Serious Customer Complaint Terrible, Appalling Customer Service EX8000

I am absolutely appalled by the disgraceful customer service I have received over the past several months.  Every time I have spoken to a supposed support or technical 'expert' (imbecile is a more apt description of some of the support staff), I have been lied to!  It has taken over two months to get absolutely nowhere, and I have no faith that Netgear will ever resolve my problem. If I were you, I wouldn't waste a single penny on Netgear - they clearly don't care about their customers.  Seriously - go to any of the other networking manufacturers out there.  Netgear may be good at selling you a product, but they are the worst company I have ever come across when it comes to after-sales customer care and support.

Now, a bit of background to my case.  A few years ago, I purchased an EX8000 WiFi Access Point.  I'm not just a one-off Netgear customer - I've in fact spent many hundreds of pounds on Netgear products - yet still, this doesn't make any difference to the level of support I have received. Now, nearly three months ago, this access point failed - the access point wouldn't do anything, no matter how many times I turned it on and off, reset the device etc. - nothing would happen.  I couldn't access it via mywifiext.net or via the IP address - in other words, completely Kaput!  After finally getting through to Netgear Support (bear in mind I was on hold for near enough an hour before I even spoke to anyone), they told me it was a power supply problem.  Fair enough! As it was still under manufacturer warranty, I expected a straight replacement.  But apparently, this is too much to ask, and here I am still with a faulty product sat on my living room table, and no replacement to be seen!

Firstly, I was told that I would have to pay to send my faulty product back (before I could get a replacement)!  I mean, excuse me!  I did not design, build or manufacture this product!  All I did is supply Netgear with copious amounts of money to give me a faulty product.  Why should I have to pay to send something back, that I didn't break?  It is Netgear's product and Netgear has the responsibility to fix it - not me!  After literally hours on the phone to these support experts (over several weeks), it was finally agreed that Netgear would supply a replacement product.  In this box would be a returns label for me to send back the faulty product!  A perfect resolution, in principle - yet here I am, several weeks later, the faulty product still sat on my living room table.

I now have around seven open cases with Netgear - all about the same product, supposedly doing the same thing.  I have been told that my product has been dispatched - even told that it has been delivered - umm, I wouldn't be here if it had already been delivered (I also have CCTV, so I think I would know if I missed a delivery).  In short, after hours and hours on the phone to multiple support experts over the past two months, I am nowhere.  I have been promised yet again that my replacement has been dispatched (a completely different tone from two days ago where the support agent made it seem like she would have to shift heaven and earth just to get in touch with the warehouse - funnily enough I've had this same conversation with different people over several weeks), but do I believe Netgear?  No!  As far as I am concerned, the company is filled with incompetent and indifferent individuals that couldn't care less about any of their customers.

What's more?  I spoke with someone a couple of days ago who assured me that my case had been 'escalated' or passed to some sort of managerial authority.  I was assured that I would get a call back within 24 hours (11:51 BST on 30th August 2019 by my calculation).  Did I get a call back - don't be daft, of course not!  Clearly I'm a worthless speck of dirt under the big Netgear boot!

Anyway, I re-iterate again.  Don't whatever you do, buy anything from Netgear.  Don't have anything to do with them.  Your product will break and then you will be up a seriously spikey gum tree!