I know we all had to be way more patient and lenient during the pandemic, but I would say that it’s way more the store’s responsibility than yours for a defective product, and they should take responsibility for the consequences of doing business with manufacturers who have no customer support.

yeah, but they would be better able to put an rma through for you. it is kind of on them to guarantee a working product actually. if the manufacturer gave them a faulty product it’s up to them to get the manufacturer to fix it. most retailers have an entire system and process for this kind of stuff. things show up to retailers broken all the time. part of their job is to guarantee against that and deal with it if they fail to before you buy it. if you asked them to replace it with a like model that worked or for them to initiate an rma and they refused then you’d be in the right to issue a chargesback.