The Vonage Saga Continues

So this past weekend my friends who went up to San Antonio Texas to scout out some real estate for Sensual Chocolatiers picked up a new Vonage router for me. On Monday they gave it to me and I was most excited to try to get back on line to communicate with the world again. Well I obviously set my expectations too high, thinking that it would work out of the box.

After five hours of working with the Vonage technical staff in India and the Linksys/Cisco technical staff both somewhere in East Asia and Irvine, they came to the conclusion that this router was not functioning properly and I would have to return it to the retail store where I bought. No they can not just send me one from Linksys the manufacturer, I need to go back to CompUSA in San Antonio to return it. Well that sure is not very convenient as it is a nine hour drive each way.

At least I talked with CompUSA in San Antonio and they will mail me one and will credit me when I finally get to return the non-functioning one to them. I guess this is what has happened to our technology companies, they treat customers like dog poop and now turn out commodities and not quality products. As someone who has spent over 15 years in the software industry, I am ashamed and embarrassed that these companies call this "service" customer service, it is a dis-service. I remember when you use to be able to call Dell, Microsoft and other major companies and actually talk to someone and get a problem solved. Not any more you now talk with a junior tech rep living somewhere in Asia who has less knowledge of the product that I do, how can they help?

And the problem is not just software, I also recently purchased a Epson RX600 printer and the printer jams about every fifth page. I can see what the problem is, there is a small piece that has a slight bent to it and catches the paper when it runs through the printer. So when I call Epson they tell me I need to send in the printer as they can not send the small part. However when I explain that I am in Mexico they say I need to return the whole printer to them but they can't return it to me as they can't ship to Mexico. This is an unworkable solution as the cost of all this shipping will cost me more than the entire printer, again they just don't get what it takes to give quality customer service.