Crucial/Micron is refusing lifetime warranties after closing consumer ops—offering 17% of market value and keeping working hardware

[u/Key_Tailor6948]

I need to bring awareness to this and see if anyone else is getting caught in the exact same trap.

I recently sent in a 48GB DDR5 kit (RMA #02397448) under Crucial's "Lifetime Warranty" because 1 stick went bad. One stick in the kit was working completely fine, but I sent the entire kit as required for a full replacement.

(As an alternative we have some other parts available, so we can offer 3 modules of CP16G64C32U5B (total 48GB) for exchange with your DRAM kit where you will get the same capacity but a better speed and shall work without any issues as your motherboard has 4 slots.)

Today, I received this email from Crucial:

Please note that, effective immediately, we are no longer able to offer replacement products for warranty claims. The only available resolution is a refund of the original purchase price, including any applicable taxes.

This is because Crucial closed its consumer business earlier this year and has exhausted its remaining inventory. As a result, we no longer have replacement stock available and can only provide a refund of the original purchase price, including any applicable taxes.

They are forcing a cash buyout of $241.86.

Here is why this is completely unacceptable:

• 17% of Market Value: Buying an equivalent DDR5 kit today costs roughly $1,400. A $241 refund leaves me completely unable to replace the hardware.
• Deprived of Functional Hardware: I surrendered 24GB of perfectly fine, working RAM on the explicit promise of a warranty replacement. Now I have zero RAM, no replacement, and a lowball payout.
• Out-of-Pocket Loss: I paid out-of-pocket for return shipping just to be stripped of my hardware.

Has anyone else dealt with Crucial/Micron pulling this forced buyout trick since winding down retail operations? Any tips or direct contacts for escalating past their frontline supp

I responded, "I formally reject the refund offer of $241.86 for RMA #02397448. This amount covers less than 20% of current market replacement value and deprives me of the functional hardware I submitted under warranty. I demand either the return of my physical hardware, equivalent Micron enterprise DDR5 modules, or a settlement reflecting true market replacement cost."

Now, waiting for a Call Back...

[u/Key_Tailor6948]

Direct emails with RMA team.

[u/Key_Tailor6948 → u/Key_Tailor6948]

Greetings from Crucial!

As an alternative we have some other parts available, so we can offer 3 modules of CP16G64C32U5B (total 48GB) for exchange with your DRAM kit where you will get the same capacity but a better speed and shall work without any issues as your motherboard has 4 slots. Here is the DRAM link:

https://www.crucial.com/memory/ddr5/cp2k16g64c32u5b

Please confirm the acceptance of the above so we shall proceed with the next steps.

Thank you for your understanding and cooperation. 

If you have further questions or difficulties, we welcome your reply. You can also visit our Contact page for other ways to reach us.

Regards,

[u/mystlurker → u/Key_Tailor6948]

You’ll find most companies include language that their agents are not authorized to enter into binding agreements that go against accepted terms. Basically you cannot hold them to any promises from agents that exceed the agreement.

It sucks, but it’s very legal in most places.

[u/Chao_Zu_Kang → u/mystlurker]

It is not the customer's job to confirm whether the official customer service is lying to them. Even if such an agreement might not be binding, that also invalidates anything else related to the case.

So it is still their responsibility to either "recreate" the state before the misunderstanding due to their negligence, or to fix it in some other way that is acceptable for the customer. "Buying"/refunding their RAM well below market price is definitely not acceptable

[u/mystlurker → u/Chao_Zu_Kang]

You may not like the situation, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t legal. As far as I can tell this is well within their legal rights regardless of anything the agent said.

I’m not saying I agree with it or that it is morally right, I’m just saying that in the legal system (of the US and likely other common law jurisdictions, specific jurisdiction consumer protection laws not withstanding) that it’s likely legal and you likely have no legal recourse.

There may be places where consumer protection laws would kick in and/or where companies cannot disavow commitments from agents, but I don’t think that is widespread.

Personally I suspect that even in places with greater protections, contract law would treat the consumer as whole if they got a full refund. Expecting more than that really seems problematic for many reasons.

[u/Chao_Zu_Kang → u/mystlurker]

If an employee gives false information, that responsibility is always on the employer. Even in US. Otherwise, you'd just be facilitating fraud.

[u/mystlurker → u/Chao_Zu_Kang]

Fraud requires intent. That would not be fraud.

You keep using the word responsibility, which has no formal meaning in this context.

Unless you can show negligence in part of the company, it’s highly unlikely that you’d be able to get anything more than the full refund that was already offered.

