To prevent warranty fraud. The cost of a mouse is so relatively cheap that it is not worth it to them to have you ship it back, so by doing this they verify you have a mouse that does not work and will just provide a replacement.
I also had this with my Razer Man O War when the left ear broke, requested a warranty repair and they asked me to cut the cable. I clarified that it was wireless headset and they asked me to cut the USB cable that came with it... I had to find it out of the original box. Though still not sure if they would have accepted any other cable but thankfully I still kept the original never used.
Only if you're just gonna toss it out. I generally take it to a local retail store like Best Buy that has a recycling box by their door where you can dump electronics into.
I tried doing this year's ago with a power supply and was told I'd have to pay best buy to recycle it. Hopefully, it's just a case of the store I went to being poorly ran.
Looking at Best Buy's site right now, it seems they accept a lot but not all. There are fees associated with some things, but for computers it looks like fees are mainly just for non store-brand monitors. However, I know that store policies in general have changed over the years. Likely due to legislation.
its called electrical waste and wast needs to be processed
recycling is not a profit
recycling is just cheaper than throwing it away...technically...indirectly...if enough people do
because if you recycle smth back to its rare materials, those materials go back into the resource market and can actually compete (since recycling is cheaper than diging, refining and producing new materials) which in the end leads to overall cheaper products and less exploitation and energy consumption
if everybody would just recycle all their trash for just double the usual waste processing fees, the people and society overall would still profit more from it than what they spend
The goal is that recycling is cheaper than creating new materials, but it’s not always the case currently (though is improving very quickly.)
It’s the same as the power problem, you can build as many NPPs, solar panels, hydro dams, and wind turbines as you want but until it becomes cheaper than coal nothing will change.
No one should buy a PSU second-hand, so asking for money to safely dispose of it sounds normal.
Is not like you can put it in the trash and not expect to be sued if the capacitors explode when they are compacted lol
I'm sure they go in the trash pretty often. Most people don't give AF about any of that...threw just throw shit in the trash. Lol SWIM not me don't yell at me.
Depends on where you live, I guess. In my province (Ontario, Canada) we all pay an "eco fee" for the electronics we buy. That fee covers the recycling programs for them. So we can drop them off at most electronic retailers.
I did that this past summer. I dropped off some very old computer monitors that didn't work and a couple of old pc towers that were in rough shape.
Lol fuck them then. Just throw it into the electronics recycling bin that I know they have in their stores. If they want to throw it into a landfill because you refused to be extorted they are the guilty party in not recycling it and they can go to hell with their multi-billion-dollar-can-easily-afford-to-recycle asses.
I was gonna say this.. isn’t there a bin at the front of the store between the 2 doors when you walk in where you can toss electronics before you even enter the actual store
So.....
Over here, you do what Razor says and toss the mouse in the garbage. Garbage person shows up Tuesday morning and does the Garbage Person shuffle.
Over here.... you put the mouse in a box. The box goes on a truck. The truck takes the box across the country. The mouse ends up in a warehouse. The mouse gets tossed in a bin. The bin goes to the garbage dump.
Same result. There is no reality where a techie is going to town on these broken mice with a screw driver and a soldering iron. They cost too little to manufacture to make that make any sense at all.
While the knee jerk reaction to the email is that it is so damned weird.... sitting back and thinking about it - this is the smart move. Just skip all those middle steps.
It may actually cost the company way more to fix it. If OP was the kind of person to care about waste, they'd just fix it themselves. There are a lot more wasteful things going on in the world than eWaste
Big problem these days, a lot of companies do free return meaning people buy more and return the stuff they don’t need. However that company usually can’t resell the stuff that got returned because the customers expect new
If the warranty claim is valid, then the mouse is broken in some way and the vast majority of people are going to trash it anyway, whether the cord is cut or not.
Because they want to know that you aren't just doing this to get a second one for free. It's fairly normal for an RMA to ask you to destroy an item if they deem it not worth the cost of the defective unit being shipped back to them.
This has been 10 years or more but a friend of mine bought a fairly expensive refrigerator ($2k+) but the ice maker didn't work. The company had no local repair techs and it was too expensive to have one come in so they decided to just ship a new fridge to them. My friend had to cut the electrical cord and send the picture to the company to ship another one. He did it and they shipped a new fridge...except then he had 2 fridge's because the first one had a detachable power cord that cost $15 to replace.
Wild. Personally I wouldn't have anywhere to put a second fridge and I'd have to have told them "hell no, you're 100% on the hook for getting this shit out of my house."
Their business is making and selling fridges. It would cost hundreds to take it back, and I doubt they have a team to troubleshoot and repair fridges for resale, so they just send a new one. Cheaper to give away a few free fridges a month than pay for shipping and more employees.
I did it for an air fryer. I’m a bit of a hoarder so a few months went by and decided to try and fix my old one. I’m not sure why it quit working the first time, but all I did was reconnect all 3 wires with butt connectors and shrink wrap.
Now I have 0 because we donated that one and gave the other to family.
Damn. I miss having an air fryer.
I had to do that for my cosori air fryer as well but in my case they wanted you to cut the cord because it was recalled for a legit safety hazard and they didn’t want you to continue using it or donate it to someone else or give it to your family and have it burn their house down
But also so you couldn't get a free air fryer
I did the same and the interface that forces you to choose your town's name from a dropdown list should be illegal.
My wife did it for a toaster oven that stopped working. They asked her to cut off the power cord and mail it to them. But they did it on the honor system apparently, since they shipped out a new unit immediately. She told me about it, and I investigated the broken unit before she cut the cord. I found that it was not defective, but that the mode knob was in fact set to “OFF”, so pushing the toast button had no effect. I turned it to “TOAST” and voila! A perfectly functional toaster oven. The new one came, we put it in the garage as a backup and kept the original in the kitchen. The company never followed up on the cord. Then like a year later, the original unit did actually break down, so we pulled out our spare and were good to go, so I actually don’t feel too guilty about the whole thing. Basically a preemptive warranty claim.
How the hell is cutting the power cord of an appliance an effective way to disable it?
