Hi, I opened an RMA for my hard drive on October 6th. I haven’t had time to get it packaged up and mailed.
From my understanding, the RMA is valid for 30 days before expiring. I was going to try to mail it tomorrow, as this is still within the 30 days. However, obviously via ground mail the package will probably not be delivered to the RMA department until the end of this week or early next week, which would be past the 30 days. As long as it was mailed within 30 days, am I okay? Or will my RMA be voided as soon as the 30 days are exceeded? In other words if the 30 days lapse while the device is in transit, will they just send it back and refuse the RMA when it arrives?
Also, after attaching the RMA pre-mailer, do I still need to actually pay for postage? Or does the pre-mailer cover shipping costs? I’m a little confused by the instructions on the WD site (in fact, I feel like they’re deliberately misleading, to be frank). Even the packaging info is confusing.
For example, do I really *need* one of those ESD bags to place the drive in? I was just planning to use bubble wrap. I do not even know where I could acquire an ESD bag. Will mailing it back without one of these bags automatically void the warranty?
Thanks for any help you can provide.