Faster, better…

Posts Tagged ‘customer no service’

Less than a year ago I purchased a wireless Logitech keyboard and mouse combination from the Office Depot in Prince Frederick, MD. I did not have the product long when the wireless receiver stopped functioning. The receiver is flimsy. When it is bent, even a small amount, the internal USB connections fail. I went back to the store and asked if I could replace the receiver. They said no and suggested I buy a new keyboard. I did so.

The employee suggested that I purchase an extended warranty. That was my big mistake. It had been maybe seven months and the same thing happened to the receiver – again.  But wouldn’t you know it. I could not find the receipt that had my extended warranty information. I don’t recall anyone telling me at the time that I had to register my warranty or explaining how it worked. I made the foolish mistake of making an assumption that a company as large as Office Depot would have all of its customer service i’s dotted and t’s crossed. Not so.

When the second keyboard failed I drove back to  the Office Depot. The salesman remembered selling me the agreement and the keyboard! What luck. But then, he said since you don’t have your receipt I have no way of looking up your warranty. He called the manager. The manager said the same thing and told me to call the warranty people. He walked off. No offer to call the warranty people.  I was stuck. I needed a keyboard and mouse that night so I purchased a cheaper wireless set. No I didn’t buy an agreement.

The following day I looked up the customer service number for Office Depot and made the call. Guess what. Their “agents” are outsourced to an off shore company. I knew I was talking to someone without an invested interest in making me happy.  This rep was polite and gave me a telephone number for the warranty department.

By now I have 1.5 hours of my time involved in this fiasco. I call the warranty department only to find out that unless I registered my warranty and my receipt they had no way to look up the information. But wait, it gets better. I have one of those store rewards cards. They couldn’t use that to find my sale with the warranty attached. By now I’m getting suspicious. Was the system designed this way because they know a certain amount of people will fail to save a receipt or register their product?

But I digress. It turns out that after fourteen days you cannot return a product to the store. After two weeks you are covered by the manufacturer’s warranty. That means that even though I paid extra to replace this keyboard when it went bad I would have to wait one year from the date of purchase to get any satisfaction. I did try to ask Logitech by email if I could replace the receiver and never recived an answer. Logitech is not what it used to be apparently.

It never ceases to amaze me how some retailers just don’t get it.  Customer no-service is alive and well ant Office Depot. I clearly didn’t understand at the time the terms of this useless agreement I paid good money for. Office Depot made out like a bandit.

The truth is at the right retailer I strongly believe in extended warranty for the right product. Having worked as an Assistant Manager for a West Marine store I can say that West Marine gets it. Their no-hassle guarantee should be explored by Office Depot. Office Depot has lost my business over this. The only thing I have left is to vote with my feet and my wallet.

In order to pursue this I have to go back through months of credit card receipts to identify the date when I purchased the product so the unhelpful warranty folks can put me through to the receipt look up people. They can somehow find my extended warranty if I jump hoops. When I am able to get the date and I file the claim I still have to wait to receive either a check or a gift card. The store can’t help me. Why didn’t the first salesperson tell me to try Logitech? Why didn’t Logitech return my email the second time around? I’m also done with Logitech.

Any time you purchase a warranty:

1. Save your recipt

2. Understand the terms

3. Imagine what could happen under the terms.  When you do not like the scenario do not buy the warranty.

4. Follow through and register your warranty. Don’t rely on the retailer. They are probably going to cross their fingers and hop you forget and that you lose your receipt. They make more money that way.

So there I sat trying to send an email with a small attachment to two friends, both on the Comcast network. The email service I was using was a web mail application at Network Solutions. When I sent the email I received a bounced copy of the message with an error 554 BL000000 that said my IP address was a SPAMMER! I looked like and acted like a SPAMMER! I got the same message last week trying to send to Comcast.net from a local email client application on another domain. Very frustrating.