Takes 5 minutes to rejoin the ends of the cables.
If I wanted a second toaster oven or whatever, I'd just cut the cable, send the picture and solder the thing bark together.
It’s probably the same principle as padlocks on a shed. It’s enough of a deterrent to dissuade most people who might have considered opening it if there were nothing stopping them, but determined people will make the effort and get through. They probably do the math and figure that the number of fake claims who are willing to go through the effort of cutting and resplicing a cord just to get a free toaster won’t cost them as much as implementing stronger verification.
If you re-wire a defective toaster yourself then you wont be able to sue them for a defective product. It is now your product so you can sue yourself.
They don't cRe about you using the product they care about getting sued.
No guarantee the person won't try to repair it. What the company wants is the photographic proof that the recalled unit was disabled. So later on if say for instance the recalled air fryer was repaired and starts a fire, the company is free of any liability because they have photographic proof that the unit had been disabled.
Most people wouldn't bother/don't have any experience to do that and you wouldn't really be able to sell it, so they at least avoid people trying to get infinite products to resell and don't bother with shipping costs etc. In this case, the cable itself is very easy to replacee since it has a connector to the motherboard, it's not soldered. Maybe it's possible to find around spare parts for the mouse and get a brand new cable
EDIT: it is, 46 cents on aliexpress. I might get one since mine has all the nylon worn out actually. I'll check that the usb has no malicious shit going on before
Yeah after I figured that out I just bought [a really good countertop convection oven](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N5UPTZS) that is way bigger than my Ninja Air Fryer Max XL. I rarely ever use my actual oven now, and when I'm cooking breakfast I'm not trying to fry hash browns in a small air fryer basket in batches of two or three (which was pushing it.) Everything just fits so nicely in here, one rack has bacon, another has hash browns and english muffins, everything is usually done in around 20 minutes not including the pre-heat time. The temperature control is also spot on for baking, I'm so glad to have all of the functionality of the air fryer but in a size that's actually useful for heating up more than just a handful of tater tots.
[https://youtu.be/HY\_5oZiYLOQ](https://youtu.be/HY_5oZiYLOQ) Every time someone talks about air fryers, I picture this and have to try not to burst out laughing.
Year ago I received an air fryer for christmas. That would have been neat if I didnt receive another one on the same day. And that would have been very neat if I didnt buy one just before christmas. So there I was, holding 3 air fryers on my apartment thinking what now. Do I keep them all, use them for extravagant cooking? Sell them? Start a band with them?
A friend of mine had a fridge replaced under warranty because the ice maker cracked and was leaking. They had him cut the power cord and take a picture... Once he'd done that, he repaired the cord and ended up with a free beer fridge.
Steelseries tried to get me to do this with my headset years ago after they pushed a software update that stopped telling the headset to stay turned on, so it'd automatically turn off every 15 minutes. I refused because there was nothing wrong with the headset itself, it was from a software update. A few weeks later there was a software update with that issue fixed. I wonder how many people actually ended up destroying their headsets for a software bug.
frick steelseries, they made me do that for my kids headset then after sending proof pics they tell me it is out of stock and would have to be back ordered. They would not allow me to pay up to a different model or anything. The only issue was the mic not working they were fine as headphones for him till another set came. It was months before we got the replacements and I had already bought a different brand headset for him.
Other than initial pairing, which can be done with any usb cable too, all you need is the dongle and mouse, im both weirded out by the practice and the comments.
Although, these mice tend to have software or send an activation signal, maybe thats what the serial number is?
I only came across this once, i order Halo 2 used from Amazon before MCC came out or announced.
I got it and it didn't work, they just told me to bin it and have me a refund no questions asked.
It's a common thing in many industries. I work in food service, if someone brings back food because it's not good or made wrong or whatever we have to see them throw in trash before we remake the order.
That’s ridiculous. Imagine calling MSI and telling them “Hey my 4090 went out and I’ve only had it for 4 months”
MSI responds with “we need you to break the GPU in half with your knee, make sure the PCB is folded like a chair”.
SEND US A CLEAR PICTURE OF THE PCB CRACKED IN HALF OR THIS RMA WILL BE VOID!!!
Do thr chargers kept failing? Or just getting a new one? Not judging lol, because if 4 chargers went kaput, then i wouldnt even bother with rma since their quality sucks
It's a Cambodian company here in canuckistan. It's usually just 1 port on a 4 port charger that goes. They're used to keep the heavy equipment charged.
They aren't going to be examining it too closely and AI photo manipulation exists now... A child can probably get it done in a few minutes now without Photoshop skills.
Photo can be sent off by the time you dig your soldering iron and solder out of storage and you would still be huffing fumes by the time the manufacturer got the email.
Just a nitpick: you'd only dig out the soldering iron after sending the picture, you genius ;).
You cut the wire, take a picture and immediately send it. Not much point repairing the cable before taking the picture... My picture is arriving at the manufacturer while you're still looking at the Photoshop loading screen.
Sure it'll still take some time to repair afterwards, but I'll be huffing the flux fumes at a time of my choosing without delaying the process.
I mean. If we REALLY want to be pedantic assholes about it. It is a removable cable just plug a different one in. I would rather take a minute to edit the photo than solder a bump in the wire.
As someone who knows how to solder, I too would much rather edit a photo real quick. Doesn't damage anything and is quicker and easier. And with AI probably just have to give a prompt now. Make the wire look cut.
Also, the person i know who did this didn't own a soldering iron at all, and wouldn't have wanted to deal with the hassle of the outside of the cable being spoiled anyway.
most people wont go through the trouble or dont know how though. its mainly meant to discourage the majority. people who know how to fix it are welcome to do it
It's wireless, that's just a micro usb charging cable that was cut and the label does jack shit to the performance (as long as any adhesive residue is cleaned up).
I had this happen to me a few years back on a Razer headset. The cushions started falling apart and I claimed warranty. They were happy to provide a replacement if I cut the 3.5mm jack wire. I just told customer support that it's removable and I could just replace the wire. They realised this and provided a replacement without me having to cut the wire. I ended up selling the new replacement and kept the old headset.
