Liteon Europe RMA Service Any Good?

I'm going to have to RMA a defective 52246S. I've emailed their service address today and am patiently awaiting a reply. In the meantime, I was just curious if anyone else in the forums has had experience with their RMA service and what to expect. Any comments would be appreciated. Thanks.

Well, Liteon answered my question and the answer seems to be that their service is pretty poor. They are referring me back to the shop where I purchased the drive. This shop already referred me to Liteon first. I just love running around in circles, don't you? At least my new Plextor Premium which will be replacing this drive has a 2 year on-site pickup and replacement guarantee from Plextor (not to mention the fact that it works better than the Liteon ever did). Bye bye Liteon and good riddance!

Same story -- my local university offered a CD/DVD writer bundled with a mini-laptop that has no built-in CD. Now the thing doesn't write CDs even, or rather, it thinks it is writing them, but they can't be read by anything after 'successfully' completing.

So, I mailed LiteOn Europe about this, but have as yet to receive a reply.

One hint, even though they are located in Germany, they seem to be staffed by Asians. When I first got the drive, I had a question about how to use it. The Chinglish manual was no help. I first wrote LiteOn Europe in German, as the web site came up in that language, but they wrote me back to ask me to write about the problem in English. Then and only then did they give me an (uninformed) answer.

Asian customer service seems to be very much oriented towards their perception of the market being served. When handling European customers, they're rude and incompetent (just like typical European customer service organisations are). When handling the North American market, they're obsequiously polite, and sometimes more competent (at least they don't just tell you to get lost).

LiteOn Europe is doing the right thing. Under European Law the shop is the one responsible for the products they sell, so the shop was wrong to refer you to LiteOn direct. I had to RMA my first dvd drive, so I called my shop, they picked up the drive and within a week I had a new one. In my opinion there's nothing wrong with LiteOn support in this matter. Back to the shop

Leo