[mister__big]

I'm done with Shure. Their "customer service" completely reeks of sheer incompetence and ineptitude. After waiting for a reply from Dan from Shure USA for a whole week (while sending him reminder emails nearly daily), I still have not received any response. Finally I fire off another email to both service@shure.com and support@shure.com, and I received the following canned response from them:

*******
Technical support for customers in Asia, Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific region is handled by Shure Asia. A copy of your email inquiry has been sent to Shure Asia at: techsupport@shure.com.hk Please send subsequent email about this inquiry directly to Shure Asia. To contact Shure Asia: Shure - Sitemap - Looking for Something?
*******

So not only did they not read my complaint (I had ALREADY contacted Shure Asia), they are basically giving me the good ol' runaround and refusing to acknowledge the problem. This is one of the worst "customer service" I have ever seen from a major company and to me it shows that Shure basically couldn't give a crap about their customers.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, I sent a question to Westone via Twitter and not only did I receive a response quickly, Lynn Kehler (the CEO of Westone) personally replied to me as well. And I hadn't even bought anything from them! I'm seriously considering buying a Westone UM3X (to replace the E500) now after seeing their customer service in action.

In conclusion, Shure will never receive my business ever again, and I will be sure to tell everyone whom I recommended Shure to previously about this incident. I used to be a Shure supporter (as evidenced by me owning the E3c, the E4g and the E500), but they have lost all of my goodwill because of their draconian warranty policies and non-existent customer service. I hope potential Shure customers will take notice.

 

[digivate]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mister__big /img/forum/go_quote.gif I'm seriously considering buying a Westone UM3X (to replace the E500) now after seeing their customer service in action.

Well you better buy the UM3x from an authorized dealer as Westone have exactly the same policy for their extended warranty (which is a totally reasonable policy in my opinion).

If you don't want to get burnt don't try and buy underpriced items from eBay. Simple!

 

[f00fighters]

I got an email from Shure. All it says is they received my phones and that they are in the process of checking to see if I qualify for repairs/replacement. The suspense begins.

 

[Arjisme]

Quote:

Originally Posted by HeadphoneAddict /img/forum/go_quote.gif I bought E500 from bobsound1 summer 2007 and they replaced mine under warrantee around winter 2007 after a sound nozzle snapped off, and I sent them the whole E500 box and the receipt from paypal for the purchase from bobsound1 and they didn't argue with me one bit.

I'm not sure when it was exactly, but I think it might have been sometime after your claim that they revised their publicly stated warranty to say they covered only those bought from authorized resellers.

However, I had the same experience you did earlier this year (see my earlier postings in this thread). I don't know what your full interaction was with Shure on your warranty claim but it is clear you actually sent them to Shure. This is what I keep advising -- just send them in. Yes, they might still refuse to do the repair under warranty and you can authorize or not that they do the repair and charge you. They will likely do the repair under warranty. That has been my experience anyhow. That was with Shure USA anyhow.

@OP: here's one more card you might be able to play: do you still have the original warranty information that came with your E500s? If so, you can claim a warranty based on what that says, which will not have the restriction regarding authorized resellers in it.

 

[HeadphoneAddict]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arjisme /img/forum/go_quote.gif I'm not sure when it was exactly, but I think it might have been sometime after your claim that they revised their publicly stated warranty to say they covered only those bought from authorized resellers. However, I had the same experience you did earlier this year (see my earlier postings in this thread). I don't know what your full interaction was with Shure on your warranty claim but it is clear you actually sent them to Shure. This is what I keep advising -- just send them in. Yes, they might still refuse to do the repair under warranty and you can authorize or not that they do the repair and charge you. They will likely do the repair under warranty. That has been my experience anyhow. That was with Shure USA anyhow. @OP: here's one more card you might be able to play: do you still have the original warranty information that came with your E500s? If so, you can claim a warranty based on what that says, which will not have the restriction regarding authorized resellers in it.

I am almost certain that Shure had implemented their "only authorized dealers" restriction before mine broke. Anyways, one way I dealt with avoiding the problem with cracking cables and snapping nozzles in the future was to have someone put my SE530 drivers into a Livewires custom IEM shell, but they wouldn't do any more of those because of the difficulty and asked me not to refer people to them for the work.

 

[jinx20001]

i think the way shure looks at it is like this. your warned about fake products off unauthorised sellers or products not quite up to the standards of the shure line, so the reason shure dont cover you is because you should know better when being a long time shure customer not to buy products like that off unauthorised sellers.

although yeh shure are usually pretty damn good i am still a bit suprised, sorry to here it.

 

[togiff]

Track down Shure's address and ship them the broken headphones along with a nice letter detailing your problems. It's worth a shot considering the phones don't work at all anymore and companies usually respond in the customers favor when action is taken like this.

 

[pdupiano]

Actually no .. don't do that he's in SG. If he was in the US I'd recommend that. If shure sends the broken e500's back to you, they WILL bill your credit card for shipping it international and out of warranty.

 

[Arjisme]

Quote:

Originally Posted by pdupiano /img/forum/go_quote.gif Actually no .. don't do that he's in SG. If he was in the US I'd recommend that. If shure sends the broken e500's back to you, they WILL bill your credit card for shipping it international and out of warranty.

If he ships to Shure HK is it international shipping?

 

[mister__big]

I sent the link to this thread to Matt (Sugarfried) and he was kind enough to reply to me. However, his reply was basically a nicer version of "Sorry but you're screwed" (I won't post what he wrote since it was via PM). Here's my reply to him:


Hi Matt,

I appreciate your reply. I am quite perplexed to see that there are so many restrictions when it comes to the warranty on Shure products. I understand that you have to protect your local distributors (I am a distributor myself so I know this all too well) but when something like this happens, the worst thing that the consumer can hear from the manufacturer is "Sorry, you're completely screwed."

