LMG Sponsor Complaints

[CableMod]

8 hours ago, DELTAprime said:

I actually have a story of customer support that involves both Asus and another LTT sponsor, Cablemod.

 

Maybe this is because I'm in Australia and we have super strict consumer protection laws, but I actually had a good interaction with Asus customer support about this situation back in January. My TUF 3090 had the Cablemod PCIE 8-pin cable going to it burn in the GPU's power socket. I had no idea of the extent of the damage at this point, but I emailed Asus questioning them about repairs and also the fact that I had watercooled the card with an EK waterblock and how that might complicate things. I also emailed Cablemod since it was their cables.

 

The thermal pads Asus were using at the start of the 30 series were basically single-use-only pads and were destroyed by removing the default cooler and putting the waterblock on. The Asus rep said that they would replace the thermal pads and put the default cooler back on the card for me under warranty. So I wouldn't need to worry about a charge for that.

 

Cablemod on the other hand denied that there was anything wrong with their cables despite including pictures of the burnt connector. The plastic had clearly been subjected to high temperatures as it had changed from black to a dark red colour.

 

In the end, I found that the card itself was fine and just needed the charring from the burned power cables cleaned off the pins on the GPU side of the power connector so I never got to test out Asus on their offer to cover the thermal pads and reassembly of the card under warranty. But I was totally annoyed at Cablemod for denying that there was an issue.

@DELTAprime sounds very out of the norm for our support, but typically melting issues are from cables not being fully seated, since electrical arcs form which will lead to a constant heat build up until melting occurs. Can you please message me your email address so I can look into your ticket and help make sure you get taken care of? We'll make sure you get new cables for anything that melted.

[Afternoon Tea]

2 hours ago, eroc1990 said:

I wanted to throw my feedback in on Bark. While I get the reasoning behind monitoring your child's behavior, using what amounts to sanctioned/resold spyware to do so is way too invasive. There are better parenting methods than becoming your child's very own Big Brother, and it's just downright creepy.

A parent has the right to know what is going on with their children and to set boundaries. It’s not creepy at all. Good parenting involves communication and trust, but children are still going to do what children do & they need protected. 

[reaperpcmr]

On 5/11/2023 at 9:35 PM, cbillig said:

I would just like to warn people not to order ugreen products from their website and order from Amazon.

 

From my experience if you have an issue with your order they will not help you.

 

I ordered two chargers on the ca.ugreen.com website(not amazon.... this is important for some stupid reason) says it is delivered but I did not receive the chargers. I contacted Ugreen they keep telling me to contact Amazon. I try to tell them that I did not order from Amazon. They say only amazon can help.... Just in case, I try and contact Amazon they tell me they have no record of my order number or tracking number. I emailed ugreen back today.

 

We will see what happens. My first email to ugreen about this was April 27th. It has been a hair pulling process and they don't appear to have a working North American number.

Made an account here (finally, after YEARS of watching/reading) to say I had a very similar experience.

 

I ordered a UGreen USB-C to A cable off amazon a couple years ago. It was sold by UGreen and fulfilled by Amazon. When the cable failed approx 8 months~ later, I contacted UGreen about a replacement. They said to contact Amazon. Now, the cable was outside of the return period for FBA items, but I tried contacting Amazon anyway. They confirmed that the manufacturer is responsible for warranty claims outside of the normal Amazon return period, and said I should contact UGreen. I did, with screenshots of the Amazon chat - and of course UGreen said the Amazon rep was wrong, and to contact them again.

 

Anywho, I played the circle-back game for about 3 rounds and the Amazon rep even provided me with a short snippet of the agreement that vendors have with Amazon (for FBA items). Guess what, the manufacturer is responsible for warranty claims outside Amazon's normal return window. At least the Amazon rep who provided that gave me a $5 coupon code. The cable was around $11 dollars, so I tapped out. I suppose that was their goal.

 

I was never rude, but I was direct with the UGreen rep.

 

Note: I have purchased 2 UGreen items since, and they still work well today. I hope they continue to do so, as I purchased them on Amazon - from UGreen - and I know they don't support their products.

