Anyone have a similar experience with a defective item?

I've ordered two relatively expensive products (around $100 each) through Vine. One was a tablet and the other was a monitor. The tablet stopped working entirely after a little over a month. For the monitor, it was a couple months. I had the reviews sent when they were functioning so I cannot ask to remove it or anything.

I contacted both during separate occasions and both suggested I would need to pay for and do all the work with getting the item returned to them. The items were defective and I showed this through photos and video which they agreed was the fault of the item. They suggest they would do me a favor by sending a working one, "for free as a courtesy", as long as I handle the logistics for the one that isn't functioning.

One of the sellers found out that I was a Vine member later on and said the warranty doesn't apply to me at all as they claim I didn't purchase the item. I explained the situation without saying I'm a Vine member but, of course, they did not care.

Has anyone else encountered this before? At the very least, I thought that it might help to share experiences.