Thermaltake/TTPremium (No response from tech support)(Thermaltake Core P8)

[Zoltán]

Hi all,

I am currently building a fully water-cooled PC from scratch. I have all the necessary PC parts except for the PC case. I ordered the Thermaltake Core P8 Tempered Glass Full Tower Chassis, a very large computer case, on March 13, 2023.

Unfortunately, when the case arrived on March 20, 2023, it was completely broken. The side glass was shattered into a million pieces, and the PC case panels were also scratched. It appears that the case was brutally damaged during shipping.

I ordered the case from "https://ttpremium.eu". I have tried to request a refund or a replacement, but they are not responding to my emails, and the phone number provided is invalid. I also tried to create a "Request Form," but I have not received a response.

Does anyone have any experience dealing with tech support? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Here are some pictures: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1SYPfxFwIZNagoHaznm9pzVdsXyp0CY9D?usp=sharing

I'm very disappointed :(

Best regards, Zoltán

[TTTalk]

Zero experience with tech support and have never contacted Thermaltake to this date for anything. 

My experience with the Thermaltake Versa N21 purchased used in 2020 off eBay has been as follows:

1. Clear plexiglass side cover was cracked when I got it (as advertised in the listing). I can't fix it or get it replaced without buying a second N21 chassis. After using the PC since 2022 (long build due to defective purchases and financial constraints; never buy used hardware unless you can repair/replace components and know what you're doing) my feedback is that the cosmetics offer no impact to performance other than a thermal management issue that I've not experienced but have read about. The chassis has been designed to be adapted to needs so if I did run into thermal management issues I have capacity for alterations.

2. My speaker jack failed on me, causing significant disruptions to Discord voice conversations regardless of how the cable was positioned. Searching for a replacement PCB that includes the same design has been a complete waste of time other than to expose me to the fact that PCB printers are now a thing. My anger and frustration at the lack of access to universal replacement parts that are compatible with my chassis has sparked an outrage that only ownership of a 3D printer and/or PCB printer to correct the issue myself can satisfy.  Over a speaker jack.

3. My build was straight forward and cable management was fast and easy. I'm now replacing obsolete parts with current off the shelf standards which I'm finding easy and affordable with all in one solutions being my go to. My DVD/CD drive was a d.o.a. situation, as the drive powers on, spools up a disk and shows signs of functionality but refuses to communicate with my mobo. I'm testing a replacement spare later today to see if that resolves the problem or if I need to troubleshoot cables and mobo for a fouled component.

My overall advice to you depends on your situation specifics and my experience within the American shipping and sales environment. I'm aware you're in the EU, so there's going to be compatibility issues with my advice. For a start, were you offered s&h insurance before purchase was completed? If not, at least in the US this would resolve liability issues. If you were offered and refused coverage then liability would remain with you. Some expectations of suitable packaging and reasonable protection during shipping should've been a given, but I can see the packaging in the background of your photos and that there was definitely some difficulty during shipping. If the box was not clearly labeled as fragile then the liability shifts back to the sender (strike two). Most carriers in the US have some form of basic insurance included in their services at no added cost but only up to a certain dollar amount, with additional coverage offered for a price. For something like this I don't think basic coverage would have satisfied your loss. 

If you weren't offered insurance at all, then full liability should remain with the sender and you may have a legal case depending on the laws in your area and the area of the sender's facility of origin. I'd file a claim with your shipper if the item was insured but definitely still keep trying to get through with tech support if insurance wasn't involved here.

If the situation has already gone full south and you've given up on it as a total loss, don't chuck the case. You may be able to create a custom chassis while salvaging the damage. My idea is to backlight the glass to illuminate the cracks as is. You'd also need to find a way to resin coat the entire case without losing access to the internals or interfering with thermal management. You'd end up with a completely unique case and forge a path for anyone else that runs into the same issue. Definitely your issue needs to be mainstreamed in other forums to warn about this possibility for other customers' outcomes. 

Please also consider taking additional photos of the packaging the item came in to show us what kind of damage it sustained and any internal protective packaging used. This evidence would help us all figure out what went wrong in shipping and how to prevent it in the future. Obviously the unit was dropped or had something very heavy interact with the package in transit. But damage to the packaging can help determine what force was in play to cause the damage in the first place. I'm inclined to believe a careless handler was in play, or that inadequate signage for "handle with care" failed to properly advise s&h co of proper handling procedures. Either way, this is something that Thermaltake needs to take seriously enough to consider a dedicated team for.

More specifically, if I worked for Thermaltake and heard about this issue, my immediate concern would be sending a replacement product and issue a refund, but to also try and recover the damaged unit to place on a desk in a conference meeting with s&h department, design or r&d department, sales and all the heads of each department at the corporate level relevant to a possible recall. My direct advice to Thermaltake is to halt all sales on all products that contain the glass and mark them as out of stock on the website until either a remedy for packaging and s&h insurance can be banged out or a redesign of the units in question to prevent this kind of issue from occuring again. Ultimately it's cheaper from a quarterly loss perspective to stop all sales and discontinue manufacturing of all affected units now and mark all existing units as a loss than to manage a recall situation with replacement or refund policy over the span of a year or more. Such a situation would significantly impact public image of the brand as well as vendor relations that could impact future sales and market share.

My advice... Get ahead of this now before it becomes a thing. 

And tech support should never take longer than a single business week to respond, I don't care what industry or product/service we're talking about.

 

Zoltán, I'm sorry you experienced this and I hope Thermaltake has since resolved this issue for you. If they haven't by the time you read my reply, please let me know...

So I can rip my own chassis down to a pile of bare metal and plastic and recycle it as scrap. I have no qualms about cancelling my own brand loyalties and placing them on a blacklist.  Photos to follow if they haven't fixed your problem.