Cyprus-Forum.com

[boomerang]

Recently I thought to do a firmware upgrade on my WNDR3700v1 router...the product is 3 years old well out of the warranty period...in the internal menu it gives you the choice of checking for firmware upgrades...so i clicked on it and sure enough it responds back there is new firmware...the next option you get is would you like to upgrade the firmware...prior to answering this question i backed up my configuration so I could come back if things did not work out...
going back to the question whether i do a firmware upgrade i said yes...during the upgrade something went wrong and the router went into limbo mode...so i said no problem i would call netgear support...you call netgear and you get to speak to a phillipino monkey brains...he informs me that the router is out of warranty and my only options are free internet support meaning searching their website for solutions OR pay AUS$ 89.95 for 6 months support or AUS$129.95 for 12 months support...i said no way and for 2 hrs the son of bitch wouldn't budge...so i was left in limbo for a fucking 2 minute restore...I told him to go fuck himself and bought a new WNDR3700v4...got up and going and the next day i called the Melbourne office complaining that they trying to exhort money out of me, mafia style...he said he will see what he can do...

the next day I receive this email

NETGEAR Support Case #22987923


*** This is an automatic, system-generated message. Please do not reply directly to this message. ***
Your case has been updated by NETGEAR Support.
Case #: 22987923
Case Summary: WNDR3700 - Router Failed after Firmware Upgrade
Product: WNDR3700
Update from NETGEAR:

Dear Mr.
My name is Ann. I am a Customer Care Advocate for NETGEAR Inc. I would like to convey to you our sincere apologies for the inconvenience you have experienced with your device and our experts. This issue has no doubt caused you some frustration and we want you to know that this is certainly not typical of our organization. NETGEAR Inc. takes great pride in maintaining a reputation for excellence, and we will make every effort to ensure that your next transaction with us is handled most efficiently. NETGEAR Inc. appreciates hearing from customers like you because we need feedback from our customers to help us monitor and maintain the quality of our products & services.

May I ask for your preferred time and number, so that I can have one of our experts assist you with your concern?

I have taken your comments and feedback to log a formal complaint on your behalf. Please let me assure you that we continue to be committed to providing you and all of our customers with the highest standards of product & service in the industry. We value your business, and please contact me should you have any further cause for concern.

Yours in Service,

Ann Salvador
Customer Care Advocate
NETGEAR Inc.
*** This is an automatic, system-generated message. Please do not reply directly to this message. ***
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so i replied on their bullshit website thinking they really cared...nothing so the following day i re- responded again...again nothing...

So i searched this ann Salvador on the net and sure enough her name popped up...great so i emailed her directly...

Dear Ann,

I am writing to you in hope you respond to me urgently regarding the case mentioned in the subject field...

I have responded to your email twice on the 1st of April outlaying my phone number and specified time as soon as possible for an expert to reach me as per your kind request...also today the 2nd of April but still after your kind words in your standard reply, have not heard from any experts concerning my frustration and extortion demands from your Philippines support centre...I am sorry but your unexpected and welcomed email sounded you were concerned and action would have immediately followed.

I would like to take this opportunity to say when I say extortion demands as offered by the supervisor at the help centre, $89.95 for 6 months and $ 129.95 for 12 months for after warranty support, but the cost of a new product the WNDR3700 costs is $122 with a 2 year warranty and support...so in my books why on earth would anyone subscribe to the warranty support as it makes no sense as the purchase of a new product with a 2 year support is less expensive than the 12 months support price...

Furthermore the supervisor at the help centre asked me who told me to do a firmware upgrade as they do not advised and recommend you do an upgrade but this conflicts with your equipment as the new router I purchased says on top of the menu in the first page there is new firmware for your router and if I would like to upgrade...I know makes no sense...2 million dollar question here is do I do or do not do a firmware upgrade?...your advice on this will be highly appreciated as it conflicts with your help centre...I am sure you could understand my scepticism on not doing a firmware upgrade and asking advice on this...the procedure is simply a couple of clicks on the menu and not rocket science.

The supervisor at the support centre to back his claim of no responsibility cited Microsoft...I informed him and advised him that
1...Microsoft will not do an upgrade on the operating system unless it downloads the file so if something goes wrong you are not left in limbo mode
and
2...Microsoft offers you the choice of downloading the file and then install at a later on time...
In both cases windows will make a restore point so you are not left in limbo mode...but still the supervisor did not acknowledge any responsibility on behalf of Netgear but insisted my 2 choices are free support from the help lines on the Netgear website, a no go because no router no internet, or the extortion demand of payment for support...quite unfair to say the least as I spend well over 2hrs pleading with him to help me out, as I stressed out to him there was no warning that the upgrade could go wrong leaving me with nowhere to go and also keeping in mind it would have been a 5 minute job. His actions not only caused frustration but a waste of my time, 2hrs, waste of your time and waste of his time...the only possible explanation for this shenanigans is to keep his employment intact.

