I pretty much had a similar issue with my Dirty Donny. Purchased in November, delivered 11/11 or so.. and within say ten games, the board died. So my brand new, $7,500 game doesn't work in the first 20 minutes, that sucks, for sure.

Stern send a new board, it's the wrong board. Now they want me to send back at my expense the boards... seems like that cost shouldn't be for the buyer, we expect a fully working game; if not, fix it on your dime, not mine.

I contacted my official dealer, and he wants me to photo the board in the game, so they know which one to send me... WTF? Really?! I begrudgingly sent the photos, weeks later, the game is still not playable.

Fast forward a few weeks, (12/20) they sent the boards the very slowest shipping, it took at least a solid week or more just to get the first replacement board.

The issue was not just a bad board, but also a bad flasher. It's now 1/9/16 and they sent a flasher yesterday, that guess what? Is the incorrect flasher.

Folks, I get it, this is a niche sport, there are bound to be some problems. Its how you deal with them that matters, and in my opinion, the support from Stern has been terrible.

My dealer actually said to me: "Do you want to send it back?" When I very first told him of the problem. Depending on your dealer, it could happen. Certainly I felt a LOT of sarcasm in his offer to take it back, and was even offended that they would not even try to fix it prior to saying just send it back... but YMMV.

And for those saying its acceptable, OK, but how about the repair process, is that OK too? It's OK to take weeks to repair a new game, send repair parts the slowest shipping method, then send the wrong parts repeatedly? Should the buyer have to pay out of pocket for postage? I didn't pay for my postage back on the boards, I pretty much refused to do it.

I can't say I shop at Walmart, but I can tell you that if I bought a $7k item from Walmart, I would expect some compensation from the store for my hassle. If they can't, or won't then I wouldn't buy from there anymore. There's a TON of markup on these games, and I would expect better service than wait having to wait several weeks only to get the wrong replacement parts sent. That part, seems obvious.

I shop at places like REI, Costco, and Nordstrom. All of whom have great customer service, and understand that its easier to keep an existing customer happy than it is to find a new one. I for one, am NOT happy about my experience with Stern either, that sentiment seems to be similar to the OP.

A whole lot of people here making excuses for a poor customer experience. I had the same experience myself.. Stern taking forever to send out replacement boards, and then sending the wrong part... weeks (months) later, STILL BROKEN! I'm still waiting on replacement parts from stern from a purchase made in November, same machine, MET.

Centerflank... "Any recent issues I've had I always drop Trent an email and the parts get sent out rather quickly, I don't even bother calling Stern tech support anymore. If your distributor blows you off on helping getting parts quickly, time to find a new one."

Trent WAS my distributor, and besides zero communication, he's failed me in every attempt to rectify this problem, so far. He never confirmed receipt of payment for many days, took for requests to get a receipt from him, etc, etc. I'd give him a 4/10 rating, and hes the number one Stern dealer?!!

This talk about gas is stupid. Nobody ever said they had to pay for my gas to the post office to return it... flamers!

TP: what took you so long to put FF on ignore? I had him (and three others) on ignore my very first post here... buncha pansies for sure.

MS: "Maybe we can help get this chap up and running?" <-THIS, exactly, how about some support rather than defending the crap support from the vendor? If they cant take care of us, then who?