I just wanted to share my warranty replacement saga from today so you know what to expect if you need to send your ORBI satellite back under RMA.
A first rep went through trouble shooting with me and confirmed my 970 satellite is dead (no lights after numerous attempts to reset, big orange spark last time I plugged the round plug into the ORBI).
I suggested they might want to replace the power adapter too in case it was part of the problem, but the rep said they cannot do that. He sent me to e-commerce. e-commerce said I was covered for replacement (less than one year), but they only do replacements for failures closer to the time of purchase and that tech support has to issue the RMA number. After several wrong routed calls, I finally got a competent rep who more clearly explained three options, send it back first, regular shipping with later return, or overnight replacement with later return. He sent a link to a RMA page which offered those three options and I paid for overnight ($29.90 which was billed to my card). I got an RMA approved email and invoice number.
Later, I noticed no shipping information from UPS or FedEx, so I opened the support pages. I saw some cryptic reference to sending pics of the unit and proof of purchase, so I did that.
Then, I got another "RMA REVIEW" process that said a 970 is too expensive to send overnight, and that I needed to first return my satellite and then they would send the replacement. They said they would eventually refund my overnight fee too. The overnight process says they take credit card information in case anything goes wrong, however for whatever reason, NETGEAR did not honor the first completed RMA transaction. I hope others have better luck. I asked for the contact information for the president of NETGEAR so that I can file a formal complaint, however so far they refuse to send that information ...
