I have had remarkably awful customer service from System76 and after my current 2-year-old laptop dies, I will refrain from ever dealing with System76 again. A friend of mine has also had the same problem with customer service.
In both cases, new computers were received that clearly had defective components. I bought a large desktop system to serve as my primary work-from-home computer, and the motherboard was defective out of the box. My friend has twice received defective power cables from them.
In all cases, they have argued that the burden of arranging and paying for shipping should be the customer's problem. In one case, I lived in an urban area not close to any UPS drop off locations, and trying to carry the huge desktop machine and walk to UPS was not feasible -- and System76 would not cover the cost of the taxi.
Most companies will provide you with at-home pickup for this sort of issue, for no fee if it really is a defective component. I expected that I should be able to print a shipping label from them, repackage the device, and leave it outside at a designated time and/or hand it to a UPS driver myself who had been arranged to pick it up at my apartment building. I used to own Dell laptops in 2007-2009 and they did this for me once, and also even offered to pay for a local service technician to come to my apartment and fix it on site, all for no fees.
Additionally, the customer service was unpleasant to interact with. They did not seem to treat my request or my issue reasonably, and in the end after I was frustrated and wrote them an angry email and they finally caved and offered to cover one-way shipping, I just said screw it, I'd rather not deal with the headache, and I contracted a separate service technician to help me replace the motherboard.
I strongly, strongly recommend against System76. It makes me sad too, because I love to see a Linux-focused company, I am a supporter of Ubuntu, and I am happy to pay a premium for these things. I'd love for there to be more seller options ... but I just won't ever go back to System76. Too much hassle and frustration.
In both cases, new computers were received that clearly had defective components. I bought a large desktop system to serve as my primary work-from-home computer, and the motherboard was defective out of the box. My friend has twice received defective power cables from them.
In all cases, they have argued that the burden of arranging and paying for shipping should be the customer's problem. In one case, I lived in an urban area not close to any UPS drop off locations, and trying to carry the huge desktop machine and walk to UPS was not feasible -- and System76 would not cover the cost of the taxi.
Most companies will provide you with at-home pickup for this sort of issue, for no fee if it really is a defective component. I expected that I should be able to print a shipping label from them, repackage the device, and leave it outside at a designated time and/or hand it to a UPS driver myself who had been arranged to pick it up at my apartment building. I used to own Dell laptops in 2007-2009 and they did this for me once, and also even offered to pay for a local service technician to come to my apartment and fix it on site, all for no fees.
Additionally, the customer service was unpleasant to interact with. They did not seem to treat my request or my issue reasonably, and in the end after I was frustrated and wrote them an angry email and they finally caved and offered to cover one-way shipping, I just said screw it, I'd rather not deal with the headache, and I contracted a separate service technician to help me replace the motherboard.
I strongly, strongly recommend against System76. It makes me sad too, because I love to see a Linux-focused company, I am a supporter of Ubuntu, and I am happy to pay a premium for these things. I'd love for there to be more seller options ... but I just won't ever go back to System76. Too much hassle and frustration.