I finally got my RMA yesterday evening, nearly four full business days from the initial report. I got a second email from them on Thursday nearly 72 hours from the time I made my first report and 48 hours after their first email. It basically told me to calm down, the RMA process takes from 24 to 48 hours to complete (um, did this person not realise that sounded pretty dumb in my case?), plus they asked me AGAIN if I had proof of purchase.
At any rate, I now have an RMA and I have a better feel for the incompetence of UE's customer support.
1. Registering with them seems to be largely pointless. They don't actually use ANY of the data from the web form in the process.
2. They can set up auto-respond emails for their monthly contest web form, but not the RMA request web form. Which of these goes the furthest in keeping the customer pleased?
3. Customer service is a secondary job for someone or someones that isn't handled full time. That, or their incompetent implementation of automating the RMA process results in them tied up on the phone all day with angry customers so they can't actually process the "automated" system that got the customers angry in the first place.
4. Speaking of automating the RMA process, how hard would it be to have a couple of drop downs, certain combinations of which, for example, a physically cracked housing and proof of purchase, resulted in the RMA number being automatically generated and sent immediately?
Regardless, I'll take a competent replacement with a new product than the faster responses I got from Sennheiser and Audio Technica in the past, neither of which were satisfactory in the end. Sennheiser managed to send me the completely wrong model of headphones (sent in PX100s, got HD500A Therapeutic Headphones in return). AT insisted on actually repairing my defunct ATH-EC7s instead of replacing them, then went on to use cheaper cabling that failed at the site of repair a bit over two months after I got them back. If I can get a new replacement in around two weeks, I'll consider it adequate.