Saturday, January 28, 2012

My Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi HD USB Audio System with THX SB1240 order with Amazon

Update 12/16/2012 - Just wanted to let everyone Creative and Amazon resolved this issue. I wound up getting an Audigy PCI card after Amazon refunded me.

Update 1/31/2012 3:25AM ET: Creative tweeted me for an email to followup. Looks like they are looking into the issue. Go Creative! :-) Update 1/30/2012 9:45AM ET: Amazon sent me a generic response about how to use tracking information... What? Fortunately I can just reply to the email and ask why this generic response had nothing to do with my question... Wait.. Nope, can't do that either. On the plus side Creative tweeted back to me to let me know they are looking into this.
Update 1/28/2012 4:30PM ET: Amazon requested additional info from me to contact me regarding my review. Maybe they are looking into it. I also updated my review below to update the latest revision I have posted to Amazon.
Update 1/28/2012 3:50PM ET: Amazon has posted my updated review. It is available for viewing here: http://www.amazon.com/review/R2UKQ977MGGMOG
Update 1/28/2012 3:20PM ET: Amazon has declined to post my review. I have removed the sucker portion of the post and attempted to repost it.
Update 1/28/2012 3:15PM ET: E-mailed Creaitve to through their online support system to try and get a response from them.
Update 1/28/2012 3:00PM ET: Tweeted @creativestore to see if they would respond to this blog post.


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As a StarCraft 2 fan I have been trying to support the companies sponsoring e-Sports teams and players I love. Recently I picked up a pair of Sennheiser PC360s as it was a high quality headset from a company sponsoring one of my favorite European players Dimaga. While plugging these into my motherboard sound card was great I wanted to take it up a notch and get a nice sound card. After some digging I settled on a Creative product over Fiio and Astro as they sponsor Complexity who's roster include Qxc (you may have heard of him :-P) & CatZ. In any event in case Amazon doesn't post my review for obvious reasons I have copied it below. Here is a link to the product in question:

http://www.amazon.com/Creative-Sound-Blaster-System-SB1240/dp/B004275EO4/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

Here is a link to the Creative website where they link to it as new as well:

http://us.store.creative.com/Creative-Sound-Blaster-XFi-HD-Sound/M/B004275EO4.htm

Here is my review I posted to Amazon that outlines the issue I had:

As other recent reviewers have complained I received a refurbished unit when ordering a new unit. Here's the deal:

Upon unboxing the unit I found it had scuff marks on it which immediately raised some eye brows. I then looked over the packaging and on the flip side of the package was a refurbished sticker noting a meer 30 day warranty.

I then notified Amazon and they seem to think it was a simple mistake despite providing links to other recent reviewers complaining about the same issue. You would think as there is a rash of these "simple mistakes" they would check their inventory to make sure they are selling new units though they simply told me to place an order for another unit. Riiiight. There is already a review within the last month of my review where a guy did place an order for another unit and got another refurb. Sorry but I'm not going to do that. Check your inventory and deal with Creative as for what it's worth this is "sold by" Creative and only packaged/shipped by Amazon.

Additionally this product is linked to from the Creative site directly as "New" so it's possible Creative's in the wrong here and Amazon is simply packaging a lot of refurbished units Creative provided them to ship as New. In any case I have requested a return label and will be purchasing a different product entirely unless someone from Creative or Amazon can offer me some sort of guarantee that I am not going to receive another refurbished unit before I go elsewhere.

Hopefully someone from Amazon or Creative can comment on this and let us know when they have this straightened out.