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What to do When Technical Support Fails?
trifster asks: "At this year's Comdex I purchased a Buslink USB 2.0 Cardbus adapter for my laptop. It was a good price and a partial impulse purchase, however it was defective out of the box. Before Christmas 2003, I set it back via Buslink's RMA process. It will be 2 months tomorrow, and I have not received my replacement nor have the 3 phone calls or 4 emails been addressed. What can one consumer do when he is on the East Coast and his hardware is held hostage on the West Coast? What have your experiences been in resolving these support SNAFUs?"
Check with a lawyer.
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ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
You just stop wasting so much time over a $20 part. I don't see why people make such a big deal over cheap things.
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Better Business Bureau, I think, will recommend the same.
Before I part with'em: two pennies weigh ~4.996+/-0.014g, have a zinc core, and the face of Lincoln. You can keep 'em.
Seriously... most people will react when you say something like "if I can't get this resolved shortly, I might have to pursue a legal recourse..." People will usually jump....
Posting on Slashdot seems to be a good start.
A strategy that has worked for me in the past is send a letter (or email) to the president or CEO. When things get cascaded down from offices like that, results tend to happen.
I've finally got around to changing my sig
A) Threaten them. Demand to speak to managers. If they won't give you the numbers, or if you can't even talk to a real person, do your own digging to try and find some real nubmers. Check the yellow pages for instance, or maybe their WHOIS record.
B) See if your credit card company can offer any recourse. Most of them have a zero fraud liability I think. If you paid cash or check, SOL.
C) File a complaint with the better business bureau. This may sound lame, but it can actually be quite effective. I have friends who were getting screwed by some company and have come out far ahead after complaining to the BBB.
-73, de n1ywb
www.n1ywb.com
I was going to tell you to file for mediation with the Better Business Bureau, but they already have a poor record with the BBB so it might not do any good.
We rate this company as having an unsatisfactory business performance record, based on a pattern of complaints that cause us concern.
Complainants allege they experience delays in receiving ordered products, or that items are delivered damaged or defective. Some customers complain they experience delays or fail to receive rebates offered as buyer incentives.
The company responds in some delivery complaints by providing refunds, issuing credits or shipping orders. Some rebate complaints are addressed by advising rebate checks would be issued, or that the customer failed to comply with conditions of the offer. A few complaints are closed as disputed, meaning the customer was not satisfied with the company's response. Many other complaints are unanswered.
The Better Business Bureau does not endorse, recommend or disapprove of any product, service or company.
You can report them to the FTC but that won't help your specific case.
Learn.
Learn not to do "impulse purchases".
The poll mechanism already in place would be an excellent way to collect /. user experience with different hardware vendors, and perhaps other things like online vendors. I for one would be very interested to see non-sponsored surveys of satisfaction among a relatively technical audience.
It seems to me that having a database of this sort of information would go a long way towards
a) removing this sort of Ask Slashdot, which is pretty pointless beyond being a good way to rant, and
b) actively improving the sad state of affairs in the world of technical support and customer relations.
Whatever you decide to do, full documentation will frequently galvonize your argument. When you called, did you write down who you spoke with and when? Did you keep your emails to them? Have you sent them a registered letter?
At this point, I'd write their CEO a letter, showing all of this documentation (names, dates, etc). If I were trying to run a business, I'd be grateful to find out whose fault it is that my customer service sucks. If you don't hear back right away, follow up with a phone call to the CEO.
If a letter to their CEO fails, you have the BBB and small claims court to fall back upon as a last resort. Your documentation will be a great asset to you here as well.
-Turkey
At least you'll get your money back without much of a hassle.
tell whatever drone answers the phone that you need to speak to his/her supervisor.
keep moving up the ranks until someone takes action.
your phone calls produce nothing because the people you are talking to have no authority to take any action.
Back in '96, when Ed Foster had Iomega at the top of his bad list, I had a tape drive go bad. Their whole repair process was screwed up, so I wrote a letter to the president of the company, documenting all the support calls and efforts made to ascertain the status. I asked, "Will I ever see my tape drive again?" A week later, I had it back, fixed. Go Straight to the Top.
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
If you were still in the 90 days since purchase, and bought on a CC you might have been able to charge it all back.
----- LoboSoft specializes in Digital Language Lab
Your best bet is to have your credit card company credit your account, which they probably will do, especially if you have documentation. Then just tell Buslink to keep its defective card.
Don't get hung up on trying to prove fraud because you're complicating things. Your case is simple: you paid for a working widget, you never received a working widget, and the widget in question is currently in possession of Buslink and they apparently have no intention of returning it to you. Your position should be very clear here: Buslink has your money. Period. They didn't defraud you (that implies intent), they just didn't perform.
Any other course of action will eat up way more of your time than a cheapo PC card is worth. You probably feel violated, but really at this point you've probably wasted more time and anguish on the company than they deserve. Get your money back if you can and write off the emotional cost in any case. Retribution will just waste more of your time.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Never RMA something to a shady company like that. Instead, go to Wal-mart, Staples, or Best Buy, find the same card, buy it, and return your broken one as defective. They'll automatically deduct the money from the manufacturer's account, so the manufacturer will be rightly screwed.
