On 13 May this year, P. Urquhart purchased a graphics card from a New Zealand online retailer. Our reader had done his research, read up on all the reviews and was confident of what he wanted. He placed his order and bought a GeCube RADEON 9600 Pro 256MB video card - or so he thought.
The card arrived as expected and operated without a problem but on consulting a third party tweaking tool, our reader discovered that his card returned a lower core/memory speed then what he had read about in the reviews. According to our reader, the reviews had reported memory speeds of 600MHz but his software had reported speeds of 398MHz. Concerned, on 27 May our reader emailed the retailer to enquire about the memory speed of his card.
The retailer replied promptly stating that the memory speed of the card is 400MHz. Our reader was puzzled and consulted the GeCube website. To his dismay he discovered that the card he received was the budget 'Encore Edition' of the 9600 Pro card, however the card he had read about, and wanted to buy, was the more expensive 'Xtreme Edition'.
Feeling that he had been misled our reader contacted the retailer again on 30 June. He felt that the website had not provided adequate information about the product and sought to pay the difference and upgrade to the faster card or be offered a competitive price on a new AMD CPU, which he was also in the market for.
Branding to the Xtreme
Since ATI do not produce a RADEON 9600 Pro Encore chipset, we were perplexed by the 'Encore' and 'Xtreme' naming on these cards. We asked Kingmax Technology, suppliers of GeCube cards in Australia to explain. Kingmax informed us that GeCube manufactures three different 9600 Pro models and none of these are 'standard'. The Encore Edition is a budget card available in 128MB or 256MB versions clocked slightly slower than ordinary 9600 Pro cards but which are considerably cheaper. The 'Xtreme Edition', which only comes as a 128MB card, is clocked faster than standard 9600 Pro cards but has a corresponding higher price tag. Kingmax informed us that we would only really see the 256MB Encore Edition in stores as it is the best performance/price option amongst the various models. Kingmax currently doesn't distribute the 'Xtreme Edition', as the price of the card is only slightly less than a RADEON 9600XT which offers greater performance.
At the time of our reader's purchase the retailer listed the 'Encore' card as a GeCube RADEON 9600 Pro 256MB as provided by their supplier. As they only sold the one GeCube 9600 card, they were unaware of the different editions and acted on information provided by the supplier. It wasn't until our reader raised the issue that they checked with the suppliers and found that there were multiple versions available. The information on the website was then updated accordingly.
Aside from the fact that the retailer did not stock the 'Xtreme Edition' card, they could not comply with our reader's request for a return/upgrade as it had been over a month since the card had been purchased and well outside of the company's seven day return policy. Though the product could not be returned, as a gesture of goodwill the company offered our reader the AMD CPU he specified at cost price.
We asked the retailer about its returns policy. Like most online stores, the company doesn't keep a large quantity of stock. It fulfils orders by ordering stock as customer purchases come in. The strict returns period is needed as any returned products need to go back to the supplier in a certain period of time for a credit/refund to be issued.
Act now
The problem from the retailer's point of view was that our reader's issue was raised more than a month after the date of purchase. When the issue did reach the retailer, it acted quickly and went to reasonable lengths to offer a compromise; however our reader decided against the offer of the CPU - but did manage to sell the unwanted card.
If the retailer had been selling both cards this would have been a different story. But as we found out from Kingmax, very few retailers are stocking anything other than the 256MB Encore card.
It's the dynamic nature of online information to change without warning. Many online vendors carry warnings to this effect. It pays to check return policies of online vendors before you buy and if you have any doubts before or after you order, make sure you get in touch and try to resolve the issue straight away. The phone is the most immediate way to get heard, but sending an email may be your only solution. However you do it, make sure you do it as soon as possible.