I am having an issue trying to get a motherboard replaced. It is under warranty and produced by Gigabyte. The board suddenly failed to post one day. I did a variety of tests and hardware swaps, and concluded the board must be at fault.

I bought it from an NZ store; I will refer to this store, and the person I dealt with, as X. I will disclose the store in the future if it is certain they were acting in an untrustworthy way and that it is of public concern.

I had no problems getting my item from X and they responded to my warranty request quickly. However, they didn't offer any return shipping packaging and told me I had to pay for it. I'm not entirely sure of NZ consumer law but I'm fairly sure I should get a refund on this when the item is determined to be faulty. The store told me it was in their T&Cs that I had to pay (which, if I am correct about what I said, is something they cannot "contract out"). They sent me a link to their T&Cs, but the page was suspiciously "under maintenance" for about an hour. When I complained about this, they said they "might decide to refund the shipping".

Fast forward. I send them the item because it's been days now and I figure I can argue the shipping cost later. Once received, X quickly confirms that he cannot get the board to work with his hardware either. However, rather than go ahead with the RMA, he tells me he needs to get "the supplier to test" and tells me it will be a 2 week job "worst case scenario".

Two weeks pass. No update, except I am accidentally sent an email for a dropship order containing someone else's order details, name, and address-- seems to be an absolute stranger. I tell X he has sent the wrong email to me, but he never acknowledges this. Not a good look. I ask about my order and he says when he knows, he'll tell me.

A month passes. I am now feeling suspicious about the whole thing, wondering why the RMA hasn't gone ahead when he personally confirmed the board didn't work. I send him an email raising my worries, and stating that the month delay is feeling unreasonable now, and that this process of RMA seems unusual compared to what I've dealt with.

Two days later I get a phone call to the number associated with my order. I had kept our dialogue strictly by email in case I needed to refer to it in the future, so this was very strange. I am not available to answer the phone but I am told that they said my motherboard was fine and they would send it back to me.

Naturally, I am not happy. I write an email arguing the farcical waste of time this has been, and how it doesn't make sense. I have not heard anything back from them yet.

So I ask:

> What can I do from here?
> Can I get my money back / insist on a replacement? What about shipping costs?
> Can anyone advise what my consumer rights are here? Should I / can I make a formal complaint about this business if I believe I am being fobbed off?