Insights - a true business story

Retired_Member · ‎2022-04-08

In 2018 our company purchased 3 Gigabit Switches with SFP+ports to connect abou 50 devices over a few hundred meters, bundled in pools of 20 and LWL 10 GBit connections between them. Shortly after I opened 3 tickets because all three switches malfunctioned. It was solved by a new firmware, one switch was replaced. Now in early 2022 I had to reboot all switches (yes they were really running for years). All switches came up withou function. One does not route MAC properly. The next only booted after 3 times pöugged out and in. The third one was defective on half of the ports. I opened tickets again. Two of the switches had firmware problems again, I updated them which is a lengthy procedure, I resettet them and programed them from scratch. After this I luckily read the advice that after the firmware upgrade it would be neccessary to restart bthe power at least one time because the switches usually do not boot after the upgrade. Very nice, I again drove into the premises and plugged them out and in. The third switch - which malfunctioned on most ports, was not upgradable and hen my real problems began.

I tried to open another ticket. This time it was not possible because this formerly exchanged switch was not registered. Without registration you are not able to open a ticket.

So I phones Netgear. 5 times. The aganet told me that this S/N is impossible. He must see a photo of the label! This is outstanding. Nevertheless I drove again into the premises, dismounted the switch, made a photo. He gave me the email supportcase@... and I sent the photo. 3 times. Every few days I got a reminder to send the photo. I did it the 4th and 5th time, this time I got a "mail rejected to mail loop" failure.

So after 4 weeks this company I am working for still has no replacement. The other two switches are most likely to fail again after a power shutdown. I can not reach Netgear. Case is impossible because the switch was not registered after the exchange by Netgear. Email is impossible. Phone (5 times) leads to nothing. Today they closed my case "due to missing input".

Case #45841985, an,orthopedic clinic in Germany.

I guess everyone understands why I now will throw all switches away, on my own costs of about 5000€, and say "Never again in my whole life Netgear products".

Eberhard Muecke, IT manager and dsitributor in Germany

DaneA · ‎2022-04-12

@Retired_Member,

Kindly send me via private message the photo of the NETGEAR device you are referring to as well as the soft copy of the Proof of Purchase of it. You can use Google Drive and provide me a download link for it. Then, I will inquire it to the NETGEAR Support Team.

Regards,

DaneA

NETGEAR Community Team

Eberhard_Mu · ‎2022-04-19

Hi DaneA,

the photo is already in the post! Including the SN ... and this SN is already registred to my account in a closed case including all proof of purchases 😉

My problem simply is:

- I can not reopen this case, this has to be done by an agent

- I can not open a new case because I have to register the switch before, which is impossible because it is already registered and blocked to an fictive exchange event

- I have contacted Netgear at least 5 times by phone, and sent the photo you see in this story at least 5 times to email adresses, and Netgear did not get it inspite the fact that 3/5 emails were not returned, all following emails are returned after

- Netgear does not believe me that I have this SN, obviously calling me a liar, no idea to which purpose to, in spite of my attached photo - the customer is without this switch for 2 months now, I did at least (!) 10 efforts to exchange it

- this kind of behaviour is most undignified for a company

It would be great to get this switch exhanged. At least Netgear promised a 30 year warranty or so.

After this never again in my life something from this company.

Kind regards

Eberhard

Retired_Member · ‎2022-04-25

Today I made another phone call. Just for the fun of it because it bothered me to let Netgear get away with this.

This time I got a very friendly agent who helped me in opening a case, lets see to what it leads. At least I uploaded the photo. Heureka. Now Netgear knows that I am not lying about the S/N.