RapidRepair.com
 

Wanted to share a new discovery....

My daughter's Zune (mp3 player) quit working. Kept going to the "contact support" screen. I called up Zune and they told me it sounded like a hardware problem and wanted me to send it to them to fix - at a cost of $120! Well, this thing is worth way more than that (it's the 30G one) but we got it on sale for ~$75 last Christmas and I was not willing to pay that much to fix it. Of course this happened right after the one year warranty was up. So here I go to one of many Zune chatboards to gripe about my misery and someone so generously responded to me and told me about RapidRepair.com. Here's how it works.... You go on to their site and file a service request. You use your credit/debit card to authorize a $8.99 charge for shipping. Then you mail your product (Zune, iPod, whatever) to them, they perform a totally free diagnostic on it and email you their results (or in my case, they emailed me telling me to call them for my results). Then they tell you what they would charge to fix the problem (and according to the chatboard, their costs are WAY lower than Zune's). If you want to proceed with their repair plan, they charge the same card you provided originally and then ship it back to you. If you do not want it repaired, then they just ship it back to you (this is what your original $8.99 payment is for - the return shipping cost). If you decide that you do not want it fixed and you do not want it returned to you, they will buy it from you I guess for scraps. In that case, you don't pay the shipping cost.

In our case, they received my daughter's Zune, tested it and found it completely functioning. Go figure, right??! When they told me that, I was so incredulous that they said they would do more extensive testing on it overnight and get back to me the next day (which they did). Again, sorry... no problems with it. Possibly the problem was actually a very weak battery and they did suggest replacing the battery (for $19.99). According to them, it is possible for you to do that yourself but it is a bit difficult to do and you can mess up the Zune doing it yourself. It would cost the same for you to buy the battery so why not let them do it since they already have it there, right? And apparently, the lifespan of the battery is typically 12-18 months so it sounds logical to me for this to be our problem.

I was so thankful for stumbling across this info because I was ready to toss this Zune because I was so ticked. I promised the repair guy that I talked to that I would pass along this info because I was so grateful for learning about them instead of being jipped by the Zune people.

Sorry this is so long but I know I would have liked to know about this place. They repair Zunes, iPods and probably many other types of electronics so keep them in mind!

:p I just went to proofread this and realized that it sounds like a big fat commercial! :D I promise, I am in no way affiliated with RapidRepair.com..... just a satisfied customer! LOL

My daughter's Zen did the same thing. I downloaded a free re-load program from the Zen site. They offer theirs for free. I'm sorry it's such a problem. All these little gid gad's are a pain in the buttttttt !!!!

Yes, they are! I am so old-school and have in my mind that these gadgets should last forever. You know, like one of the first microwaves.... my parents' microwave was like 20 years old before they finally got rid of it.... and it probably would have lasted another 10 years! It's just so frustrating that these electronic gadgets have such a short lifespan.

Sounds like the Zune 30 bug.
 

Microsoft Watch - Games & Consumer - I've Heard of June Bugs, but Zune Bugs?


It shuts off, because of a certain date. ty

Yes, we had this happen at New Years but read the bulletin about how to fix the problem. This new problem she had just happened a week ago or so and was unrelated to the "year change bug".

Okay was wondering it sounded the same.
 

Alot of zune users had this bug come back after being fixed. Well I hope they can find the fix. Good Luck. ty

Really? I just assumed it was a totally separate issue since it worked fine after January 1st. It wasn't until a couple weeks later that we had the new problem and doing what we did to fix the "year change bug" didn't work in this case. But you definitely could be right. I'm just glad it wasn't a huge hardware problem because I was not wanting to pay big bucks to fix it.

I am an electronics freak....Just browsed the site... very impressive.....but they have limited brands that they repair...

I didn't even look to see what all they repaired really..... all I cared about was getting this Zune fixed - and not paying an arm and a leg. I'll have to go look at what else they'll do.