 

 

[Erioch]

22 hours ago, picky33 said:

Can you please consider dropping Eight Sleep as a sponsor. I absolutely de-test companies that add unnecessary subscriptions to things just to access features that are built in. The mattress covers requires a subscription for the first 12 months of use in order to use the product. I hate BMW for starting the trend of locking features that are already built into the product behind a subscription paywall. It’s already a $2200 mattress cover after the LTT discount.

That is absolutely insane.  Why would anyone in their right mind buy this?

[Eso]

As a long time LTT viewer I just had to call out one of the new sponsors. From what I have understood, in previous videos 'car subscriptions' (like having an annual subscription for heated seats) was generally frowned upon by the LTT staff and community.

 

I was considering buying a matress cooler from Eight Sleep but will not do so because there is a monthly fee on top of a $3k matress. 

 

Am I wrong for thinking that LTT should be more transparent or not take these kinds of sponsorship spots at all? 

 

Maybe I'm being overly sensitive but for one of the biggest tech YouTubers in the world I at least wouldve expected that they would recommend against the predatory practices of those who sponsor them.

 

Just a thought, 

Eso

[eroc1990]

14 hours ago, Afternoon Tea said:

A parent has the right to know what is going on with their children and to set boundaries. It’s not creepy at all. Good parenting involves communication and trust, but children are still going to do what children do & they need protected. 

I'm sorry, but I just don't agree at all. For decades parents have been able to raise their children without having to spy on them and the majority of them have turned out just fine. This kind of product just reeks of being exploited by the kind of people you wouldn't want to have spying on your life.

[Erioch]

15 hours ago, Afternoon Tea said:

A parent has the right to know what is going on with their children and to set boundaries. It’s not creepy at all. Good parenting involves communication and trust, but children are still going to do what children do & they need protected. 

Parents (at least in the US) have the right to beat their children (corporal punishment).  Parents also (in many States) have the right to withhold medical treatment for their children for "religious" reasons.  Doesn't mean it's a good idea.

 

Parents have the right to do all kinds of garbage to their children.

[anirudhb30]

I have a Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra. I noticed the front camera is defective, but not so much, so let it be since I bought it in September 2022 in India. i recently took it to a Samsung Service centre. And to my surprise, they said it's a defect, but because I have scratches and "dents" on the corner of my phone, they'll reject the warranty altogether for a completely unrelated issue! This is extremely backhanded behaviour from Samsung towards a customer with a premium phone, and I'm looking for someone to help here.

Thank you.

[Mathieu Godin]

Hey I would lie to make a complaint about Grammaly

I bought a premium subscription last year but did not plan on renewing this year. They, without any notice, charge me 144US (203.52 CAD) and for me it is a really big amount.

I opened a claim and am still waiting for a response. But I find it really predatory to charge such a big amount without any notice.

 

I know that it's not a huge amount compare to other purchase but I just can't afford it and would have cancel the auto-renew from paypal if I had receive any kind of notice.

[Erioch]

1 hour ago, Mathieu Godin said:

Hey I would lie to make a complaint about Grammaly

I bought a premium subscription last year but did not plan on renewing this year. They, without any notice, charge me 144US (203.52 CAD) and for me it is a really big amount.

I opened a claim and am still waiting for a response. But I find it really predatory to charge such a big amount without any notice.

 

I know that it's not a huge amount compare to other purchase but I just can't afford it and would have cancel the auto-renew from paypal if I had receive any kind of notice.

Almost no one warns you of upcoming renewal charges.  Probably for this reason.

 

Good luck fighting it.

[Afternoon Tea]

On 5/17/2023 at 12:52 PM, eroc1990 said:

I'm sorry, but I just don't agree at all. For decades parents have been able to raise their children without having to spy on them and the majority of them have turned out just fine. This kind of product just reeks of being exploited by the kind of people you wouldn't want to have spying on your life.

No, but they did have the right & ability to gatekeep who & when they interacted with. That’s how they protected their children. Giving your children unlimited & unfettered access to the internet is not a wise idea. 

