Well, as some of you know, I have been absent from TF2 because of my video card failing.  Specifically, my 7950GT failed in a short-out when I came home for winter break and I was pissed for a while.

My card is an EVGA brand card, and it cost about 275 at the time I received it as a gift.  My parents handed it to me, told me they registered it and that I was good to go.  For the past year my card was flawless until that short-out... then it was useless.  Oh well, it's registered under warranty, I can get it replaced!

Nope.  My parents never registered it.  My warranty was never validated so the one-year replacement plan wouldn't count.  Not only that, but my card actually shorted out a year and a month after it was purchased, so even with the warranty it wouldn't have been grounds for replacement since it was past one year.  I went ahead and registered it, one year and one month after it was bought since I didn't know it apparently wasn't.

I was 100% sure I completely lost.  I'd have to pay 300 for another card if I wanted to be able to have a decent upgrade and play all my current games.  Since I couldn't afford that, I went ahead and called EVGA just to see if they could repair my card and I could pay for it, and not have to spend nearly as much.

The guy told me to send it in and that they would go ahead and replace it for free.  Not only that, he said I didn't need to include my purchase receipt and that they would do it even though my product was out of warranty, and registered over a year after it was purchased.  Oh, well, I had to pay $6 shipping.

I sent it in, and I just got it back now.  They sent me an 8800GTS 640mb.  Wow.

So basically, this company has my business for life.  They replaced my card even though I was not eligible in just about every way.  Not only that, they upgraded my card.  I got lucky and I didn't even deserve a replacement.

Winnnnar.