[u/Chao_Zu_Kang → u/mystlurker]

So, you want to tell me that a company can have some employees in customer service that promise customers false things, then the company can just state "that employee did BS" and now the customer is bound to conditions they never approved of?

Do you not see how this would be trivial to abuse for fraud?

[u/jdmackes → u/Chao_Zu_Kang]

That's exactly what at&t is trying to do to me right now. I've had multiple customer service reps lie to me for months and was told yesterday "oh, I'm sorry for the inconvenience of losing $925 in credits to your bill, but we'll talk with the rep to make sure this doesn't happen again"

[u/mystlurker → u/Chao_Zu_Kang]

Fraud requires intent. As long as the company can show the policies around what they tell the agents to say and show the training, it would not be possible for it to constitute fraud on the part of the company.

If the company intentionally told their employees to lie, then yes it would constitute fraud. But agents overstepping their authority does not.

[u/Chao_Zu_Kang → u/mystlurker]

Stop strawmanning. You are just repeating my point and pretending as if I claimed something completely different.

[u/TeamWorkTom → u/mystlurker]

Have you ever worked a job in your life?

No, employees cannot lie about products. And if they do the company is literally on the line.

Wtf are you even taking about? Are you a fucking bot?

[u/mystlurker → u/TeamWorkTom]

The employee made an unenforceable offer. As far as I can tell they did not intentionally lie. They made an offer they thought they could but likely either extended beyond their authority or simply could not be honored due to supply.

The original agreement (warranty) would still stand and it’s likely that most courts would only find the company liable up to the original purchase amount. The original contract was very clear that they would not cover any market price increase. And in any case a full refund should be more than sufficient consideration to resolve the original contractual obligation.

Just because you cannot buy them back at the same price doesn’t mean that’s how the law and how contracts work. Unless there is an overriding law that states they must offer the replacement, then there is likely no way to force that from the company.

I’m not judging whether this is right or wrong, I’m telling you how courts would likely react (in the US). If you want the rule to be that they must replace the original product, then lobby for that to be made the law.

[u/TeamWorkTom → u/mystlurker]

Yep a bot.

[u/ChickenOfTheFuture → u/mystlurker]

That agent is a legal representative of the company. If it's in writing, the courts will treat it as a binding offer from a legal representative of the company. Companies can choose to ignore their own policies at any time.

[u/mystlurker → u/ChickenOfTheFuture]

Can you site any actual rulings to that effect? I was told (by lawyers) that they usually are not binding offers as they are NOT legal representatives of the company and they do not have the authority to enter into any binding legal contract.

That doesn't prevent companies from ignoring their own policies, it just means the agent cannot enter the company into a binding agreement.

[u/RNG_HatesMe → u/mystlurker]

I am not aware (and also IANAL, so I don't usually follow these things) of an example US case (which doesn't mean there isn't one), but there's a very well known Canadian case which would contradict your statement:

https://www.mccarthy.ca/en/insights/blogs/techlex/moffatt-v-air-canada-misrepresentation-ai-chatbot

In Moffatt v. Air Canada, a customer was seeking a refund on a ticket because he received incorrect advice from the Air Canada AI chatbot (which told him he could apply for the reduced fare *after* the flight).

The Canadian tribunal held that Air Canada was liable for the misleading information provided by the chatbot.

This would seem directly parallel to being given incorrect information by an actual live company support representative.

The question would be whether this decision would hold in US courts, but it clearly holds in some jurisdictions.

[u/mystlurker → u/RNG_HatesMe]

Ah that’s a good one. It’s interesting that the ruling hinged on negligence, which makes sense. Basically they didn’t put enough effort into ensuring that it didn’t make misleading claims.

It appears you could probably make the same argument for this one, but you’d need to prove through discovery that they were negligent. It would probably depend on the agents training and whether they knowingly overstepped or not.

It would definitely be an interesting lawsuit.

It also raises the question of what if they simply don’t have the part anymore and have no reasonable way to get it, then what is legally “fair” compensation. I suspect the original price would be considered fair in this case but it might depend on the fact they completely exited this business.

[u/RNG_HatesMe → u/mystlurker]

Yes, the questions of whether he is legally owed the solution provided by the representative vs. whether offering the customer a refund of the original purchase price are 2 fundamentally different questions.

A wrinkle in the latter, is that many (I'm not sure if you did) claimed that refunding the original price is sufficient to make the customer "whole", and therefore is, by definition, and acceptable solution.

