MP3 stopped working, what shall I do?

January 22, 2007 8:17 AM

My Creative MP3 players stopped working right after 1 year, warranty expired, credit card did not want to do anything for me, no real help from manufacturer... it really sucks that I paid $100 each (I got 2) and was only able to use them for a year. What are my options now? or I just have to eat the cost?

One player gave up functioning completely. I could only use it to listen to radio now. The other one has a distorted sound every time when a song hits a high pitch. I contacted Creative customer service several times (email is the only way), and all they did was sending me messages with links to download the new firmware. I downloaded, but that did not help fixing the problems. I contacted them several times, they gave me the same answer every time. It's really frustrating. There was no phone number to call. I got them from creative

posted by dy to Shopping (15 answers total)

it sounds like your options are to decide if you want to continue supporting Creative and purchase new products from them, or purchasing hardware from someone else
posted by evilelvis at 8:42 AM on January 22, 2007

Unless you have an extended service plan from a retail outfit that sold the players, your only options are to:

1) Find an independent electrican who'd be willing to check things out for you

2) Sell the units for parts on eBay

3) Donate the untis to a resource recovery drive collecting items with toxic materials (the circuit boards in the players and their batteries would count)

With the warranties past their expiry date, Creative would no longer be bound to support the hardware.
posted by Smart Dalek at 8:45 AM on January 22, 2007

A few options:

Contact your local Better Business Bureau. They're not really going to be able to do anything, but it might make you feel a bit better.

Contact your local television station's "scam busters" department. They're probably not going to be interested in the crappy quality of cheap mp3 players, but you never know.

Find review sites and post reviews of the mp3 players that you bought. Other people should know how craptacular their products appear to be.

Send mail further up the food chain. Contact the CEO, contact the President of the company, contact every person at the company whose name you can find. They might fix the problem just to make you go away.
posted by bshort at 8:46 AM on January 22, 2007

Try The Consumerist this is right up their street.
posted by Webbster at 9:05 AM on January 22, 2007

If you follow bshort's advice, can I recommend going in the opposite order? Contact a VP at the company (send a polite, typed letter with as much accompanying information as you can, like photocopies of your receipts or warranty documents) and wait to see what kind of response you get FIRST. They may turn out to be helpful.

Of course, if they're not, go ahead and tear 'em a new one with Consumerist, the BBB, your local news, etc!
posted by bcwinters at 9:07 AM on January 22, 2007

Well, stuff breaks after a while. I will say one thing though, my MP3 player started having strange problems and I tried upgrading the firmware, and... it worked! So check and see if there are any firmware updates for your player.
posted by delmoi at 9:18 AM on January 22, 2007

Have you tried searching for possible solutions on any forums for Creative products? When I had a problems with my old Creative Nomad, I was always able to fix it myself after searching the forums on nomadness.net.
posted by amarynth at 9:33 AM on January 22, 2007

I'm a bit surprised you got no help from the manufacturer. I broke my Creative mp3 player 2 years ago, and was able to contact the company and send it in for repairs. It was past the warranty, but they were willing to do it for a small fee. I guess their customer service has gotten worse since then. I'd try again at the company though.

I just looked through some of my old emails and found the following, which may be helpful:

Phone # for Creative Customer Service: 1-800-998-1000

Address for the service center I sent it to for repairs:
1519 Cimarron Plaza
Stillwater, OK 74075

Hopefully the number is still current.

Also, if you have trouble getting a human at the phone number, gethuman gives the following advice:

Connect to account collections or sales or account cancellation; they always seem to answer quickly. First ask them for their name and rep number (so they know you are writing it down, and thus so they are more likely to help you.) Then ask them to transfer you to the department you need. Sometimes they will put you ahead of the queue, although sometimes they will send you to the end (and thus in those cases this tip is useless).
posted by SBMike at 9:57 AM on January 22, 2007

May I ask what model of MP3 player you had? I ask because I'm pretty sure that most Creative Muvo TX FM models made in the last year are crap. I myself have gone through two of these in a year, and a relative had his break before he even had to recharge the battery. On the other hand, a friend of mine who bought his Muvo 2 years ago says it's still working fine -- my assumption is there was a bad batch at some point, else general build quality for this line has gone down recently.
posted by Hildago at 10:50 AM on January 22, 2007

If it's past the 1yr warranty period, you're probably not going to get a whole lot of relief from Creative.

Just go buy an iPod. Heck, go for a refurbished one. I got a refurb iPod nano for just over $100 and it's well over a year old and still works great.
posted by drstein at 11:02 AM on January 22, 2007

I know this isn't an argument or the quality of Creative (although I notice the first "get an iPod" comment just appeared)... but anyway I don't get the whole "email is the only way" thing.

I got a Creative mp3 player refurbished and it wouldn't boot up at first. I found a phone number either inside the box or online, I forget which, but it was easy. Anyway I called and a very helpful person emailed me instructions on how to reboot. Ever since then, it works great.
posted by drjimmy11 at 11:08 AM on January 22, 2007

ok after researching I find:

Free telephone support for the first 60 days of ownership.

so they want money to talk on the phone, which kind of sucks.
posted by drjimmy11 at 11:10 AM on January 22, 2007

Samsung mp3 players seem to be consistently good and probably in a price range you'd like. Mine's lasted over a year at this point and a friend's is around two years old. But honestly devices like this aren't made to last anymore; manufacturers wised up in like, the 50's about the danger of electronics being "too reliable."

The second problem (distorted high pitch) sounds like you blew one of your earbuds. Might be worth trying out a friend's headphones there.
posted by shownomercy at 2:24 PM on January 22, 2007

I am a huge Creative fan, having owned two Nomads and the new-ish Microphoto (which is AMAZING). One of my Nomads broke, refusing to start up, and I let it sit around for about two years. One day, I was fiddling with it, plugged it in, hit the on switch, and it worked flawlessly. Perhaps a new battery (if it's removable) is in order?
posted by nursegracer at 5:55 PM on January 22, 2007

Have you looked at the discussion fourms on the creative website? When my microphoto crashed, I had given it up for dead, until I found the solution to my problem there.
posted by cholly at 11:11 PM on January 22, 2007