I'd say the BBB is the first thing to try. It will work but don't expect quick results. Usually takes about 4-8 weeks depending.
I had a pager company send me a bill for a pager 2 YEARS after I closed the account. When I closed the account they specifically told me to keep the pager. Then after returning the pager they kept sending me bills and finally went to a collections agency despite my receipt stating I had returned the stupid thing. After filing a complaint with the BBB they finally cleared my account.
$7.95/mo, 200 GB disk, 2TBxfer, MySQL, PHP, RoR.
When you did not get a response, you had 30 days from purchase for full protection and 60 days for partial protection to have the CC company challenge the charge.
They would have given you the refund and backcharge the reseller.
If you used a credit card, then when the purchase came in DOA you could have called them up and asked them to dispute payment on the product. That way the reseller has every incentive to work with you, either to give you your money back or to give you a product that works.
Gates' Law: Every 18 months, the speed of software halves.
Well, it looks like http://www.buslink.com/ is down. I wonder if Slashdot has anything to do with this?
:)
If so... good job guys.
Sounds like a GREAT idea, but you didn't provide a link. Googling found BBB Informal Dispute Settlement (IDS) and BBB OnLine Complaint System .
I know very little about this; please post other information about interacting with the BBB if you have it.
The better business bureau isn't solely a complaint department. *BEFORE* You buy things you should check with the Better Business Bureau to see what kind of reputation the company you're buying things from are. It is meant to help the consumer make informed judgements, not just a forum for when shit goes wrong.
call them 20 times a day. the time to be nice is over. I managed a small tech support department and the squeaky wheel always gets the grease. be an ASSHOLE. try every extension in the company, the higher the better. A lot of the time someone lower down will try to hide a problem so they don't look bad.
At the BBB: How do you check a particular company? I don't see that anywhere on the BBB sites.
No CEO I've ever met or spoken with is going to deal with the issue of a $20 part with a single customer. If, suddenly, their inbox was full of complaints over a $20 part from numerous individuals then it might be an issue for them because it is a big problem for the company. This case however, appears to be an isolated incident and I seriously doubt the head of the company will do more then click on delete or (in the case of snail mail) place it in the circular file.
-caf
nt
-caf
Color me shocked! Seriously now, this is what can be expected with BusLink products. They are vastly inferior and a lot of times do not conform to the base performance of the standard specifications. You can watch BusLink products fail to enumerate multiple devices correctly or process enough data to multiple devices, where similar products based on NEC, Oxford Semiconductor, or Texas Instruments shine true.
Why purchase products based on chips from companies, anyways? Dramatically less chance of getting your coveted Linux support.
I had a KDS monitor that died after 8 months of use. Contacted Support had it RMA'd, said theyd ship me the same model with but in black/silver casing. I did the give us your credit card information and we'll send it immediately process. I got the new monitor in and it was 2 models below what i had. So i call technical support again, and they are soooooooo sorry. They tell me that they will call me at within 10 days to tell me another monitor just like mine or better has been shipped. They also asked if I had shipped my original monitor yet. I replied no and they said not only would they pay for shipping of the replacement monitor but the original dead one as well. 10 Days passed. 15 Days Passed. I've called a few time and now im told 'we're workin on finding a replacement'. Fast forward 2 weeks, KDS calls me threatening to bill me for $250 for a monitor that i had rma'd. The rep was rude and finally gave in to looking up the other RMA which noted what had happened. It's now been another 3 weeks and I still haven't heard anything. Speaking of which I'm making a phone call after this :\
You might want to check out The Art Of Turboing. It explains what to do when you can't get a good answer From Tech Support Pretty well. Also, for an example of really bad Tech Support, see CompUSA: How not to handle a turboing customer
You should have bought from a retailer like Best Buy. If it was defective, you can exchange it for a new product or get a refund. No need to deal with the manufacturer, because Best Buy does it for you.
Answer:
Don't speak to anyone at Comdex, and for the love of humanity do not swipe your card at any vendor's booths much less buy anything.
For that matter, don't go to Comdex!
The old modem upgrade trick...
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
Orwellian Tech Support anyone? I can't speak for this company but as far as the main tech company I worked for a while ago, they really didn't care about one person being without a PC. And so, if you tried to actually chase a return, as a tech, you got nowhere. So then the techs stopped caring and the usual procedure was just to fob people off - you actually need to make a noise / threaten to generate bad publicity to get action in some case.s
.. you work. The company I used to work at had these all the time. I even had one guy say he was recording the conversation and was going to take it to a solicitor, and wanted to speak to a supervisor. Guess what - the supervisors still didn't want to speak to him, and generally didn't care. Mind you, I didn't care by that point, just told him that the supervisor refused to speak to him and that was that.
Aside from using a credit card when buying computer equipment, one thing I've learned from hearing the frustrated callers try to rma their equipment at my last-job-but-two is to try and buy from a company with a physical return location - preferably a store. That way you can actually drop the PC in the store without it costing postage. And you can actually cause a ruckus in the store, which is a much quicker way of generating negative publicity. I don't mean throw stuff around or do anything that would get you arrested, just raise your voice to the point prospective purchasers can hear you.