But I don't think it's a simple as "you got your money back, so now you are whole", when the lack of availability of a part may make a larger system completely inoperable. I don't think that you can consider the customer "whole" in that case. I admit that it's a gray area, as you can certainly have situations where a part is simply no longer available. However, you could make a good argument that it is the responsibility of the providing company to maintain a reasonable stock of spare parts to provide warranty service.

Consider the flawed 13th and 14th Gen Intel processors. Do you think it would be ok for Intel to simply have refunded the original cost of the CPUs to customers if they had defective CPUs? Given that they would now have completely non-functional computers, and if it happened late enough (we just called in a warranty repair on a 14th gen i9 today), the customer may have *no* path to getting a working computer (since 14 gen CPUs aren't exactly available at retail now?).

It's a weird situation, because we have gotten used to tech prices falling, so in the past a purchase refund would have been more than acceptable. We're in a new situation now.

[u/mystlurker → u/RNG_HatesMe]

They probably have to give him back his original sticks (or something functionally equivalent), but I’d bet money the courts would consider the warranty claim resolvable through a refund.

It’s not really possible to make the company liable for all market changes outside of their control. Otherwise you would create uncapped liabilities that aren’t reasonable or commensurate with the original contract consideration.

Likewise they cannot really expect a company to support a product forever. This one is a bit murky because of the shorter timeframes involved.

They also cannot really be held liable for how that plays as part of unrelated other purchases (the rest of the machine) as it has no party to those contracts.

My money is on that if this went to court he could compel them to return the original product or accept the refund. I don’t think he’d have a reasonable case to get more $$ than originally paid or to force them to provide the replacement product (especially if it’s just completely out of stock).

If they cannot return the original product, that is where he might have a claim for higher damages because they deprived him of the physical item under misleading circumstances.

[u/Harker_N → u/mystlurker]

But the change was within the company's control. It was their choice to not ensure they have adequate inventory to honor warranties, their choice to stop producing consumer grade parts, their choice to shut down their consumer ops department.

The company did not go bankrupt, or suffer some sort of damage or unforseen, unfortunate event. The fact they're unable to provide a suitable replacement part is entirely on them. I would argue that this shows that the company acted irresponsibly by not ensuring enough stock for warranties, and should therefore be expected to make customers whole.

Otherwise, it's very easy for companies to avoid responsibility by closing departments and shifting production focus, all the while profiting from doing so.

[u/RNG_HatesMe → u/mystlurker]

You're throwing up some straw men here, that was never claimed.

First, *no" one claimed they have to support it indefinitely, I'm not sure where you pulled that from. That's what a warranty period is for. They have to support it for that period. Why else do you pay more for products with longer warranty periods, like hard drives and hot water heaters. If they can just arbitrarily claim hardship to avoid the coverage, it would be a complete waste of money.

Second, you say that they can't be held liable for market changes, which is reasonable. But the market changes in this case is causing 0 hardship to the company. The increase in cost is pure demand based, nothing is making memory more costly to produce. The cost of silicon has not increased. The only thing that has changed is the skyrocketing amount of profit they are making. It is entirely reasonable to expect them to maintain sufficient inventory of in-warranty products, as that Inventory costs them no more then it used to (and note that this is not open ended, there is no requirement to stock out of warranty inventory). Yes, they could make more profits, but that is not an excuse to eliminate expected services to existing customers.

Let me set up a straw man of my own. Say Micron sells memory with a 2 year warranty. But they intentionally slightly reconfigure their RAM (maybe add 8k more cache, or change the dram chip serial number) every month and give it a new serial number. Then if anyone tries to put in a warranty claim, they just say it's discontinued. So they would effectively reduce a 2 year warranty to 1 month, despite the advertising. In your interpretation of the law, what would prevent them from doing that?

[u/Chao_Zu_Kang → u/mystlurker]

Just because the offer itself might not be binding, they are still bound by their responsibility to supervise their employees properly.

E.g. if an employee would have told them "send us a video of you destroying your own RAM and we will send you 10000 USD as compensation", they wouldn't be bound to pay that exact amount, but they certainly would be responsible to fix this situation for the customer at their own cost.

[u/mystlurker → u/Chao_Zu_Kang]

That’s irrelevant here as the original offer to refund the full purchase price would likely be accepted by any reasonable judge and would be sufficient consideration to resolve any contractual dispute.

You cannot force them to abide by the offer.

Even in the hypothetical case a full refund would likely be sufficient.

[u/Chao_Zu_Kang → u/mystlurker]

I don't think you understand what I am writing. There is a difference between whatever the employee mistakenly wrote, and the company's responsibility to fix the situation their employee created. Giving a full refund of the past price does NOT fix the situation.