The router, WNDR3700, in question is out of warranty.

I am writing to you in hope that
1...I get reimbursed for the cost of the new router because i did nothing wrong just followed instructions and no warnings were mentioned.
2...This problem gets eliminated so other Netgear customers do not suffer indignity at the hands of scrupulous help centre staff.
3...Correction in the way the unit does firmware upgrades.
4...A correct policy on firmware upgrades and not decisions taken on the spot to suit, again by misinformed and untrained scrupulous help centre staff.

By the way, I pleaded my case with the supervisor, Charles ID 74162 and case ref 22987923 to help me sort the problem out, but he was quite adamant to the point of stubbornness as the problem would have been eliminated and considering my computer background the last 30 years...but to no avail...again the said supervisor is not computer/business savvy and in all honesty not suited in the field he is employed in...I believe the whole conversation was recorder and you are most welcome to listen to it...

In your request you asked me to provide a number and best time to which I supplied and now you also have my email address...Your email address was obtain from the internet after a search on your name and deeply sorry if this causes you any concerns as no malice from my part is intended...just out of pure frustration...

Let me express my deepest disappointed as I have not heard from any experts as outline in your standard reply received on the 1st of April...it really sounded urgent with an intent of helping out...unless of course this was an April's fool's joke....


Your prompt reply on this will be highly appreciated.

Must have stir the hornets nest with the email, as you will see below and set the wheels in motion...this is the response i got from her...no restitution for the purchase of new equipment....

NETGEAR Support Case #22987923


*** This is an automatic, system-generated message. Please do not reply directly to this message. ***
Your case has been updated by NETGEAR Support.
Case #: 22987923
Case Summary: WNDR3700 - Router Failed after Firmware Upgrade
Product: WNDR3700
Update from NETGEAR:
Hello Mr.

Thank you for your response.

We sincerely apologize for the trouble this have caused you and the delay in my response as I was out of the office the time you sent the email.

I will have one of our L2 experts call you and provide you a one time free support for the issue that you are experiencing. I will have one of our experts call you around 11:00 AM - 01:00 PM. The 2 year support that you mentioned is only for hardware warranty and not for support. The support warranty that we have is only for 90 days based on the purchase date. Can you still recall your original purchase date so that I can update your registration?

Please refrain from sending emails to our personal email as we cannot answer your concerns and queries there, we used the email address to access the email sent by customers and not for personal use.

Sincerely,

Ann Salvador
Customer Care Advocate
NETGEAR Inc.
*** This is an automatic, system-generated message. Please do not reply directly to this message. ***
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http://my.netgear.com/myNETGEAR/OnlineC ... n8yA%3D%3D
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so i said to my self why bother with more bullshit...i changed the guts of my router with the new one and returned the newly purchased router stuck in limbo to the shop for a complete refund... ...screw them...as far as i am concern it was not a price issue but a principal issue...end of the day my problem was fixed, basically got a new router and made my problem their problem...

Had to re-arrange the the internals by butchering the pcb, drilled a new hole on the old housing, put it back in the box, and heat shrink the box as to look unused...not a big deal...

these people think we were born stupid...

If this happened in the US they would have been taking to court for a million dollar compensation...assholes...

[Get Real!]

You didn’t… OMG you’re BAD!


PS: Save these somewhere for future reference:

"How To Check and Change Your Router's Firmware"
http://forum1.netgear.com/showthread.php?t=63234

"How to unbrick your WGR614v9 after a bad firmware update!"
http://forum1.netgear.com/showthread.php?t=30453

[boomerang]

no my way is better...got a brand new router...

[erolz66]

So basically you stole a new router and now you are bragging about it on a public forum. Nice.

[B25]

So basically you stole a new router and now you are bragging about it on a public forum. Nice.

So basically, just what the TCs did with the 'trnc' then??? Nice.

[boomerang]

So basically you stole a new router and now you are bragging about it on a public forum. Nice.

I must say your comprehension skills seemed to have eluded you... this comes from sitting on your ass doing nothing for too long...

In case you have not realised time is money and wasting my time on the phone pleading with morons did not get me anywhere....

By the way still waiting for their experts to call me, 5 days after the event...6th day tomorrow... one can only hope

End of the day my problem became their problem... they need to pick their up act...2hrs pleading with them and then whitewashing me with bullshit is not my cup of tea...If I wanted to steal I would have done it without telling them... because I bought the new router the same day...i send the lengthy email 3 days later... before I done the switch...you seemed to missed this tiny detail... they had at that point 3 days to correct the wrong...