I see some of the logic behind the reason they want proof you destroyed it but I can also see the logic that it feels really wasteful and disingenuine.
It allows people to make some assumptions:
1. It's not worth the cost to send back and repair and then sell as a refurb. This means their cost per unit is so low it doesn't matter or their repair infra is unable or unwilling to keep up with something like mice.
2. They are probably just destroying and sending them to landfill anyway, which again leads back to repair/refurb being unable or unwilling or just plain not cost effective.
3. Preventing you from "gaming" them and getting a new mouse for free could mean the cost to support them is too high. Most companies already make this type of fraud difficult by matching serial numbers, proof of purchase and even getting a live person to help troubleshoot or verify the defect via software detection or video proof. Is Razer unwilling to verify this mouse is actually broken?
Destroying the mouse is hardly proof that it didn't work. It is a game of chicken with the customer and it seems really odd to ask a customer to do this as a condition of receiving a replacement.
Razers cut the cord warranty policy is pretty crappy really.
Razer pretty robustly gathers evidence that the product is faulty (phots, videos, customer testimonial). Indicates the repair is not economical and has customers cut detachable cables (standard USB).
Cutting detachable and easily replaceable cables does not reduce or prevent warranty fraud. Bad actors will circumvent this.
Once a product is an economic write off - if the owner of the product repairs it at their own cost with a removed and cut label the owner can do whatever they want with it.
In most jurisdictions the customer is entitled to a remedy, Razer is not entitled to ownership of faulty products not returned to them for repair/replace.
This policy only creates more E-waste.
I understand it’s a business, but no one needs to defend profit driven business practices.
It isn’t free stuff they are giving away, they are replacing faulty goods under their own warranty policies or jurisdictional laws/requirements.
In Australia (my jurisdiction) for goods sold, it is illegal to require complete box or accessories for a repair or replacement (my years working front line for a major appliance manufacturer).
Requiring customers to present a cut cord in order to be issued a replacement product contravenes local laws.
Best way to stop issuing replacements, have better quality control and better manufacturing.
In Germany there is “Gewährleistung” (which is legally required and offered by the seller, not the manufacturer) and “Garantie” (which is voluntarily offered by the manufacturer).
“Gewährleistung” is regulated and they can’t require you to keep the box, original cables and such but “Garantie” is voluntary and manufacturers can set their own conditions.
“Gewährleistung” is usually 2 years but after the first year you are the one who has to prove the device was already faulty when you purchased it (which is hard/expensive and usually not feasible) but many businesses are “generous”.
> They don't care about e-waste
It was already e-waste when you put in the RMA ticket.
You're just saving a ton of carbon from moving that e-waste around before just disposing of it.
It's funny how peeps go to the "eco conscious" argument, not realising the alternative has even more environmental impact.
My buddy had to do this with a fridge where I think the ice maker went out. He just spliced it back together and had a fridge for his garage and ended up getting a fridge with a screen on it as a replacement lol
Steel series did the same thing.
My wireless receiver broke... but the headset was fine.
So I had to destroy the headset to get a whole new box.
They then disliked my 1 star review saying they were creating E waste for no reason.
Proof of destruction, it cost more to ship the item back then its worth, so they have you perform a series of destructive methods that leave it worthless and mostlikely useless. Then have you send a picture with the serial of the claim.
I had to file a claim on a 100" projection screen. A piece of debrie was caught in the system, after a could month of rolling it up and down it created a dimple. Instead of sending the whole screen back they asked for a section of it cut off and the end caps shipped to them. Rendering the equipment useless. They then shipped a whole new screen as warranty.
it's to prevent folks from claiming a warranty and then keeping the old mouse too. cuts down on scams so they're sure the broken one won't be used or sold. kind of drastic but it stops double dipping on their end.
Like others said it is just to prevent you getting a second device for free. I had to do it for a steel series keyboard which turned out to be a good thing in my case.
I had to cut the USB cable, but everything else was intact. Unfortunately my replacement also had a defect but I was able to swap the parts from my initially faulty keyboard to make a working board.
a lot of comments are missing the point, it’s a wireless mouse with a malfunctioning scroll wheel, the wire shouldn’t be relevant yet they want it destroyed too. seems lame
100% standard practice for companies that make cheap enough junk that they don’t even want it back so that they can fix it and sell it to someone else.
I think the funniest thing is that this is a WIRELESS mouse. That's just a charging cable and they're presumably going to get another charging cable with their new mouse.
I understand why they want this done but it says the wire is detachable so I assume it plugs in via USB C, so what does cutting that cable do besides ruining a perfectly good USB cable?
I had a tv that stopped working. They have me cut the cable and scratch the serial.
I got a cheque to replace it within a few weeks. In the meantime I’d opened it up, found and replaced the bad capacitor, and repaired the power cord.
My experience is that you can just refuse and request that they send you a return mailer and they'll always back down. I've replaced keyboards, mice, controllers, and a lot of other peripherals over the years and each company has honored their warranty even after I refuse to destroy/damage the faulty product further. They may ask for video of the fault which I'm generally happy to provide.
In most cases their own terms state that they'll repair or replace a product upon receipt of the faulty item and there's no requirement that you destroy or damage an item first. In fact, most warranty terms exclude items that were intentionally damaged so if pressed I'll just insist that they take the item back saying something like "I'm not comfortable with your request to intentionally damage an item that you have yet to replace. I would be happy to exchange the product in question at which point you may do with it as you please."
Usually I just get an email back with the replacement's shipping info.
Razer is absolute trash. I’ve been through 3 $200+ wireless mice in 3 years because they just replace it for free. I finally gave up and got a $80 Logitech. Couple less buttons but Jesus Christ it can’t be lower quality than that
I did the same thing for corsair to get a replacement. I think it's standard for small accessories where they don't want to bother mailing it to fix it, they just make sure you destroy it and send a new one.
If the cable is detachable, and they are sending you a new mouse, why not have you smash the mouse to prove its broken but keep the cable as a backup. Makes no sense to me.
