Buying a Retail Kingston Flash Drive with Warranty is as good as one with no warranty

[Free Radical]

Let me inaugurate this new subforum with my harrowing experience with Kingston's "warranty".

I had procured a retail 2GB Kingston DataTraveller 100 on March 10th, 2009 which carries 5 year warranty as depicted in the following scans of the original sealed packing it came in.

(Yes I retain the packing)

Shortly after an year of use, the pen drive stopped being detected in Windows.
I attribute this to wear and tear as I do use my pen drives frequently.

I promptly gave it for RMA through SMC. The RMA request was denied attributing it to physical damage
During my use, the pen drive never left my desktop drawer and has never been carried out of my home. It was only used for booting windows setup / bartpe.
I have never ever even dropped the pen drive, but if Kingston pen drives are as prone to physical damage in a desk drawer (which I doubt is even the case here), they simply make inferior products and complement it with non-existent warranty and dicey service.

Now whats more interesting is the fact that I even own a Corsair Flash Voyager 4GB which had died one month after my Kingston.

As Sachin / harryneopotter will bear witness, (he had accompanied me), I had submitted both my pen drives, the Corsair and the Kingston at their respective service centers on the same day. But... but, when I went to the Corsair Service Center in Nehru Place, the good lady there promptly hooked my defective Corsair Flash Voyager to her desktop, checked its warranty by serial number (I had offered her to look at the bill but she said it was not needed), and gave me a brand new sealed replacement that very moment!

I hanged around a couple of minutes to get a printed receipt. All this took a max 10 minutes with the Corsair.

However, I only got word from the guys who handle Kingston's warranty after almost 3 weeks that my drive had suffered physical damage.

You all can comprehend my displeasure at this.

I would never recommend anyone to buy a Kingston flash drive as their warranty counts to nothing.

They make flimsy products which never last their intended product cycle and then they decline an RMA citing petty reasons.

Sure even a 10 year warranty rugged, Corsair Flash Voyager didn't last 2 and a half years of usage at my hands, but apparently Kingston's products and warranty won't do you any good.

Thankfully, a pen drive doesn't cost much but it speaks a lot about the ethos of the company and the people behind it.

Corsair

Kingston

You not only lost a pen drive customer but even a prospective RAM buyer.
I know I won't buy anything from Kingston again. The rest of you can take your pick.

[ManISinJpr ♦]

That is actually bad, I mean the reaction and the non fulfilment of the warranty of your pen drive.
I liked Kingston in the early years of its availability in India only for their Value Rams... never bought stuff from then again, will advice more people not to buy Kingston products.
Thanks for sharing the info.
and Yeah I only have Corsair pen drives now and I am simply floored that they even send the caps FREE to your doorstep if you fill up a form on their website.

[Free Radical]

AND they swap their defective product no questions asked....literally.
I experienced it first hand.

[vijayninel]

Thanks for sharing your experiences with us Free Radical. This will be useful to us while making purchase decisions.

Corsair products are generally on the higher end of the price range but it seems that it may be worth the price.

[baba doga]

thanks for sharing.

does corsair make large capacity usb drives? like 320giggers?

[kauffmann]

Thanks for sharing your experience, I'll surely be buying Corsair from now on. Btw, who handles Kingston RMA?

[Free Radical]

Accel

[kauffmann]

no wonder, really. I gave my Seagate IDE HDD for RMA and trust me, it's in a FUBAR'd condition, they simply returned it back saying that it passed their tests, so its working fine.

[baba doga]

^ hope you have a paper trail. next thing to do is to pay them another visit with a little more firm attitude. another refusal and we'll take it forward from there. of course, paper trail most necessary.

[ManISinJpr ♦]

^^ You are right, I had a 500 GB HDD which was showing spin retry error count on the higher side, I took it to Accel and they took it, after 15 days they returned it saying it was fine !!
then I gave it back again, again the same thing.
Next time, I went there and shouted a little ( I mean less than a LOT ) and it was changed in 7 days flat and a new one was sent to me
The power of Nuisance is worshipped in India, unfortunately.

[JD666]

never had a chance to try corsair, but i swear by sandisk when it comes to Pen drives, fast and reliable. Kingston ive got a few lying around, but they slow down over a period of time.

[WolVerInE]

Thanx FR .. I'll be on corsair or sandisk from now and will tell my friends too.

[ViKiD]

I Just went Corsair myself!

[mavihs]

does corsair change physically damaged pen drives?

[KiD0M4N]

Originally Posted by mavihs does corsair change physically damaged pen drives?

I wouldn't be surprised if that is rejected.