People who’ve purchased and registered MSI video cards all received a shocking mass email this evening, which has angered many, including myself.  The email, sent from the MSI HQ User Forum and Support Team, and written in horrible English, appears to be a response to the large number of RMA requests the company has received recently.

It begins by insulting its user base for not knowing how to read manuals, stating the “team is fed-up with explaining [to] you what can be found in the manual”. It then continues on to reveal MSI has installed “RTFM-chips” on their video cards that monitor and report back user behavior.  The email concludes by threatening to not support anyone who damages their video cards or who doesn’t read the manual by the first of next month.

To read this completely ludicrous email in its entirety, hit the jump.

“The MSI-forum and MSI-support team are fed-up with explaining you what can be found in the manual.
I mean, come on, how hard is it to read a manual?

They are printed on paper so you see them.

We have been talking to MSI for a couple of years and came up with a solution.
It has been implemented on a few boards for some time and with big success.
It had various names, like CoreCenter (1st gathering tool) upto DrMOS (fully automatic)

Some of you noticed because Windows wanted you to install a driver, but you couldn’t find the manufacturer.
On AMD systems this was called the Away-driver.

What you didn’t know is this, this driver activates the RTFM-chip. (Re-Turn inFormation to Manufacturer chip)
It means it can detect if you read a manual as well stores the parameters you have set in the BIOS.
As soon as you start Windows we are informed about your settings and manual readings.

As we have been monitoring peoples behavior for some time and combined those with the RMA information from returned boards.
At the same time monitoring questions on the forum and matched the IP’s.
We have made a discovery.

A lot of RMA is unneeded and unwanted, many happens due to user mistakes, numbers show that 90% of the RMA is OC people killing boards and
newbies connecting the wrong connectors or insert parts that should not be inserted.
Or simply forget to remove standoffs or CPU-power.
MSI plans on tackles those numbers, and the RTFM-chip will give a readout of what you have done when it did post or attempted to post!

Checking on you isn’t new, Homeland-security done this ever you installed XP-SP3 or above, but their info in encrypted so useless to MSI.
So MSI decided to ban people from support, RMA and the forum who has done the damage themselves or didn’t read the manual the first of next month.
We know who you are, and we have gathered enough information via our RTFM-chip.

The only question is, should MSI continue to do this? As some information is real bad.
Will this hurt you relation with MSI products?

Please let us know, as we have to talk to MSI management the first of next month and make them decide what to do with the information.

To unsubscribe from these announcements, login to the forum and uncheck “Receive forum announcements and important notifications by email.” in your profile.

You can view the full announcement by following this link:

http://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=136806.0

Regards,
The MSI HQ User to User Forum Team.”

When I first read this email, my initial reaction was that this has to be a cruel joke.  Unfortunately, after doing some research, I haven’t been able to ascertain whether or not it’s real.  I have however verified that it was sent from someone in MSI support who has access to mass email capabilities.

If it is a joke, it’s a cruel one that is likely to cause MSI to lose a lot of customers.  I mean who in their right mind sends out an email to all their customers calling them “newbies”, threatening to not support the products they’ve purchased if they don’t read the user manual by a certain date?

Also, why would MSI reveal all their newer video cards include a Re-Turn inFormation to Manufacturer (RTFM) chip that detects if you’ve read the user manual or tampered with the bios.  They even go on to defend this practice of spying on their customers by claiming the US Gov’t does it everyday.

Whether this is a joke or not, I will never buy another product from MSI again unless they immediately do something to respond to this horrendous email.  Not only do I feel insulted, but my privacy has been threatened.  I refuse to be treated this way by a company whom I’ve given my hard earned money to, and I plan to purchase a brand new video card from one of their competitors at my earliest convenience.