I send them a lengthy email prior to me switching the guts of the router setting reasonable conditions as to what should have been done and none where met... and in no way I demanded money for my time spend while pleading the with moronic supervisor.. oh yes more whitewashing from them... and you call it stealing?... just wondering what you would call their actions?

Sometimes you need to fight fire with fire and in no terms demanded from them anything but to do the right thing... it was never about money as I am not really hard up for AUS$120...but maybe for you it's a lot of money...

Maybe more people should do what I did in order for the multi nationals to change their act... can't keep on pushing people around and expect to get away with it all the time... they tried to extort money from me while the odds were in the favour...

No I was not bragging but got what was mine in the first place...I bought the original router in the first place... it was not stolen....

2hrs pleading with them @ AUS$300 per hr that comes to just under 5 routers I could have bought...

But sitting on your ass on daily basis @ $0 per hour you could consider this stealing...

erol to be honest I am not so sure as to why you would come and say this... people never seemed to be full of suprises I guess... get a life or better get fucking job...idiot

Stealing is when you benefit from something... how did I benefit erol...i had a working router and now I have a working router...I stole nothing and I do not take likely to extortion...

On a side note the house you are currently occupying belongs to someone else taken away from them by force ... so who exactly is the thief now huh?...
you have some nerve erol...fucking hell...

[boomerang]

Another option I considered was to purchased 5 routers and flashed them and returned them the same day for full refund... wasting their time...I thought against that as that would have meant wasting more of my time...

People some times must take a stance and say enough is enough...I now went from a router version 1 to version 4...major difference is the graphical presentation of the software but functions are the same... could not use my saved config file so I had to reconfigure it... more bloody time wasted... and the router I have now as far as netgear is concerned is sill out of warranty.... so really there was no gain...

all this because after 2 hrs of pleading the moronic supervisor went the extortion way...that's all...

And to this day do not know how many orders I lost...because all our customers use an EDI, electronic data interchange type of ordering and erol calls me a thief...fucking rich to say the least...

[CrookedRiverGuy]

IT rule #1

A working computer (or router) is like an erect penis: It stays up as long as you don't f*ck with it

[erolz66]

I must say your comprehension skills seemed to have eluded you... this comes from sitting on your ass doing nothing for too long...

My comprehension is perfectly fine. You broke a three year out of warrant router by needlessly flashing it which appear to have failed. You then expected netgear to fix this problem that you caused for you and when they did not you effectively stole a new router, by taking the guts out of the old one you broke and putting it in the case of a new one which you then return as if it was the new router and it never worked from purchase.

You make out this is a common fault of netgear routers and that all of them will fail when doping a flash update. This is not the case at all. Any time you do flash update of this type there is a risk of 'bricking' the device you are updating be it a router, a motherboard, a smartphone or any other device that has flashable rom. What is worse is that the bricked router could almost certainly have been fixed by anyone with an average level of competence, or indeed even by yourself if you could have been arsed to do some basic searching on netgear forums or internet in general. Of course now you have 'modified it' in order to get a brand new router for free, it can no longer be fixed.

Even ignoring the morality of what you have done - and it is clearly theft, to then brag about it on a public forum is just stupid. The 'new' device you have returned as faulty will end up at a netgear centre and they will know that it has been tampered with. They will not credit the retailer for such a return. So either the retailer will loose (so much for making it netgears problem)out so you can have a new free router or the retailer will come back to you.

What you have done is no different than if you had a three year old router that stopped working and when you demanded the maker fix you broken router for free even though it is outside its warranty period and when they do not you buy a new router put the old broken one back in the new ones box and return it to the retailer as if the new one was broken from when you purchased it. It is theft plain and simple. That the cause of the old router failing was you deciding to press the update firmware button on the devices control panel does not change the scenario one iota. Nor do does your protesting that yopu are just the little guy standing up for their rights against the mega corporations hold any water either. The bottom line is your three year old out of warranty router stopped working and when the maker refused to fix it for you for free, you decided to steal a new router to replace it, ending up with a brand new router for no cost. You make out that every time some one uses the flash update function on the control panel it fails. This is just not true. If it were it would be all over the internet and there probably would have been a class action in the US if it was happening every time and netgear refused to admit it. You got unlucky and the flash update failed, it can happened and its not netgears fault. If anything its your fault for doing it when there was no apparent need to do it.

I could of fixed the old router after the flash update failed. You probably could of fixed it with a little effort. Instead you just demanded that netgear tell you how to fix it on phoneline support you were not entitled too and when they refused you basically stole a new replacement - and probably from the retailer and not netgear.

[erolz66]

IT rule #1

A working computer (or router) is like an erect penis: It stays up as long as you don't f*ck with it

Indeed you do not flash update a device unless there is a specific need to do so and the reason why you do not is because there is always a chance that it will fail and brick the device (just like you do not give general aesthetic unless there is a specific need to do so, as there is always a statistical chance that something will go wrong).