, you're not going to honor a warranty claim because a warranty registration card wasn't mailed in?
Referring to your customer Marv Chen'
Won't accept the form, maybe others have started to similarly criticize

 

This is most companies these days. Make it super easy to put money in their pocket (buy their product) and super hard to get anything back if needed. And they don't give a shit about your customer experience because all the other companies are like that so you have no choice to go to a competitor that does better. It's an unspoken cartel of sorts. This is because the vast majority of companies can't innovate. It's the same old cookie cutter product so the only way to make a profit off you is to find ways to fleece you.

In WE's case, they know you don't have much choice so hooray for them and fuck you.

 

You gotta recognise that "Western Electric" is a special kind of company that bought a historic brand. Their business is milking that brand and reputation, and quite different to companies that are reliant on building and maintain their own reputation.

 

I will share a bad experience I had with Western Electric and their 300B tubes as well- also with my Studio B and the tubes making noise. They made noise righ tout of the box, both of them, and the type of noise changed channels with the tubes and followed the tubes. I guess I contacted them soon enough that this card did not matter because I didn't see it either.

@Josh Schor experienced the exact same noise as I did in his Studio B with his WE 300B tubes, and when he called them on the phone, they were super kind and talked to him about his amp and made him a special pair of tubes that would not make noise in the Studio B.

Backstory:
I have a chronic illness called Chronic Fatigue Syndrome / Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME/CFS) as many of your probably know. I have not been able to speak for 10 years now, not one word. I am severely ill, and music and having fun with audio is my biggest escape because the rest of my life is advocacy work for ME/CFS. And my headphone company rhythmdevils audio is a huge escape as well and a chance at denying the illness from taking away a career from me, which it does to most patients especially those as sick as I am. In making rhythmdevils audio a reality I am defying the will of ME/CFS and that is a huge victory for me that I am very proud of. If you have noticed delays in getting production started, or noticed that there are not many headphones in people's hands it is because of this illness and having to rest most of the time and not having energy to get what I need done. Prototyping is more difficult in terms of creative vision, but requires much less energy than producing headphones for customers on even a small scale. But I have brought on @loadexfa who is the best person ever and bought my own 3D printing gear so I will be starting production soon thanks to his help making my designs. (I'll be monitoring everything and checking everything but I also trust his ears).​

I therefore could not call Western Electric about the issue and could only email them. I was first told that they did not offer special tubes as a service, despite them doing so for Josh. I then told them Josh's experience and told them I could not speak on the phone with them due to a chronic illness that made speaking impossible, and I then gave them his customer and invoice info so they could look up his case and just copy what they did for his tubes and they told me they could not acknowledge private information. They basically just didn't give a shit. They returned the tubes for a refund, but my experience with them was sooo much colder and so much more beurocratic because I could not call them and speak with them human to human on the phone. This is a great example of subtle ableism. Subtle because it is partly just human nature to be kinder on the phone and maybe make a few exceptions because it's not in writing and you like the customer, but it is still treating a sick person differently than a healthy one directly because of limitations imposed by the illness and knowing full well they have these limitations due to an illness. if anyone should have gotten an exception it was me. I was not happy about it and will not buy anything from them again.

edit: I'm ok, I don't want to derail the thread, I will make a thread about my story at some point after rhythmdevils audio gets going. I know you all care.

 

Ah ha, so the Syn is an extended warranty card! I’ve cracked the code!