Store policies & motherboard purchases?

jrsynow

Hi everyone,

Is it a regular practice for employees to open “new” motherboards in front of customers to check for bent pins? I picked up a z590 motherboard last night and as the clerk at the online pickup area walked to the counter with my stuff he proceeded to open the motherboard box, and start going through it. He mentioned he was grounded, though I didn’t see a wrist strap on him, and then mentioned that he was looking for bent pins on the motherboard socket because apparently LGA type boards are more prone to being defective compared to other types. This honestly made me feel uneasy about buying the board, but I haven’t bought an Intel board from Microcenter since the Sandy-Bridge days and figured times change and so do policies. I’ve purchased numerous components for AMD systems recently and have never had anyone go through them in-store. I tried checking online to see if others have run into this, and came across one thread from a few years back: https://hardforum.com/threads/microcenter-cpu-mobo-policy.1930671/. The lack of similar posts makes me think this is a rare occurrence, it and tends to happen when people are buying open-boxed goods. Also, when I got home I noticed that there was a tamper seal on the box, that I never saw the clerk cut (he was very quick to get the box open). I’m kind of wondering if I was dishonestly sold someone else’s opened-box item as a “new” product. So far the build hasn't been working out too well, but I'll move the discussion of this to the CPU's, Memory and Motherboards thread.

Ian

Greetings. I am not aware of a policy like this unless management works with a customer's request to open the box before purchase.

jrsynow

Thanks for the information Ian. Definitely no request on my part to have the board looked at.