Shipping Charges: Who Foots the Bill?

After you buy a new PC, you hope that it--and its components--will work without a hitch. But sometimes a part goes south before you've even tossed away the shipping box. You're entitled to a replacement part from the vendor, but you may have to pay to send the defective unit back to the company you bought it from even if the warranty is still in effect.

After buying a PC from Quantex, Ken Cranford of Colorado Springs recommended the company to his daughter, who then purchased a computer for herself. Her new PC had a defective modem. Quantex sent a replacement, which also turned out to be faulty. The third modem worked, but Cranford's daughter had to pay for shipping the defective modems back to the company. When Cranford bought his Quantex PC, he had had a similar problem, but he didn't have to pay any shipping costs. "If [a vendor] fails to adequately test products before shipping, [it] should be responsible for paying shipping costs both ways," says Cranford.

A Quantex customer service representative confirmed that the company's policy has long been to require customers to pay for shipping, insurance, and other costs when returning a defective system or part. In the past, Quantex sometimes paid for shipping on returned items; however, some customers abused this process by billing unauthorized and unrelated shipments to Quantex's mail-service account number, so the vendor no longer pays to ship product returns under any circumstances.

Quantex's policy is fairly typical in the PC industry (CyberMax and Micron have similar rules), though some vendors are more flexible. Dell, for example, may cover shipping for both the returned item and its replacement, but at its own discretion and only for addresses within the United States. Avoid surprises by checking the vendor's policy on shipping costs before you order.