Tritton Technologies Mad Catz Interactive, Inc Will not refund after failing to honor warranty San Diego, California

In Sept 2009, I purchased a Tritton AXPro  headset. A month later, it stopped working right (mic issues and hissing speakers). I put in a trouble ticket on Tritton's support site on Nov 8th, but didn't hear back. So I placed a response... and another... and another. No reply. 

Two business weeks later, I finally get a response with the excuse that technical difficulties kept some tickets from being received on time.  I figured I'd try to use other ways to contact them so it wouldn't happen again. Well I tried the email on their website just auto-replies. I tried calling the number sat on hold until the call was dropped. I tried e-mailing again more auto-replies.

Fast forward to 3/2010 4 months after my initial service request. By this time my 1 year warranty had already expired.  Since I still hadn't heard back from Tritton, I contacted the retailer to see if they could help. I was way past the 30 day return period but seeing as they broke past the return period anyway, I figured it couldn't hurt to try. They just sent me back to Tritton.  Immediately afterwards, I updated my trouble ticket. Of course, they never bothered to reply.

At this point, I got busy with looking for a new job and other life issues but by Nov 2010 (a full year after I placed the original complaint) my 3/10 trouble ticket and e-mails still weren't answered. I again updated the trouble ticket.  The ticket system went down for maintenance shortly thereafter and to this day is still down.

I continued to e-mail and call off and on for another year. During this time Tritton was bought up by MadCatz. I don't know if that's why I finally got an e-mail response, but I did finally get one this Nov 2 years after my original service request.

It took a bit, but the tech support guy, Jeremy Romio, finally agreed to take the headset in to be serviced. I went through the motions sending copies of receipts, serial numbers, images of the headset etc. I finally had an RMA number and was ready to ship. Just before I did, I thought to ask how much warranty they were going to give me on the repair/replacement. 

None  Wait, what?! Jeremy explained that since my warranty was expired, they couldn't give me any further support after this one-time repair and made clear they were doing this as a favor for me for the inconvenience.

Basically, even though I put a support ticket in 2 months into my warranty, even though I couldn't get anyone to respond to their trouble ticket, phone, or e-mail until AFTER my warranty expired, they wouldn't offer any further support. I refused to follow through with the service. I mean, if a brand new one could die after 1 months of use, what's to say a repair will last any longer? It could break the next day and MadCatz is saying there'd be nothing I could do about it!

I argued back and forth with Jeremy but without success. My case would later be escalated to the Service Manager, Michael Browning (probably because I emailed MadCatz's CEO out of pure desperation). After several emails back and forth, Michael agreed to give me a replacement without shipping in the new one - but again, no further warranty service. I argued a bit more and he stated that if I had issues with the replacement, I could call him. How is that a guarantee it's going to be taken care of? How do I know he's even going to be there for wait how long can I even call!? No thanks.

I argue that if they won't at least give me the balance of the warranty I would have had (around 10 months) if they had responded in a timely manner initially back in 2009, then they should refund me the money. Of course, they wouldn't do that either arguing that their department doesn't handle refunds while at the same time refusing to escalate my case to someone who could.

I put in a complaint with the BBB in which I explain that although MadCatz is willing to repair the headset, the lack of further warranty of service is why I'm demanding a refund. But MadCatz's responses were focused on my refusal to accept repair (no mention of additional warranty time), so the case was closed in their favor. Apparently the BBB only cares if the company responds with an offer - any offer - and closes the cases in a company's favor.

The interesting thing about the BBB case was that I returned to the Tritton site to access my old trouble ticket to give as proof and while I was there I noticed a link for the company Facebook page. After the BBB case was closed, I went ahead and joined it. I was still pretty peeved about the whole thing so in a wall comment that had a post by someone who couldn't reach Tritton either (it apparently happens a lot), I put in a comment relating my story.

Tritton responded by giving me the direct e-mail of someone in tech support. I replied saying that I had already talked to the Service Manager and if this person isn't above them, then there's nothing they can do for me. Tritton responded by blocking me from their page and deleting all my posts.

Not having anything else to lose, I sent the email and got Sean Allen who explained that he banned me from their support page in order to force my hand to contact him. Long story short, he also wouldn't give me further warranty service. Again he made the case that my warranty is expired, that they're doing me a favor, and that he can't refund my money.

He did however, unban me and restore some of my Facebook comments. In kind, I agreed that I wouldn't say anything out of line and that he's free to contact me if I do. I followed the thread and any time someone asked for shopping advice I suggested other brands of headsets. When they brought up quality or service issues, I replied with my story.

I was again banned and my comments removed. I didn't say anything vulgar or offensive and in fact, if you browse their page you'll see similar comments by other users (but meaner). In addition I was reported as spam and had my account blocked by Facebook. I e-mailed Sean asking why he didn't contact me beforehand if there was an issue. No reply. 

I've since sent two emails (12/12 and 12/13) to Darren Richardson (CEO/Pres), Whitney Peterson (VP), Warren Cook (VP), Allyson Vanderford (CFO), Brian Anderson (COO),  and William Woodward (Director). No reply.

All I want is my money back. Figuring they weren't ever going to agree to warranty support, I went ahead and bought a competing product so I could have a working headset with warranty - the same thing I was supposedly getting when I spent $166.23 on the Tritton headset.