Well I called Comcast and spoke to folks there. (They have always been exceedingly polite, respectful, and helpful.) The rep told me that my mail was rejected because of a PTR lookup failure (reverse DNS.) They suggested I call Network Solutions. I called Network Solutions and they claim they are not being throttled en-masse by Comcast.net. The rep at Network Solutions did say that my home Comcast IP address was listed at Symantechs http://investigate.brightmail.com as a BAD SPAMMER IP address! Oh swell.

We run NO Symnatech products on our PC’s at home yet this third party company is creating a reputation file on our IP. We have never been compromised, we don’t spam, we just use the Internet like everyone else. We have virus programs on our computers. The ONLY issue we had once was a dopey FaceBook worm. McAfee’s product furnished by Comcast killed that.

Network Solutions can’t restore my email service. Comcast will not issue a new IP. Comcast claims I simply need to issue a release and renew but that has not worked in years. We no longer have a dynamic IP address and they have no way of changing the IP.

I DID discover something I was NOT aware of, something Comcast has still not told me COULD be the problem. Why it would prevent me from using a webmail client at Network Solutions is unknown. According to this link at Spamhaus ALL comcast customers are REQUIRED to use their Comcast OUTGOING email server and MAY NOT use another provider’s server. I have ALWAYS been able to use the outgoing servers at my other domains at Network Solutions. This really yanks my chain. I can’t use services that I PAY FOR and I AM NOT A SPAMMER!

Now my family is apparently at the mercy of company whose services we do not use and neither Comcast or Network Solutions will resolve this mess for us. They just point at each other or at Symantech. Internet security has run amok.

This after I discovered that my web host also throttles large FTP uploads for security reasons after I tried to upload more than six files into my web directory. Customers are being protected to death and customer service has tanked. Customer Service agents everywhere are having trouble with two plus two equals four. They just have no idea how to help or alleviate the conditions they themselves create with their own security inventions. Customers are losing freedoms and services we used to take for granted because of the spies, cretins, bottom dwellers and spammers compromising accounts. I am so frustrated. The situation is out of control and just is not right.

My time is as valuable as his so after one hour in the waiting room chair I got up and left. Yesterday I had a routine office appointment. A few days earlier this doctor’s office called me to remind me. Great. I was about fifteen minutes early. More times than I can remember arriving early has been a benefit to me and the doctor so to respect his time I always arrive a bit early. I signed in. The receptionist never looked up.

Over the next hour, those of us in the waiting room were subjected to an obnoxious day-time television program. Ignoring the TV as best I could, I scanned every magazine I could find but started to feel like some appreciable time had already passed. Lots of folks had gone in ahead of me. A nice lady sitting nearby looked at me and said, “What time was your appointment?” I said, “Two-thirty.” She said mine was at Two.” When I asked what time it was she said just after three o’clock.

I got up after sitting there for an hour and told the receptionist I was leaving and to reschedule me. My daily errands, being home in time to greet my spouse when she got home from work were all timed and based on the agreed upon appointment time. Already I had wasted one hour of my day in the waiting room. A new appointment was scheduled twenty days out. There was no apology and no regret expressed.

I believe that patients have a right to know when the doctor is way behind schedule. This office made no attempt whatsoever to set my expectations. When I rescheduled I didn’t appreciate the stares or the attitude. I could tell they felt my time couldn’t be nearly as important as the doctor’s. Well I’m done being treated like a faceless name when I PAY for a professional service. I’m sick of being treated like I should be privileged that I’m allowed to be their customer. Keep me waiting I’ll either reschedule or find a new doctor.

I’m curious. Did anyone else get an unexpected delivery of heating oil at the end of March? Oddly enough I did even though there was over 100 gallons in the tank. The bill came to $252. This has never happened before. This last year the oil delivery company insisted upon a payment or cash to guarantee the lowest price and there was a big per-gallon price reduction when the price of oil plummeted. Why would an oil company deliver oil when our use of the heater has been reduced to a few mornings in the entire month?

Very puzzling. I hadn’t planned on this in my monthly budget so they will be getting an ear full from me today on the telephone.