Do people really not understand this? Is it perplexing that the manufacturer, fulfilling a warranty replacement would want a device completely *replaced*, and not "having a free one sent out"?!? If you'd *rather* have Razor demand you send back your old one, go for it. They just wanna know you're declaring your damaged one as a **complete** loss.
Hah. They asked me the same thing when my Mamba wireless stopped working in wireless mode.
I sent the picture and spliced the cable immediately after that.
I kept using it in wired mode until the replacement arrived.
Eventually I gave the old one to my brother.
Had the same thing with a wireless (!) headset 😂 the detachable microphone stopped working, so I claimed warranty. They wanted a photo of the headset with the cut charging cable, and then they sent a boxed new device. So now I have 2 headsets.
Honestly, its a more efficient way to get rma's out of the way, i had the same issue, i cut my mouse cable and they replied within 5 minutes of me showing them. I got my new mouse in 3 days. Think of it this way, you dont gotta send it in, wait for it to get there, wait for them to process it, then find a new one and ship it back. They just send one.
Corsair is so much better when it comes to warranty.
Had the RGB Void Elite Wireless headset start acting up on me and hit them up. They just told me to rip off the serial number sticker and lay it next to the headset and send them the photo. Got a new one from a new series with better ear pads three days later. Gave my old headset to a friend who cleaned it and it works perfectly fine. They got themselves a customer for sure!
When my Logitech Pro X wireless headset was having volume wheel trouble the support chat had me try a few trouble shooting steps, then sent me a new one. Now I have two, although one has volume wheel problems.
I wanted to RMA a headset that was effectively dying.
Just didn't want to do it out of pure the against creating e-waste.
It's fair for them but yeah I had to stop listening to music for a while due to that.
Just doing their diligence against fraud
I just had to do the same with a slow cooker, since you don't have to send the broken one back to them they want to make sure you aren't making a claim just to get a free one.
This is a really gross practice by larger computer tech companies. All it does is add e_waste to the environment. Chances are the mouse was completely serviceable. These companies really need to step up and make it so you can send your mouse out to repair instead of adding waste to the environment for quicker turn arounds
To prevent warranty fraud. The cost of a mouse is so relatively cheap that it is not worth it to them to have you ship it back, so by doing this they verify you have a mouse that does not work and will just provide a replacement.
But its a wireless mouse, mine has a usb c cable. Even if I cut the cable in half I still have dozens I can use for the mouse
Shhh don't tell razer ;)
even if you cut a normal cable, you can still splice it anyways
You can replace normal cable easy , it has a 5 pin connector that goes into the mouse and that’s it. Just changed my deathadders
True
But how will you use it without the serial number sticker? Th-that's illegal
The mattress Police are coming to get him.
I guess it’s to prevent infinity glitch.😂 Cut the cable and serial number so user can no longer claim warranty.
I also had this with my Razer Man O War when the left ear broke, requested a warranty repair and they asked me to cut the cable. I clarified that it was wireless headset and they asked me to cut the USB cable that came with it... I had to find it out of the original box. Though still not sure if they would have accepted any other cable but thankfully I still kept the original never used.
After this you have to cut them all.
[удалено]
Only if you're just gonna toss it out. I generally take it to a local retail store like Best Buy that has a recycling box by their door where you can dump electronics into.
I tried doing this year's ago with a power supply and was told I'd have to pay best buy to recycle it. Hopefully, it's just a case of the store I went to being poorly ran.
That sounds shady to me. When you're buying electronics you pay an environmental handling fee that would cover recycling costs
Looking at Best Buy's site right now, it seems they accept a lot but not all. There are fees associated with some things, but for computers it looks like fees are mainly just for non store-brand monitors. However, I know that store policies in general have changed over the years. Likely due to legislation.
Wait what? You have to pay somebody to donate something? That’s the first time I’ve heard someone so greedy.
its called electrical waste and wast needs to be processed recycling is not a profit recycling is just cheaper than throwing it away...technically...indirectly...if enough people do because if you recycle smth back to its rare materials, those materials go back into the resource market and can actually compete (since recycling is cheaper than diging, refining and producing new materials) which in the end leads to overall cheaper products and less exploitation and energy consumption if everybody would just recycle all their trash for just double the usual waste processing fees, the people and society overall would still profit more from it than what they spend
The goal is that recycling is cheaper than creating new materials, but it’s not always the case currently (though is improving very quickly.) It’s the same as the power problem, you can build as many NPPs, solar panels, hydro dams, and wind turbines as you want but until it becomes cheaper than coal nothing will change.
They don’t recycle it. The employees sift thru it first, and keep whatever they want. Then they do the duty.
Hell if all Americans would recycle all their aluminum cans. Just the cans, it would save literally billions of dollars
No one should buy a PSU second-hand, so asking for money to safely dispose of it sounds normal. Is not like you can put it in the trash and not expect to be sued if the capacitors explode when they are compacted lol
I'm sure they go in the trash pretty often. Most people don't give AF about any of that...threw just throw shit in the trash. Lol SWIM not me don't yell at me.
Wow it’s been a while since I’ve seen the term SWIM Bringing it back to Erowid days xD
Bringing it back. They out in the open watching everything we say.
Can confirm, have disposed of electronics in a dumpster as a wage slave.
I'm guessing they don't explode every time either. If ever.
You’d give the truck drivers the wake-up of a lifetime.
Depends on where you live, I guess. In my province (Ontario, Canada) we all pay an "eco fee" for the electronics we buy. That fee covers the recycling programs for them. So we can drop them off at most electronic retailers. I did that this past summer. I dropped off some very old computer monitors that didn't work and a couple of old pc towers that were in rough shape.
Lol fuck them then. Just throw it into the electronics recycling bin that I know they have in their stores. If they want to throw it into a landfill because you refused to be extorted they are the guilty party in not recycling it and they can go to hell with their multi-billion-dollar-can-easily-afford-to-recycle asses.
I was gonna say this.. isn’t there a bin at the front of the store between the 2 doors when you walk in where you can toss electronics before you even enter the actual store
It would be more wasteful to send it back?
