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vman1320's avatar
vman1320
Aspirant
Sep 25, 2020

If you are considering purchasing NETGEAR GearHead subscription, please read this first

I have been having slow internet wifi speeds out of my ax120 and the nighthawk mesh system with confirmed fiber gigabit speeds via Fronteir. This ticket has been open nearing one month. I have been on the phone for over 10 hours total attempting to resolve the issue. I have NOT been transferred to an L2 as promised by my contract. 

 

I can officially say that Netgear is falsifying to consumers that they provide premium support for paid gearhead suppor subscriptions. The only proof I can show the community is the attached screenshot of Netgear downright ignoring my plea for help. 

 

At this point, they missed THREE appointments, made with me to provide an L2 support tech. I am the only person reaching out to attempt to resolve problems. 

 

This is DEFINITELY looking an a case for BBB. 

 

Netgear - please have the integrity to ensure that customers sold a service receive the support they are sold. What I have here is blatant disregard for a customer, me, that has done everything correct including paying additional money to just have the internet speeds. I have done my part, will you? 

 

Please see attached. 

7 Replies

  • Christian_R's avatar
    Christian_R
    NETGEAR Employee Retired
    Sep 30, 2020

    Hello vman1320,

     

    Welcome to the community! Has our support team been able to follow up on your case and have it escalated? If not, please feel free to send me a private message with your case number and I can look into it further. 

     

    Regards,

    Christian 

    • vman1320's avatar
      vman1320
      Aspirant
      Oct 03, 2020
      Hello!
      I hope you are doing well today. I am going to be blunt for the interest of transparency. I sincerely appreciate you spending the time to read this. This is in no way a personal jab at you.

      Earlier this week, I ended up spending 2 hours on hold and a total of 4 hours phone time on my weekly call to attempt to receive help from my gearhead premium membership support team.

      Here is what happened. After an hour of hold time, I was routed to the wrong L2 department, ORBI rather than nighthawk. They then placed me in hold for 1 hour to get me a nighthawk L2. I was then disconnected on Netgears side.

      I called again, on hold for an hour, went through the dog and pony show of case number, please give L2, missed your appts, please escalate, etc. Finally an L2, after one month and over 20 hours of me pleading and reaching out for help, (spending over $1000, on the original purchase coupled with purchasing incorrect devices due to invalid gearhead L1 advice).

      It seems your rax120, flagship router, is broken!!!!
      No resolution was provided and your nighthawk gearhead L2 routed my case to engineering. They then said bye. I haven't heard from anyone over a week or been provided status!!
      You have serious firmware and possibly hardware issues! I'd highly recommend you cease shipping the rax120 as it may be defective. If only a software issue, send a notice to your consumers why they are experiencing the opposite of what you promised with the rax120.

      I'll send you a personal message. I am writing this because I wish to no one, the experience I am presently experiencing. The Netgear Community has the right and deserves to know the truth about Gearhead premium support, costs erroneously passed down to their customers, the abandonment and hopelessness your premium customers are experiencing, and down right negligence of meeting your gearhead premium SLA commitments.

      I appreciate you reading this. I hope it has inspired you to escalate this CSAT issue as an escalation to those accountable for your customer experience.
      • schumaku's avatar
        schumaku
        Guru - Experienced User
        Oct 11, 2020

        Not sure on how this is related to the GearHead support at all - in my unqualified (off GearHead coverage area) understanding this is about 24*7 support for your home network (as per https://gearhead.netgear.com/), and no special priorities are granted (e.g. per https://www.netgear.com/about/terms-and-conditions#Netgear-Gearhead-terms ). Painful if L1 advise does redirect into the wrong direction, and L2 does go the opposite direction.

         

        Any Netgear support is consumer or best-effort only - and when things are going up to engineering, things can take much longer. 

         

        Just had my fun today with a GearHead asking in the community (!!!) for assistance because it had by accident registered their own Orbi system to a Netgear customer account 8-/

         

        Afraid, can't help much on the potential RAX120 performance issue as i don't have such a device at hand to test and compare.