December 29th, 2022: I purchased a Lexar Professional CFexpress 256GB Type-B Card (LCFX10-256CRBNA) from Amazon for $179.99. I have purchased quite a few Lexar cards over the last couple of years after the reviews of their products were seemingly better than Sandisk who I had been loyal to for the last 15 years.
July 4th, 2023: I was shooting a 4th of July Parade with my Canon R5 and started noticing errors. The camera warned me of playback and write errors but wouldn’t tell me which card had failed. This camera has dual slots where I have JPEGs writing to the SD Card and RAW images writing to the CFexpress. I lost 14 raw images from that shot and had to rely on the JPEGs.
July 5th, I formatted both cards in the camera, reset settings to default and tried some shots around the house. The card was not accepting any writes to it and when I tried to drag files to it from MacOS, it failed. I also could not format or initialize it on my Mac.
The Lexar CFexpress card was dead.
As I have a few times over the years, I reached out to support but I always dealt with Sandisk. This was Lexar so I wrote in to their system with a copy of my Amazon receipt and description of what happened. They replied:
Due to CFIUS (Committee of Foreign Investments in the US) placing restrictions on LongSys, we are not currently able to ship replacements. The only option at this time is a refund. We may provide refund service and you can buy a new Lexar product with the refund amount. If you would like we can process this refund through PayPal. We will need an e-mail address associated with your account in order to process this.
I’ve never been refunded for a purchase, especially one with a lifetime warranty but okay. I’ll just order a replacement card and then wait for the refund. I replied:
The only issue is that if I buy that same model today, the price is now $249.99 even though I only paid $192.14. Will I receive a payment for the original purchase price only? If so, that won’t make it possible to purchase the memory card at today’s prices without paying the difference.
They responded:
We would only be able to refund the purchase price as shown on the proof of purchase that you have provided. This does not include any tax added to the purchase. In this instance, we would only refund the $179.99 as stated on the invoice.
So there is a lifetime warranty on this product for the original purchaser. It says so in their warranty policy page. However, if this card fails in 50 years, instead of replacing it with a similar or identical model, Lexar’s terms say:
Lexar at its option to repair, replace, or refund the Product that is determined by Lexar to be defective during the applicable warranty period. A refund would be the purchase price less any rebates or the current market value of the Product at the time the warranty claim is made to Lexar, whichever is lower
The card that was $179.99 now lists for $249.99 and the tax I paid of $12.15 is on me. Total cost at this moment to replace my Lexar memory card with a lifetime warranty that failed after 6 months is $249.99 (today’s MSRP) – $179.99 (their refund amount) + $12.15 I paid on sales tax in December + $17.50 I have to pay in sales tax today for buying one at the new price. In short, this $179.99 card failure is costing me $96.64 over their defective product in tax and price difference.
…but it gets better:
Please ship your return to the following address: Lexar – Returns c/o DCL Fremont, CA 94538. Please return your product to the above address within 14 days. If you will need more time than this, please reach out to us as early as possible.
The price for me to ship this memory card with tracking and signature confirmation is around $15 according to UPS and FedEx. I’m going to spend $15 to get a check for $179.99
So my out of pocket cost for Lexar’s garbage memory card is $111.64.
This is the most dumb and useless tech support solution I have ever experienced. I’m going to pay Lexar $111.64 to get a check for $179.99. So for the $179.99 I initially spent, they’re giving me about $68 back.
Why in the heck would I ever buy another one of their products again? Memory cards fail. It’s very common. Most of my cards die in 3-5 years. Had I known they wouldn’t just replace my card like everyone else, I’d have bought another brand.
Don’t buy memory cards from Lexar.