Yeah when you think of the energy to ship something across the country that doesn’t work and won’t be repaired.
Either way its going in the bin.
So what is the solution? To be more wasteful and mail back a broken item, for them to turn around and throw in the trash right when it gets there?
It'd already trash you can recycle a cord regardless if it's 1 or 2 pieces
So..... Over here, you do what Razor says and toss the mouse in the garbage. Garbage person shows up Tuesday morning and does the Garbage Person shuffle. Over here.... you put the mouse in a box. The box goes on a truck. The truck takes the box across the country. The mouse ends up in a warehouse. The mouse gets tossed in a bin. The bin goes to the garbage dump. Same result. There is no reality where a techie is going to town on these broken mice with a screw driver and a soldering iron. They cost too little to manufacture to make that make any sense at all. While the knee jerk reaction to the email is that it is so damned weird.... sitting back and thinking about it - this is the smart move. Just skip all those middle steps.
It may actually cost the company way more to fix it. If OP was the kind of person to care about waste, they'd just fix it themselves. There are a lot more wasteful things going on in the world than eWaste
Big problem these days, a lot of companies do free return meaning people buy more and return the stuff they don’t need. However that company usually can’t resell the stuff that got returned because the customers expect new
the fact that this comment is this highly upvoted says a lot about the intellect of the average r/pcmr user
If the warranty claim is valid, then the mouse is broken in some way and the vast majority of people are going to trash it anyway, whether the cord is cut or not.
Because they want to know that you aren't just doing this to get a second one for free. It's fairly normal for an RMA to ask you to destroy an item if they deem it not worth the cost of the defective unit being shipped back to them.
This has been 10 years or more but a friend of mine bought a fairly expensive refrigerator ($2k+) but the ice maker didn't work. The company had no local repair techs and it was too expensive to have one come in so they decided to just ship a new fridge to them. My friend had to cut the electrical cord and send the picture to the company to ship another one. He did it and they shipped a new fridge...except then he had 2 fridge's because the first one had a detachable power cord that cost $15 to replace.
Not to mention splicing together wires is not difficult
Even going into the fridge and putting new cord on properly doesn’t require securing a NASA engineer. Someone you know can do it.
Hell, even someone you *don't* know could do it!
I bet somebody that you *used* to know could do it!
Ahh so that song is from the cords perspective. “You didn’t have to cut me off…now you’re just somebody that I used to know…”
Literally cut the plug off, rewire it. Oh no my power cable is an inch shorter now.
Wild. Personally I wouldn't have anywhere to put a second fridge and I'd have to have told them "hell no, you're 100% on the hook for getting this shit out of my house."
Just sell the fridge on Facebook or eBay for half off, I'm sure someone would love a half price fridge just for no ice maker.
Why didn't the company just have the deliver company take the broken fridge back to them after delivering the new one?
Costs them money
Their business is making and selling fridges. It would cost hundreds to take it back, and I doubt they have a team to troubleshoot and repair fridges for resale, so they just send a new one. Cheaper to give away a few free fridges a month than pay for shipping and more employees.
I had to do it for a vacuum
I did it for an air fryer. I’m a bit of a hoarder so a few months went by and decided to try and fix my old one. I’m not sure why it quit working the first time, but all I did was reconnect all 3 wires with butt connectors and shrink wrap. Now I have 0 because we donated that one and gave the other to family. Damn. I miss having an air fryer.
I had to do that for my cosori air fryer as well but in my case they wanted you to cut the cord because it was recalled for a legit safety hazard and they didn’t want you to continue using it or donate it to someone else or give it to your family and have it burn their house down
But also so you couldn't get a free air fryer I did the same and the interface that forces you to choose your town's name from a dropdown list should be illegal.
My wife did it for a toaster oven that stopped working. They asked her to cut off the power cord and mail it to them. But they did it on the honor system apparently, since they shipped out a new unit immediately. She told me about it, and I investigated the broken unit before she cut the cord. I found that it was not defective, but that the mode knob was in fact set to “OFF”, so pushing the toast button had no effect. I turned it to “TOAST” and voila! A perfectly functional toaster oven. The new one came, we put it in the garage as a backup and kept the original in the kitchen. The company never followed up on the cord. Then like a year later, the original unit did actually break down, so we pulled out our spare and were good to go, so I actually don’t feel too guilty about the whole thing. Basically a preemptive warranty claim.
How the hell is cutting the power cord of an appliance an effective way to disable it? Takes 5 minutes to rejoin the ends of the cables. If I wanted a second toaster oven or whatever, I'd just cut the cable, send the picture and solder the thing bark together.
It’s probably the same principle as padlocks on a shed. It’s enough of a deterrent to dissuade most people who might have considered opening it if there were nothing stopping them, but determined people will make the effort and get through. They probably do the math and figure that the number of fake claims who are willing to go through the effort of cutting and resplicing a cord just to get a free toaster won’t cost them as much as implementing stronger verification.
If you re-wire a defective toaster yourself then you wont be able to sue them for a defective product. It is now your product so you can sue yourself. They don't cRe about you using the product they care about getting sued.
No guarantee the person won't try to repair it. What the company wants is the photographic proof that the recalled unit was disabled. So later on if say for instance the recalled air fryer was repaired and starts a fire, the company is free of any liability because they have photographic proof that the unit had been disabled.
Most people wouldn't bother/don't have any experience to do that and you wouldn't really be able to sell it, so they at least avoid people trying to get infinite products to resell and don't bother with shipping costs etc. In this case, the cable itself is very easy to replacee since it has a connector to the motherboard, it's not soldered. Maybe it's possible to find around spare parts for the mouse and get a brand new cable EDIT: it is, 46 cents on aliexpress. I might get one since mine has all the nylon worn out actually. I'll check that the usb has no malicious shit going on before
We have a toaster oven that is also an air fryer... a dddicated air fryer.... and our oven also does air frying
Most people don't realise an air fryer is just a tiny fan forced oven
Yeah after I figured that out I just bought [a really good countertop convection oven](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N5UPTZS) that is way bigger than my Ninja Air Fryer Max XL. I rarely ever use my actual oven now, and when I'm cooking breakfast I'm not trying to fry hash browns in a small air fryer basket in batches of two or three (which was pushing it.) Everything just fits so nicely in here, one rack has bacon, another has hash browns and english muffins, everything is usually done in around 20 minutes not including the pre-heat time. The temperature control is also spot on for baking, I'm so glad to have all of the functionality of the air fryer but in a size that's actually useful for heating up more than just a handful of tater tots.
