This page last updated: February 2nd 2015
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These are the WORST (and most expensive)
PC speakers I've ever owned.
After all I was put through to get them
it breaks my heart to have wasted all that money, but
they are now destined to simply be thrown out,
unless Creative take them back. (see below).
These speakers are and were CRAP.
CREATIVE LABS


BELOW is PART 3 (updated) of the saga of how I got ripped off by ANTONLINE
and all of the hassle I had to go through to get any sort of resolution,
including details of the horrible support from the manufacturer Creative Labs,
and from Amazon.ca who set up the purchase.

Click here for PART 1 and here for PART 2 of the saga.



Part 3 of the saga ...

Bottom line, from my perspective, on March 9th, 2014, I paid $91.44 for speakers that were DEFECTIVE when I received them, and despite CREATIVE initially refusing to honour the warranty, they eventually and grudgingly provided a USED replacement set, but not until after I paid over $30+ to return the defective ones.

On April 30th these replacement speakers arrived, ending nearly 2 months of having to manage without the speakers I had paid for on March 9th. However, it turned out that these replacement speakers were USED and defective depsite Creative later claiming they were brand new.

Skip ahead a few months. Just before Christmas 2014 one of these replacement speakers has started doing the exact same thing as the original ones ... rattle and distort, even at low volume. Actually it had done it intermittently over the intervening months but only briefly and I chose to live with it. But now it's gone beyond that.

I have no intention of paying another $40+ (postal rates went up January 1st) to return these to be replaced yet again. That money was better spent on replacing them with another brand of speaker. The Creative speakers are waiting to be thrown in the garbage next pickup.


UPDATE:

As a result of my above post (February 3rd), on February 4th I received a message on my answering machine as follows:

Wednesday February 4th, 2015 at 12:18 PM
Transcript of TAS message
"Hi William, this is Casey from Creative Labs. I'm just calling about your RMA. It looks like originally we were going to try and replace the rubber feet but we weren't able to do that. It's been decided that if you want we can do a full replacement of the device and go ahead and issue you a shipping label so that you don't have to pay for shipping it back to us. And then we'll ship you a new one. If you're agreeable to that just send us an email. We've already sent you one email so you can just reply to that and let us know if you want to avail yourself of that option. Thank you. Have a nice day."

Since the speakers had not actually been picked up by the garabage men yet, I decided to take them up on the offer, and return them for replacement. It was suggested that I reply to the email they had sent me, but the most recent email I'd had from them was 8 months old, and cancellation of an RMA notification at that. Additionally it was from, and in the form of, an "automated email", which typically means 'unmonitored so don't bother replying to it'.

I chose to send a new email to Customer Service, complete with a transcript of the message telling me to contact them. I asked them to send me the pre-paid shipping label, as offered. In response I received, first a message assigning me an RMA Request number and later an email confirming the request had been accepted and to print the attached label.

HOWEVER, the RMA was NOT pre-paid and the fine print stated that I would be liable for the cost of shipping TO and FROM Creative Labs, totally contrary to what I was told on the phone yesterday.

This morning I have told them via email that I WILL NOT spend another cent, let alone $40+, on these speakers. As far as I'm concerned they are crap and not worth spending any more money on.

This afternoon I received this message:

"We are processing your RMA now and you should receive an E-Mail with your shipping instructions and another E-Mail with your shipping label shortly."

It remains to be seen what I will receive.


I have to repeat that the decision to purchase these speakers has turned out to be
***BY FAR*** my worst ***EVER*** on-line shopping decision / experience.

Both Creative and Amazon.ca have forever tarnished their names for me. And ANTONLINE are nothing short of crooks in my opinion.

Not a happy camper
It seems to me that, in an economy where Customer Service should be
more important than ever, it has fallen by the wayside.

More and more I'm finding that companies seem to have little regard
for the Customer once the sale has been made.

To quote from the movie Network:
"I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore",
which is the reason for this website.

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