Skullcandy RMA: Part II, Step 3: The Report Card

Yesterday, I received this email from Skullcandy :


Hello Insert Name Here,

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Your RMA request #Insert RMA Here has been updated to Shipped .

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Your product has been shipped. You can expect to see an email from FedEx within the next day. Thanks! **Please do not respond to this message. If you should have a question about your warranty claim please go to www.skullcandy.com/contact-us. For a speedy response be sure to reference your RMA number.**

Sincerely,

The Skullcandy Team




Lets see if we can sum the whole Skullcandy experience into a report card.

• Initial expectations and price - 7.5
• Sound quality and performance (as compared to the eShure and Westone single drivers I had before) - 8
• Product quality after just 4 months of use (the jack has always been the source of most of my headphone problems, but these seem to be intrinsically defective) - 3
  
• Initial RMA procedure (emails overlapped and form letters) - 3
  
• The follow up customer service really earned Skullcandy some credit. Even if they had a product that couldn't last longer than 4 months, at least they would replace it for the lifetime run of the product (and all the extra "I'm sorry we fucked up" goodies didn't hurt either) - 8
  
• Replacement headphones develop the same problem as before, but in a shorter amount of time and under more careful conditions (and conscious of the problem) - 2
• Estimated time to get another replacement = 6 weeks (2 weeks for shipping back and forth + a month to get them replaced). This time the procedure actually took longer than the first. Maybe they were out of stock or something, but I received no email in regards to the doubly long replacement period. - 2
  

So what does this all mean? Well lets add it all up and find the total grade.


So the final grade that I give Skullcandy is a round up 5/10. The price is great and so is the sound, however, you will likely have to deal with getting it replaced twice a year. So expect 2-3 months out of the year to not have them. In retrospect (if I had a time machine and a killer cyborg), I don't think I would have gotten these, as their constant replacement is a chore. Lets see if they show up as estimated on September 3rd.