Looking at the warranty policies of other established companies out there, I would have to say that Shure's is probably one of the most draconian. For instance, when my MacBook Pro died, I took it into a reseller's store where I didn't even buy the laptop from and they sent it into Apple for repair for me, no questions asked. They didn't even ask for my receipt. To me, Shure is definitely capable of such service since you have distributors and offices everywhere. It's just that Shure refuses to do so and is more concerned about keeping distributors' profits high than to keep customers happy.

By the way I say "keep distributors' profits high" because here in Singapore, the prices of Shure products are absolutely ridiculous. It costs 30-40% more to buy locally than to purchase from the US. To me, that just reeks of the distributor taking advantage of their monopoly status since even factoring in shipping and exchange rate costs, the difference is still eye-popping.

As I have said, I am utterly disappointed by Shure's stance on this, as well as the non-existent customer service. You say that Dan is unable to help since he's not handling the Asia market, well the least he could've done was to send an email telling me so. Instead he ignored all of my emails subsequently after telling me that he would look into the situation for me. What kind of customer service is that?

I'm afraid while Shure's business model may succeed in the US, it will completely piss off customers outside the US who have to deal with astronomical markups, draconian warranty policies and poor customer service. Which is an utter shame because I have seen Shure try to make major strides in the Singapore market by pushing its products on shelves everywhere whereas only a few years ago, it was nearly impossible to find Shure products anywhere here.

Thanks for your time in responding and for the sake of other Shure customers in the future (I won't be one of them anymore), I hope that Shure will take a long and hard look at the way they do business outside of the US. It is indeed a pathetic situation when other US customers can get their earphones repaired even though they purchased their E500s from bobsound1 (as evidenced in this very thread) and I cannot get the same service simply because I'm located outside the US.

Sincerely,
Henry

 

[Bilavideo]

I don't know. This is a bit of a mess. If you buy from an authorized Shure dealer, you get an actual warranty. If you buy their product (still their product) from someone else, you get stiffed. That's not impressive. When I shopped around for the Sennheiser IE8, I wanted to make sure that a cheap seller wouldn't leave me similarly up the creek. In fact, Sennheiser doesn't play this game. They provide a two-year warranty and they want, as documentation, the original receipt of the original owner. And why? So they can decide whether that sale was okay? Nope. So they can screw the third-party purchaser? Nope. So they can fix the date from which the warranty tolls. Period.

Screw Shure and it's now you see it, now you don't warranty. If it can't back up its goods, regardless of who buys them and from where, they need to look into another line of work. I'd suggest shoes. I hear Nike gets a nice mark-up on their product.

 

[mister__big]

Here's an interesting twist: Shure HK originally told me that they would not warranty my E500 because, and I quote, "According to Shure policy, the 2-year-limited warranty only grants to earphones which were purchased from authorized distributors or resellers. Please be advised that to read and understand the terms and conditions in your warranty card that came with the package." So basically they are saying that what is on the warranty card is the final word.

Here's where things get interesting. I couldn't verify the above info since I was out of town last week. But today when I opened my E500 packaging to check the warranty, I did a double-take. NOWHERE DOES IT STATE IN THE WARRANTY CARD IN MY E500 BOX THAT THE WARRANTY DOES NOT APPLY IF I BOUGHT IT FROM AN UNAUTHORIZED DEALER. I have scanned and attached the warranty here, and I have emailed it to Shure HK as well to tell them that what they told me was blatantly false.

I thought Shure customer relations couldn't possibly be any worse. I was wrong. They basically lied to me, saying that the warranty card stated something when it obviously doesn't. Now I seriously have a bone to pick with them because if this is the case, it is consumer fraud. Note the last line of the warranty card IN BLOCK LETTERS: "THIS WARRANTY SUPERSEDES ALL OTHER WARRANTIES THAT ARE ASSOCIATED OR INCLUDED WITH THIS PRODUCT." Again, this clearly means that this warranty card is the final word. That means Shure cannot tell me to see their "revised" warranty online where they changed it to say that it doesn't apply if it's bought from an unauthorized dealer.

I wonder what kind of excuse Shure is going to give to weasel their way out of this one now?

 

[squall343]

Have you try contacting the local distributor?

Shure Earphones - www.hardwarezone.com.sg

Shure - SGHeadphones

 

[milkpowder]

Quote:

Originally Posted by HeadphoneAddict /img/forum/go_quote.gif That is B.S. I bought E500 from bobsound1 summer 2007 and they replaced mine under warrantee around winter 2007 after a sound nozzle snapped off, and I sent them the whole E500 box and the receipt from paypal for the purchase from bobsound1 and they didn't argue with me one bit. Tell them if they replaced them for Larry Ganz in October 2007 they should also cover yours.

That has been my experience too. I purchased two pairs of E500s from two different eBay sellers and have had to send them back for repairs (same ole' cable issue). I included the Paypal invoice/receipt with both and have had no problems whatsoever. Maybe they've changed their policies.

 

[iriverdude]

Quote:

I don't know. This is a bit of a mess. If you buy from an authorized Shure dealer, you get an actual warranty. If you buy their product (still their product) from someone else, you get stiffed. That's not impressiv

Pretty much the same for other electronics I've considering or bought, Plasma TV's, remote controls. Basically anyone who are unauthorised and selling grey imports.

Personally don't think OP has a chance. If they refuse the first time unlikely change mind.

Have you gone back to whoever you bought it from? I don't know about HK law but it's the responsibility for the retailer to help you out, not the manu. Although retailers are pawning off the customers by directing them to the manu. Overclockers uk are one example.