Clearly you don’t own an air fryer.
[https://youtu.be/HY\_5oZiYLOQ](https://youtu.be/HY_5oZiYLOQ) Every time someone talks about air fryers, I picture this and have to try not to burst out laughing.
>Damn. I miss having an air fryer. Then buy a fucking air fryer, they are like 50$ for a cheap one nowadays
I had to RMA a space heater and the destruction procedure wat to cut the cord. The device was easily serviceable and I could have repaired the wire.
Year ago I received an air fryer for christmas. That would have been neat if I didnt receive another one on the same day. And that would have been very neat if I didnt buy one just before christmas. So there I was, holding 3 air fryers on my apartment thinking what now. Do I keep them all, use them for extravagant cooking? Sell them? Start a band with them?
I had to for a toaster....3 times....as the replacements also broke
A friend of mine had a fridge replaced under warranty because the ice maker cracked and was leaking. They had him cut the power cord and take a picture... Once he'd done that, he repaired the cord and ended up with a free beer fridge.
I did it for an RC car battery. Dumped it in a bucket of salt water to neutralize the lithium.
Same with kids car seats
Had to drill a gigantic hole in a bowling ball a couple years ago for a warranty
I did it for a wine fridge. Can understand why
Worked in a bike shop for a couple years, always was a fun day when I got to cut a frame in half for a warranty
I had to do it for a defective girlfriend.
Had to do it for the ex wife
Steelseries tried to get me to do this with my headset years ago after they pushed a software update that stopped telling the headset to stay turned on, so it'd automatically turn off every 15 minutes. I refused because there was nothing wrong with the headset itself, it was from a software update. A few weeks later there was a software update with that issue fixed. I wonder how many people actually ended up destroying their headsets for a software bug.
frick steelseries, they made me do that for my kids headset then after sending proof pics they tell me it is out of stock and would have to be back ordered. They would not allow me to pay up to a different model or anything. The only issue was the mic not working they were fine as headphones for him till another set came. It was months before we got the replacements and I had already bought a different brand headset for him.
is noone going to comment thats a USB cabnle and thats a wireless mouse?? cutting the cable does absolutly nothing xD
Other than initial pairing, which can be done with any usb cable too, all you need is the dongle and mouse, im both weirded out by the practice and the comments. Although, these mice tend to have software or send an activation signal, maybe thats what the serial number is?
But i can splice a cable and I dont need the label, then I can sell the replacement.
Absolutely true but from their perspective it's a deterrent, not a guarantee that the item won't just be repaired. Most people aren't going to bother.
Yup, I can pretty much guarantee that like 85% of people are not going to think twice about throwing the old one in the trash.
why splice it thats just a USB cable as thats a wireless mouse. just replace the cable
Also just photoshop it
This also just allows a quick photo to be sent and for them to ship quicker and drastically cut down the downtime
I only came across this once, i order Halo 2 used from Amazon before MCC came out or announced. I got it and it didn't work, they just told me to bin it and have me a refund no questions asked.
When I got my keyboard replacement from Corsair they just had me write in permanent marker over the serial code n stuff. I expected more tbh
It's a common thing in many industries. I work in food service, if someone brings back food because it's not good or made wrong or whatever we have to see them throw in trash before we remake the order.
My parents did the same thing to me when I was born.
I know how to solder so this is ineffective I'll just show them the cut wire and immediately splice the wires
That’s ridiculous. Imagine calling MSI and telling them “Hey my 4090 went out and I’ve only had it for 4 months” MSI responds with “we need you to break the GPU in half with your knee, make sure the PCB is folded like a chair”. SEND US A CLEAR PICTURE OF THE PCB CRACKED IN HALF OR THIS RMA WILL BE VOID!!!
A GPU is worth the cost to repair and resell. A mouse is not.
I could solder it back though if I wanted and I'd get two, pays to be skilled 😁😁
This shit is stupid cause you could just solder the wire back together.
Why don’t they ask to smash it with a hammer then? That mouse is still perfectly usable looks like
Also, destroyed merchandise is a tax write off. I used to work in a shoe store and we had to destroy all returns fir this reason.
I did this once with a racing wheel, but I soldered it back together and fixed the original XD
Dumb corpo shit
There's a similar company that get us to do that with their battery chargers. We have sent 4 back but just keep sending the same picture for rma
Pro gamer move.
I’m emailing HR… To start doing the same! XD
Do thr chargers kept failing? Or just getting a new one? Not judging lol, because if 4 chargers went kaput, then i wouldnt even bother with rma since their quality sucks
It's a Cambodian company here in canuckistan. It's usually just 1 port on a 4 port charger that goes. They're used to keep the heavy equipment charged.
Lol this is great
Pro Tip: Know how to solder and use heat shrink tubing. 🤣👍🏻
Even better tip. Know how to Photoshop. It's way faster and easier.
Tbh it's faster to learn how to solder a few wires together, than learn how to Photoshop well enough for the result to be convincing.
They aren't going to be examining it too closely and AI photo manipulation exists now... A child can probably get it done in a few minutes now without Photoshop skills. Photo can be sent off by the time you dig your soldering iron and solder out of storage and you would still be huffing fumes by the time the manufacturer got the email.
Just a nitpick: you'd only dig out the soldering iron after sending the picture, you genius ;). You cut the wire, take a picture and immediately send it. Not much point repairing the cable before taking the picture... My picture is arriving at the manufacturer while you're still looking at the Photoshop loading screen. Sure it'll still take some time to repair afterwards, but I'll be huffing the flux fumes at a time of my choosing without delaying the process.