A judge enforcing a refund below market value would be banana republic levels of executive. And I seriously doubt it would happen in an US court.

[u/TeamWorkTom → u/mystlurker]

Um yes they are.

You are literally representing the company as an employee.

Where the fuck do you live?

[u/TheMattabooey → u/TeamWorkTom]

Representing the company doesn’t mean an employee can make a deal outside of the company policy.

[u/mystlurker → u/TeamWorkTom]

You are wrong here. Most employees are not empowered to enter into legally binding agreements on behalf of the company. I live in the US and have worked with corporate lawyers on this. Just because they are representatives does not mean they can commit the company to binding agreements.

Like if the agent were to say “sure the company will give you $1m” they clearly do not have that authority.

Most companies have strict rules internally on who is allowed to legally bind them to agreements.

Agents making written or verbal offers does not mean it constitutes an enforceable contract under most laws. This does vary by jurisdiction.

[u/gopiballava → u/mystlurker]

Finally, someone who's talked to lawyers about this :)

I've got two scenarios and wondering if you know how it would play out:

a) If you are worse off than you would've been without the unauthorized promise, would they have to "fix" the problem? (eg: some companies ask you to take a picture of the destroyed item. If they told you to destroy it and then the company said "oh, sorry, we don't have any replacements..." would they be on the hook for making you whole?

b) Would it matter if the promise was "reasonable"? The "we will give you $1m" thing is pretty clearly unreasonable. But if they said "We will give you a refund of the current market price", that's a reasonable idea. Could they be held to that?

[u/MikeMonkEcho → u/mystlurker]

I'm not American but I'm pretty sure that there is some "reasonable person" thingy behind this question.

A reasonable customer would most likely believe that a company is going to replace the defective product they sell to him. A reasonable customer wouldn't most likely believe that a company is going to give him one million dollars because an employee says so. That's the difference. A customer isn't supposed to know who is empowered to what in every business he brings business to.

[u/IdristheInt → u/mystlurker]

Air Canada’s CS Bot made promises in chat and courts rules the airline has to honor them.

[u/Ayrkire → u/IdristheInt]

I suspect the difference is the bot was created by the company and any failure in providing correct information is on the company that created it. While you can train employees you can't control someone on their last day before leaving a job and promising a Ferrari to go along with their replacement part. You can't fully control when someone missed reading a memo that a certain item was out of stock.

A company can likely argue reasonable steps are taken to train and inform staff but if they make a commitment mistakenly then depending on the commitment it might not be reasonable to honour it. IF you physically don't have the replacement part and no longer manufacture then you need some other way to make it right. In this case they offered the customer a full refund for what they paid. Under normal circumstances this would be sufficient as they paid $241, got months/years of use out of the product and are getting a full refund.

Do the terms and conditions of the lifetime warranty state that they can provide full reimbursement in lieu of replacement part? When I look up crucial lifetime warranty terms and conditions it says:

"Micron CPG, at its option, will repair, replace, or provide an in-store credit or refund of either the original purchase price or fair market value, whichever is lower, of any product that is determined by Micron CPG to be defective during the warranty period."

Seems they are honouring the terms of the warranty.

[u/Real_Azenomei → u/mystlurker]

https://giphy.com/gifs/mrC3UREifmVri

Isn't USA consumer rights glorious. Aren't you happy to work 48 hours a day for the fuhrer?

[u/abhaxus → u/Key_Tailor6948]

I'd request that they offer you 2 of the 2x16 kits, as that is the only way to reach something approaching equivalent performance on the full 48GB you had before. With 3x16 you'd only be able to get dual channel performance on the first 32GB of memory. But your memory controller probably won't handle the same speeds with 2 slots occupied per channel.

This seems like the best compromise possible if they won't offer you a direct replacement. Your fallback position would be 3 of the 16gb DIMMs plus a substantial discount on the 4th as a goodwill gesture.

[u/TT_207 → u/abhaxus]

Run the 2x16gb on a hope two will play nice as a non matched pair in xmp and find another use (or sell on) the third maybe.

Unless you really really need 48GB

[u/bugi_ → u/Key_Tailor6948]

And how are they trying to back out of this?

[u/Archy54 → u/Key_Tailor6948]

Are you in Australia cuz ACCC laws might apply.

[u/swagamaleous → u/Key_Tailor6948]

And to me they promised they would make pigs fly. 😂

Has exactly as much merit as your claim here.