Did Gigabyte Malaysia Screw Up? Refuses to Honour AORUS K9 Warranty Claim

A loyal supporter’s mechanical keyboard purchase has gone completely wrong as Gigabyte Malaysia refuses to honour the warranty for the AORUS K9.

Did Gigabyte Malaysia Screw Up?

Whenever you purchase electronics, gadgets and alike, there will always be a warranty for it. With a specific period in mind, consumers can claim warranty if they find some issues with their purchase. This is done in case there might manufacturing defects, issues during transportation, and more.

But what if your item, which is still within the warranty period, cannot be claimed for warranty? That’s what happened recently with Gigabyte Malaysia on their AORUS K9 mechanical keyboard.

John (not his actual name) is a loyal Gigabyte supporter who recently purchased an AORUS K9 mechanical keyboard which utilizes the optical Flaretech switches. After a month of using it, he wanted to get his keyboard cleaned up so he proceeded to take out the keycaps. He then found out that 5 switches from the keyboard had its stem broken during the process of pulling out the keycaps.

John’s conversation with Gigabyte Malaysia customer service representative

He then proceeded to contact the person whom he purchases the AORUS K9 from, who then relayed the issue to Gigabyte Malaysia. Their representative refused to honour the keyboard’s warranty, citing that the damage is caused by the user itself and that the warranty only covers defects such as PCB board, wiring issues, and software-related issues.

With no choice left in the matter, John went to a local keyboard expert to fix his AORUS K9. The expert went public on Facebook with the issue that John faced, citing that the optical Flaretech switches were rather fragile / problematic. This garnered quite a response from the public, which soon led to Gigabyte’s customer service contacting John about the issue.

John’s conversation with Gigabyte Malaysia customer service representative

According to the representative, Gigabyte has changed their mind but now they are simply evaluating whether they will be sending replacement Flaretech switches or not. John isn’t looking for a refund nor is he trying to swindle Gigabyte. He simply wants his keyboard fixed and nothing more.

From the expert’s evaluation, he simply needs to replace the 5 switches (the ones with the broken stem). The replacement switches will amount to about RM70 – RM80, and possibly another RM70 for replacement keycaps, which should total up to about RM150. Seems like a small amount, don’t you think so?

It’s absolutely strange to see the keyboard’s warranty allegedly only covering a few things, and the mechanical switch itself isn’t one of them. It’s arguably the most vital part of any mechanical keyboard. Moreover, the AORUS K9 itself costs about RM600, which is rather steep, and yet Gigabyte Malaysia itself refuses to budge for replacement switches which costs about RM70 – RM80.

Not to mention, this is not the first time the AORUS K9 keyboard has such issues. YouTuber Jason Constantine made a video, which you can check out above here, demonstrating the flaws / issues with the optical Flaretech switches. With the stems broken as well, it seems that this the same issue that John is facing.

Another thing worth pointing out is how the customer service representative communicates with John. When you think of customer service, you think of someone who can communicate in a clear, concise, and polite manner but it doesn’t seem to be the case for Gigabyte. Instead, we have all sorts of typos / grammatical errors / communication errors present.

I was confused when I read “unfortunately, we are able to honor this warranty as this was a user-caused damage”. Does that mean John can actually claim for warranty? Turns out no as the representative meant to say “unable” instead.

What sort of message does Gigabyte Malaysia want to relay to their consumers? That all they want is people to buy them with zero care on after-sales support? That seems to be the case now at least. And it appears that they have lost a loyal follower today as John had this to say after the grueling ordeal:

Damage has been done. This is how John feels about Gigabyte now.

We certainly hope Gigabyte Malaysia will do right by the consumers instead of simply looking at making a profit. Businesses can have good products but if they have terrible after-sales support, no one’s going to bother supporting them. Perhaps they need a wake up call, and we’re hoping this might just do the trick.