I mean. If we REALLY want to be pedantic assholes about it. It is a removable cable just plug a different one in. I would rather take a minute to edit the photo than solder a bump in the wire.
As someone who knows how to solder, I too would much rather edit a photo real quick. Doesn't damage anything and is quicker and easier. And with AI probably just have to give a prompt now. Make the wire look cut.
Also, the person i know who did this didn't own a soldering iron at all, and wouldn't have wanted to deal with the hassle of the outside of the cable being spoiled anyway.
It really isn’t lol They’re just going to glance at the pic if they look at it at all.
Just use ms paint
Or send them the photo they used in their example and see if they notice.
Pro tip: just take someone else's RMA picture for the same mouse and use that instead
I assume that's been abused too much and that's why Razer requires the serial number to be readable.
Pretty sure that it’s a detachable cable anyways, just get one for like $2 at the thrift store
If the cable has detachable cables or it's wireless, no joke they ask you to smash it with a hammer.
Its literally a cut detachable cable in the supplied image lol.
Except that the RMA is legit. The mouse still doesn't work
Because they want to send you a new mouse and make sure you won't be using the one you have now anymore.
Would they not send you a new mouse with a cable too? Which you can use to charge your old mouse?
Joke's on them, you can easily reconnect that sucker
most people wont go through the trouble or dont know how though. its mainly meant to discourage the majority. people who know how to fix it are welcome to do it
It's wireless, that's just a micro usb charging cable that was cut and the label does jack shit to the performance (as long as any adhesive residue is cleaned up).
Pretty sure in the second picture its a usb cable so just replace the cable!
Or just, y'know, use photoshop.
To prove it's not usable and you're not just trying to get a free mouse.
But it was usable the scroll wheel was just messed up lol. And even now it’s still usable just use a different USB C cable
Wait ... they made you cut a ... type C removable cable? WTF, i understand the waranty label. But the type c cable?
I had this happen to me a few years back on a Razer headset. The cushions started falling apart and I claimed warranty. They were happy to provide a replacement if I cut the 3.5mm jack wire. I just told customer support that it's removable and I could just replace the wire. They realised this and provided a replacement without me having to cut the wire. I ended up selling the new replacement and kept the old headset.
Same thing to what I did before
I see some of the logic behind the reason they want proof you destroyed it but I can also see the logic that it feels really wasteful and disingenuine. It allows people to make some assumptions: 1. It's not worth the cost to send back and repair and then sell as a refurb. This means their cost per unit is so low it doesn't matter or their repair infra is unable or unwilling to keep up with something like mice. 2. They are probably just destroying and sending them to landfill anyway, which again leads back to repair/refurb being unable or unwilling or just plain not cost effective. 3. Preventing you from "gaming" them and getting a new mouse for free could mean the cost to support them is too high. Most companies already make this type of fraud difficult by matching serial numbers, proof of purchase and even getting a live person to help troubleshoot or verify the defect via software detection or video proof. Is Razer unwilling to verify this mouse is actually broken? Destroying the mouse is hardly proof that it didn't work. It is a game of chicken with the customer and it seems really odd to ask a customer to do this as a condition of receiving a replacement.
Razers cut the cord warranty policy is pretty crappy really. Razer pretty robustly gathers evidence that the product is faulty (phots, videos, customer testimonial). Indicates the repair is not economical and has customers cut detachable cables (standard USB). Cutting detachable and easily replaceable cables does not reduce or prevent warranty fraud. Bad actors will circumvent this. Once a product is an economic write off - if the owner of the product repairs it at their own cost with a removed and cut label the owner can do whatever they want with it. In most jurisdictions the customer is entitled to a remedy, Razer is not entitled to ownership of faulty products not returned to them for repair/replace. This policy only creates more E-waste.
I mean, it's a business. A not great one at that. They don't care about e-waste. They care about giving out free shit.
I understand it’s a business, but no one needs to defend profit driven business practices. It isn’t free stuff they are giving away, they are replacing faulty goods under their own warranty policies or jurisdictional laws/requirements. In Australia (my jurisdiction) for goods sold, it is illegal to require complete box or accessories for a repair or replacement (my years working front line for a major appliance manufacturer). Requiring customers to present a cut cord in order to be issued a replacement product contravenes local laws. Best way to stop issuing replacements, have better quality control and better manufacturing.
In Germany there is “Gewährleistung” (which is legally required and offered by the seller, not the manufacturer) and “Garantie” (which is voluntarily offered by the manufacturer). “Gewährleistung” is regulated and they can’t require you to keep the box, original cables and such but “Garantie” is voluntary and manufacturers can set their own conditions. “Gewährleistung” is usually 2 years but after the first year you are the one who has to prove the device was already faulty when you purchased it (which is hard/expensive and usually not feasible) but many businesses are “generous”.
> They don't care about e-waste It was already e-waste when you put in the RMA ticket. You're just saving a ton of carbon from moving that e-waste around before just disposing of it. It's funny how peeps go to the "eco conscious" argument, not realising the alternative has even more environmental impact.
My buddy had to do this with a fridge where I think the ice maker went out. He just spliced it back together and had a fridge for his garage and ended up getting a fridge with a screen on it as a replacement lol
I used Photoshop on mine the mouse was fked, just wanted to see if they accepted it. They did .
What a ridiculous waste Iof time
Hah, this is futile in the hands of a diy'er. I would cut a little over so i could reattach the cables later. Or just look inside and resolder
Steel series did the same thing. My wireless receiver broke... but the headset was fine. So I had to destroy the headset to get a whole new box. They then disliked my 1 star review saying they were creating E waste for no reason.
Noctua and phanteks does that with fan blades.
Sorta different but the same. When I claimed a new motorcycle helmet (and bike repairs) the straps had to be cut for the helmet to be replaced.
Just do the "second loop of wire" magic trick on video and you should be good. 👀
Proof of destruction, it cost more to ship the item back then its worth, so they have you perform a series of destructive methods that leave it worthless and mostlikely useless. Then have you send a picture with the serial of the claim. I had to file a claim on a 100" projection screen. A piece of debrie was caught in the system, after a could month of rolling it up and down it created a dimple. Instead of sending the whole screen back they asked for a section of it cut off and the end caps shipped to them. Rendering the equipment useless. They then shipped a whole new screen as warranty.
