In a recent post on their official Facebook fan page, SteelSeries Philippines has reiterated their current warranty policies for their products and “highly suggests” that customers should only buy from authorized resellers to take full advantage of it.
The Facebook post was in line with reports from various DataBlitz customers who only received a 7-day warranty for the SteelSeries product/s that they’ve purchased from the said reseller. The brand’s local arm was keen to point out that all of their products come with a standard 1 year warranty and that they only provide product replacement instead of repairs.
In addition to the aforementioned warranty concerns, Back2Gaming published a story yesterday about a tip that they’ve received from a “very reliable source” who claims that some of the products that are being sold at DataBlitz are parallel imports.
After receiving the intel, the site’s lead editor reached out to brands that they’ve worked with in the past and got a confirmation from Roccat and Logitech that DataBlitz is, indeed, not authorized to sell of the products that they are offering.
It’s worth noting that this is not the first time that DataBlitz was involved in similar controversy. In 2012, the store ran into some issues with X-Play regarding the exclusive distributorship of NBA 2K13 in the country which led to several DataBlitz being raided by the National Bureau of Investigation.
RELATED: Lessons We Can Learn From the DataBlitz vs. XPlay Fiasco
As BossMac of B2G pointed out, the nominal discount you get from opting for a grey product just isn’t worth it, especially if the product only comes with a disappointing 7-day warranty. One simply cannot put a price on the assurance that your device is covered by the manufacturer’s RMA policies if anything happens to it within the warranty period.
This is dumb because most brands that mention “buy from authorized resellers” do not even PROVIDE a list of authorized resellers in Philippines for users to check with!!
Try it, google search authorized *brand* resellers philippines, try logitech or steelseries.
Here’s what DB has to say about the whole fiasco
after going over the article, our thoughts are that firstly, the author never verified with us on our warranty terms for Steelseries products, and just went with third party information, then posted up whatever he’s concluded from his own half-baked checking.
As you can clearly see from how it was written and presented, it is an unashamedly one-sided and biased article, and one which would seem very much written to favor certain parties or interests, whomever or whatever that is, your guess is as good as ours.
Just for your information and reference, ALL Steelseries products we sell in our stores carry a full 1 year warranty for factory defects and since we don’t really do any repairs, items returned for factory defects within the warranty period are remedied with a full item replacement. The “7 Days” the author is trying to hype as having been written on the invoice is likely just our store personnel’s way of informing customers that they can return the item they’ve purchased if found to have any defects within 7 days of purchase.
As no so-called local Steelseries authorized distributor here (none for the entirety of 2013 nor the entirety of 2014) has approached us to offer us their products since we started carrying Steelseries in our stores over a year ago, we have no other option but to source our Steelseries products from authorized distributors and resellers in other countries instead.
Rather than stoop to the level of the author, we chose to just explain our side to our objective customers, and let them judge for themselves on who is really being truthful here and who is being deceitful. We believe that at the end of the day, as customers check with us directly, they will realize that what was written in the article is plain misleading and inaccurate, and our customers will be the ones to pass the factual word around, something much much more reliable than the word of someone who’s just collecting receipts and taking photos from outside our stores, without even properly verifying the facts with us.
Thank you for your kind concern and hope this explains everything much clearly.
I got that from a reply off of their Facebook page. Still doubtful however why the Steelseries Fanpage don’t have them listed in the authorized resellers link. But then again, they’re just a Fan page and not an Official Page huh?
For Razer products, DB honors the 2-year warranty set by Razer. I bought a Razer DeathAdder last year. The problem with this product is “double-clicking” after a month of usage. I already returned the unit to DB (second unit).
lahat naman ng binebenta nila 7 days lang ang warranty. tapos pahirapan pa papalitan sa kanila. bibili dapat ako ng SS na mouse and kb sa kanila dati pero napaalis ako dahil 7 days nga lang warranty nila. for something worth almost 8k with 7 days warranty sa iba na lang ako bumili.
Actually Data Blitz only guarantees 7 day warranty in everything you buy from them. Games titles, consoles, accessories etc.. Good to know they are not authorized reseller of SS.
i think all of datablitz products warranty only lasts for 7days i often look inside datablitz but i only bought an item their once since its discouraging to buy an expensive item with only 7days of warranty. also i only see brand name like elephant available their(elephant headphone surprisingly good thinking of buying elephant wireless mouse next).
I bought a razer deathstalker from them before. The warranty is indeed 7 days *replacement* by DB, but there is also a manufacturer warranty where in you can coordinate with DB to have your device to the US, in my case to razer; since there are no official razer stores here. I’m just not sure of how this process goes, but that is the rough idea.
Correction: “to have your device SHIPPED to the US”
I think people should know about this whether its double standard or not. I frequent datablitz too, just bought a razer earphone from them. I find their prices similar and often times lower than those from pcx.
@quick brown fox kaboom! Supalpal! Hahaha!
Double standard.
Parang dati lang eh nagbibigay ng review unit ang WC sa inyo, sabay promote nyo sa kanila at sa gray market units nila, tapos biglang ngayon eh patataubin nyo ang datablitz dahil nagbebenta sila ng gray market units ng SS peripherals…
This is a news story about SteelSeries and the limited 7-day warranty. It’s not about parallel imports.
In fact, I frequently buy from DataBlitz (Razer, SteelSeries, LogiTech, PS4, Game Titles) and have also reviewed those items here. That goes without saying we patronize DataBlitz.
Yes you are right. We’ve reported news and published reviews of items from WC, Kim, and even Villman who frequently parallel imports a number of units. And in those instances that we know the items we bought or reported are gray units, we make sure to indicate them in the story.