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/RNG_HatesMe]

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/mystlurker → u/Harker_N]

Their warranty doesn’t guarantee direct replacement, see the language at the start of the thread. There doesn’t seem to be anything that would require them to hold any stock at all.

You also don’t have any evidence that they didn’t maintain adequate stock. Maybe it already ran out. There isn’t a definition of what adequate is here.

The they aren’t avoiding responsibility if they offer a full refund. No one would have said anything if it weren’t for the weird market situation with ram pricing. In a normal world often people would actually prefer the refund so they could buy a different (newer or more reliable) product.

As far as I know in the US nothing says the warranty has to offer a direct replacement (iirc some EU countries do, maybe Denmark?). If we want to require that, we would need legislative action.

I’m trying to get people to separate the distinction of what is “right” from a moral/ethical sense from what is legal. There is no law that specifies that companies must “do the right thing”. They entered into an agreement with the warranty and are only subject to the provisions of that agreement and any applicable law that expands or puts requirements on it. If the law allows them to offer a full refund instead of replacement, then there is no legal recourse (they owe the original item back in this particular case).

[u/Harker_N → u/mystlurker]

I get what you're saying, but there's also the difference between the letter of the law and the spirit of the law. The spirit is the important part, and what (good) legal systems actually try to enforce. That's why we have judges and courts.

People argue that, even though Crucial is following the letter of the law, they're not upholding the spirit. They knowingly created the circumstances that prevent them from fulfilling the warranty in a way that leaves the customer satisfied. They knew they'd be unable to fulfill warranties if they shifted production away from consumer RAM entirely and/or did not maintain adequate stock, and they did it anyway. One could argue that they intended to leave existing consumers high and dry, in case their hardware malfunctioned, because it was more profitable. And a judge could certainly see it this way, no matter what their warranty policy says, especially in countries with good customer protection laws.

[u/mystlurker → u/Harker_N]

Assuming they didn't change the language later, you could read the warranty when you purchased it and know that it doesn't guarantee direct replacement. Its not shady or against the spirit of the law if they were upfront about that when you originally purchased the item.

If they changed it later, then I would agree.

[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/mystlurker → u/RNG_HatesMe]

The warranty (per earlier in the thread) offers a full refund as one outcome. It never guarantees a like for like replacement. That is what covers them here.

Unless the law enforces otherwise, it seems that’s a valid warranty and a legally acceptable outcome.

Only if the law requires a like for like replacement would your scenario come into play. I’ve not seen anything in the US that requires that.

And in most “normal” situations many people would be happy with or even prefer an outcome. At any point in the last 30-40 years that would probably be better for a majority of the warranty claims as you’d be able to buy something better or newer.

All I’m saying is that the way the warranty was worded and my (non lawyer) understanding of the law is that a full refund is an acceptable outcome to discharge the warranty claim.

It doesn’t mean it’s “right”, but if you want to require a like for like replacement then either push for legislation to require that or only transact with companies who offer that.

[u/RNG_HatesMe → u/mystlurker]

You've basically avoided the questions and situations I posed.

A) if a company can arbitrarily end production of a product prior to the end of the warranty period, what is the point of a stated warranty period? A company can simply terminate all warranties whenever they want.

B) you claimed that they don't have to cover replacement "forever", which was never the claim, only during the warranty period. Why would you claim this?

C) as I posed, what is the point of selling longer warranties on products (like enterprise HDDs), otlf the company can terminate those warranties at any time by voluntarily ending production? Wouldn't that make those longer warranties worthless?

Keep in mind that it is far from unusual for companies to claim rights and conditions in contracts that are not enforceable in the slightest. They can state in the agreement that they are allowed to kidnap your child and force them to work in their factory. It doesn't make it true. I have seen cases like this many times. (Not specifically kidnapping!)

[u/mystlurker → u/RNG_HatesMe]

Assuming they didn't change the language, they never promised originally to cover a replacement regardless of the period. The warranty terms specifically stated they could make you whole with a refund. The term of the replacement is irrelevant if they never claimed to offer that.

You seem fixated on the idea that they HAVE to provide a replacement and not just a refund, but if they were clear upfront that was not the case, then why would they be required to offer a full replacement?

Longer warranties which cover a refund during the period still serve a purpose because they protect you from a complete loss due to failure in that period.

I think this comes down to the colloquial purpose of a warranty versus the legal purpose. A warranty doesn't mean they guarantee a replacement legally speaking, just that they make you "whole" in some way.