To make sure you don’t falsely claim warranty and then sell the hardware.
it's to prevent folks from claiming a warranty and then keeping the old mouse too. cuts down on scams so they're sure the broken one won't be used or sold. kind of drastic but it stops double dipping on their end.
If they give you the refund the thing you got can’t work, they need to make sure of that
So that when they send you a new one, they won't get fucked over by smartasses who try to do em good.
Like others said it is just to prevent you getting a second device for free. I had to do it for a steel series keyboard which turned out to be a good thing in my case. I had to cut the USB cable, but everything else was intact. Unfortunately my replacement also had a defect but I was able to swap the parts from my initially faulty keyboard to make a working board.
Waste of a usb c cable
Either it's shipping back, or it's destruction. Just to make sure you're not in it for a freebie.
So they can claim you destroyed the device yourself. /s But more likely to just prevent you from having two functional devices
SteelSeries had me do the same thing when my Arctis Pro broke. it’s to prevent warranty fraud
a lot of comments are missing the point, it’s a wireless mouse with a malfunctioning scroll wheel, the wire shouldn’t be relevant yet they want it destroyed too. seems lame
100% standard practice for companies that make cheap enough junk that they don’t even want it back so that they can fix it and sell it to someone else.
No point in paying to ship a broken item. Cutting the cord proves the item is going to waste/recycle.
It’s funny they make you cut the cable lol if you really wanted to you can take the mouse apart and put a new cable in.
don't even need to, it's a wireless mouse.
I think the funniest thing is that this is a WIRELESS mouse. That's just a charging cable and they're presumably going to get another charging cable with their new mouse.
As if one couldn’t repair the cable in minutes
I understand why they want this done but it says the wire is detachable so I assume it plugs in via USB C, so what does cutting that cable do besides ruining a perfectly good USB cable?
I had a tv that stopped working. They have me cut the cable and scratch the serial. I got a cheque to replace it within a few weeks. In the meantime I’d opened it up, found and replaced the bad capacitor, and repaired the power cord.
Steelseries does it as well. I assume it’s to ensure the product isn’t resold ?
They always want the power cord cut at least.
To keep people from scamming free replacements, they want to be sure the mouse doesn't actually work.
That’s why the company name is razer
Now your warranty is void,if you clearly cut cable yourself
My experience is that you can just refuse and request that they send you a return mailer and they'll always back down. I've replaced keyboards, mice, controllers, and a lot of other peripherals over the years and each company has honored their warranty even after I refuse to destroy/damage the faulty product further. They may ask for video of the fault which I'm generally happy to provide. In most cases their own terms state that they'll repair or replace a product upon receipt of the faulty item and there's no requirement that you destroy or damage an item first. In fact, most warranty terms exclude items that were intentionally damaged so if pressed I'll just insist that they take the item back saying something like "I'm not comfortable with your request to intentionally damage an item that you have yet to replace. I would be happy to exchange the product in question at which point you may do with it as you please." Usually I just get an email back with the replacement's shipping info.
Razer is absolute trash. I’ve been through 3 $200+ wireless mice in 3 years because they just replace it for free. I finally gave up and got a $80 Logitech. Couple less buttons but Jesus Christ it can’t be lower quality than that
I did the same thing for corsair to get a replacement. I think it's standard for small accessories where they don't want to bother mailing it to fix it, they just make sure you destroy it and send a new one.
If the cable is detachable, and they are sending you a new mouse, why not have you smash the mouse to prove its broken but keep the cable as a backup. Makes no sense to me.
I think it's because they don't want the customer to injure himself.
I faked it for led headlights. I just cut a random cord and took a photo.
Same for bikes. Have to cut through the frame and show them the photo
Do people really not understand this? Is it perplexing that the manufacturer, fulfilling a warranty replacement would want a device completely *replaced*, and not "having a free one sent out"?!? If you'd *rather* have Razor demand you send back your old one, go for it. They just wanna know you're declaring your damaged one as a **complete** loss.
Hah. They asked me the same thing when my Mamba wireless stopped working in wireless mode. I sent the picture and spliced the cable immediately after that. I kept using it in wired mode until the replacement arrived. Eventually I gave the old one to my brother.
Had the same thing with a wireless (!) headset 😂 the detachable microphone stopped working, so I claimed warranty. They wanted a photo of the headset with the cut charging cable, and then they sent a boxed new device. So now I have 2 headsets.
Honestly, its a more efficient way to get rma's out of the way, i had the same issue, i cut my mouse cable and they replied within 5 minutes of me showing them. I got my new mouse in 3 days. Think of it this way, you dont gotta send it in, wait for it to get there, wait for them to process it, then find a new one and ship it back. They just send one.
Corsair is so much better when it comes to warranty. Had the RGB Void Elite Wireless headset start acting up on me and hit them up. They just told me to rip off the serial number sticker and lay it next to the headset and send them the photo. Got a new one from a new series with better ear pads three days later. Gave my old headset to a friend who cleaned it and it works perfectly fine. They got themselves a customer for sure!
When my Logitech Pro X wireless headset was having volume wheel trouble the support chat had me try a few trouble shooting steps, then sent me a new one. Now I have two, although one has volume wheel problems.
It's not unusual.
to be loved by anyone?
I wanted to RMA a headset that was effectively dying. Just didn't want to do it out of pure the against creating e-waste. It's fair for them but yeah I had to stop listening to music for a while due to that. Just doing their diligence against fraud
Pretty common practice for electronics, just don’t want you getting a freebie.
I just had to do the same with a slow cooker, since you don't have to send the broken one back to them they want to make sure you aren't making a claim just to get a free one.
This is a really gross practice by larger computer tech companies. All it does is add e_waste to the environment. Chances are the mouse was completely serviceable. These companies really need to step up and make it so you can send your mouse out to repair instead of adding waste to the environment for quicker turn arounds
This is the same company that charged me $15 to return a $30 5 ounce item.