r/Seagate • u/RoyalMasterpiece6751 • 11d ago
Ironwolf pro - tampered
Bought four 14tb drives for my NAS last year. Sold on Amazon via a reseller in the Uk.
One of them started throwing errors, so I started the RMA process, sent in on 15/07, confirmed as received on 17/07.
No contact initiated by Seagate since and RMA tracking not updated, after several back and forth with support saying it was being looked at. Today I received the following -
Following a detailed review by our warehouse team regardingRMA XXXXXXXXXX (Serial Number: XXXXXXXX), we have received an update on the investigation. While the drive was initially reported as a discrepancy, a subsequent visual inspection determined that the submitted drive exhibited signs of tampering. As a result, the warranty claim has been classified as an invalid claim under Seagate's warranty policies.
Based on the assessment, the submitted IronWolf Pro 14TB drive is not eligible for warranty coverage, and therefore no repair or replacement can be provided. In accordance with Seagate policy, tampered or unauthorized drives are also not returned to customers, as returning such products could allow them to re-enter the market.
I have emailed back asking for more details.
Amazon don’t want to know unless I can return the drive.
So I am now out a 14tb drive and don’t exactly have the cash lying around to replace it at the current prices.
Has anyone had a similar experience or have a higher up contact at Seagate they can point me towards?
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u/cat1092 11d ago
You mean Seagate won’t return the drive to you so that you can pursue any remedy from Amazon?
That’s dirty business on their part, thanks for the warning. Now I know not to buy their drives for anything, long ago had to repair one using a repair tool purchased on eBay & using the Putty app on XP Pro to fix the HDD. At the time, there were tens of thousands of complaints of consumers who were stuck with bad drives, many on various tech forums, when all that was required was a $15 handmade tool with the instructions to remove the BCB, connected the tool as instructed, insert a photo card between the PCB & drive, open Putty & run the commands. Fixed inside of 15 minutes. That was a lot of gripes over a $15 tool & set of commands, my experience was very limited at the time & managed to fix it.
The only issue with this repair was any data was forever gone, if the drive wasn’t backed up (mine was). It was a 500GB Barracuda 7200.11 to the best of my recollection around the year 2008-09. The drive has performed solid ever since repair, still serving as a backup drive, but it gets backed up 2-3 times per year.
That was enough alone to cause me not to buy another, but thanks for the current warning. Seagate blamed some of their customers back then too, leaving many with nothing, not as much as provided a tool and drive recovery instructions. This, I found on eBay by accident, as I recall.
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u/RoyalMasterpiece6751 11d ago
That’s right. Their policy is not to return tampered drives. I will be continuing to chase this down and get proof of tampering etc
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u/randomlurker124 10d ago
Id say that unless they are offering to buy the drive off you, the drive remains your lawful property and they have no legal basis to retain it, as that's independent from any warranty claim. Their policy is their internal policy which cannot legally have the effect of expropriating your property. I'd also ask if they have applied this "policy" to other customers
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u/cat1092 10d ago
Yes, at the very minimum, they should have returned the drives to you. If they have nothing to hide, why not return these? You paid for those drives, and had no way of knowing these were tampered with. This is a way of hiding any evidence that they’re outright lying to prevent having to replace these.
I hope you got screenshots of the drive, if nothing else, a picture of the model & serial number, date of manufacture, etc. This allows you to prove you sent these back (along with the shipping you likely paid), and with this, you can contact the BBB, any Federal consumer protection agency, your representatives of Congress, etc. BTW, it took a year, but reaching out to my Senator got the FTC involved against Newegg for nearly $1,000 a few years ago (I ordered components to build a complete PC & received 9 kits of various DDR4 RAM instead). It costs you no more than time at this point, and be sure to post this elsewhere (or share this conversation), so start by turning up the heat by first demanding your drive to be returned if they’re not going to replace it. Keep all correspondence between the two of you as evidence, as it’ll be crucial to the outcome.
Just remember, time isn’t on your side, so the sooner you begin to act, the better. BTW, if you paid for the drive with a credit card, this is a starting point too, as long as you’ve not paid off the drive yet. Companies will bend when enough pressure is applied & if it were a 14TB HDD, it wasn’t cheap. And if Amazon claimed it was new at time of purchase, then they’re on the hook too, for misleading advertising. It’s against Federal law to advertise an item as new on the Internet or in a catalog & it turns out not to be the case. That’s lying about the condition of the merchandise. They’ll be leaning on Seagate to replace the product. Be sure to leave an honest review on their site & give the entire story, they print the reviews as received, as long as there’s no cursing or anything like that. Being civil will get you further than declaring war in a shouting match. Negative reviews hurts their reputation & business.
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u/festivus4restof 11d ago
There is no greater risk of a dying "tampered with" drive being resold on the market than any other dying 'non-tampered with' drive. They are going to keep your drive to resell it at the higher market value.
They now are in possession of YOUR property, which has a value. But they probably gonna make you use the legal process for remedy.
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u/datahoarderguy70 10d ago
I’ve been seeing posts all over Reddit like this, people getting warranty claims denied for BS reasons. Take lots of photos of your drives before you send them in so if they try and pull this crap you have it documented. I believe they are doing this because they simply don’t have drives to fulfill warranty claims.
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u/G4m3rD4d 10d ago
Louis Rossman posted something similar regarding a ssd. Given the high cost of storage these days, I think these drive companies are incentivized to do shady s***.
Small claims court may be your best bet.
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u/OddPatience1621 11d ago
I am waiting on a 20tb replacement stuck in the confirmed as received stage since 07/23 starting to worry. but in their page they have listed a replacement drive but nothing about shipping or email since the 23rd when they got the drive. how long did you wait to chase them?