[eroc1990]

3 hours ago, Afternoon Tea said:

No, but they did have the right & ability to gatekeep who & when they interacted with. That’s how they protected their children. Giving your children unlimited & unfettered access to the internet is not a wise idea. 

But having an app that spies every interaction they have with anyone is way too invasive. You're not going to convince me otherwise.

[Stephanie Sayer]

ASUS ROG customer support expects me to send my entire ROG desktop to them, at my expense, for a warranty repair to address the GPU fan making noise and periodically stopping when it should be running. The problem is clearly a physical problem with the fan so instead of simply replacing the card, which is much more appropriate to ship, even at my expense, they want me to ship the entire desktop which invariably is going to 'mysteriously' have other damage when it arrives at their return center and no doubt require more repair at the customers expense. ASUS ROG Customer Support is absolute trash.

Edited May 19, 2023 by Stephanie Sayer
Forgot to mention warranty

[97hummer]

So I'm back again but unfortunately with another concern with Asus and this time with their routers.

 

We have an Asus RT-AX3000 router that's about 2 ish years old. This entire time it's actually been rock solid and the best router that we've had, but 2 days ago it had a problem saying there was an DHCP failure and to call my ISP, so first thing I did was just reboot the router and that fixed the problem. 

I thought it was probably a one time glitch since it's been so solid but then hours later it happened again and again reboot fixed it. Then it happens several more times over the last 2 days to the point it's getting annoying and was going to call the ISP until I read Reddit (thank you Reddit) and found out this was Asus at fault.  

I'm pretty tech savvy but I'm not totally sure what is going on and Asus hasn't been very clear about what has happened. What it looks like (from reading the Asus subreddit) is Asus pushed some update to routers that is bugged causing the router RAM to run out of space so the router can no longer deal with the DHCP leases causing the router to lose connection with the internet. Asus says it's fixed and to reboot your router or you might have to reset the router entirely, but looking at the subreddit I'm not sure it is fixed yet and can't say if mine is fixed yet or not.

 

This has been hard because of needing reliable internet with working at home and not knowing if the internet could stop working at any moment. That's why I had auto firmware updates off so I could update when the time was right for me and could deal with any possible problems that came with it.

 

Now for my concerns.

I have auto firmware updates turned off so I don't understand is how Asus is updating my router when auto firmware updates are off. Looking at the subreddit they could even be updating other pieces of software on it like the trend micro Ai network protection (even when not used) without my knowledge, so again concerned since didn't know it was doing that. But again Asus is not clear about this stuff and I had no knowledge of it happening.

Also I did not know my router was communicating with Asus servers at all and thought that would have only happened when it updated. So now I'm concerned about what else is my router communicating with Asus about and is it sending any information back to them.

 

I did find in the router logs showing it was doing an auto firmware check even though it's still turned off. I'll attach a pic.

 

Subreddit where people are talking about what happened.

 

[Rikere]

I have had such a god-awful time with Origin. I've had garbage support trying to get the damn thing and I can't imagine what it'll be like trying to get actual support if I ever receive it.

 

First they had issues getting payment from my card, couldn't help me figure out why the card was having issues (single transaction limit). Had to move to paypal, which meant cancelling the order and starting fresh. Finally things going well, it ships. I take the day off to be here for it. Scheduled for 3-6 delivery. They're here at 10 in the morning. I can't sign for it.

 

I try to have it held at the UPS Store. Can't. I call Origin, "sorry, once it's out the doors it's your problem. We're not affiliated with UPS."

 

What garbage is this? I don't think I'll actually be able to pick it up. The UPS guy never knocks, he just walks up to put the sticker on the door and runs. The only way to actually receive something is to sit out and wait for it. Usually that at least works for the "it'll be here between" window, but I can't be out from dawn til' dusk to wait on this thing and.. I can't just have it held or even schedule WHEN it'll get here (Origin even locked out THAT option, a scheduled delivery time).

 

 

[Birblover12]

1 hour ago, Rikere said:

I try to have it held at the UPS Store. Can't. I call Origin, "sorry, once it's out the doors it's your problem. We're not affiliated with UPS."

While the payment issues and everything else sounds like a "them" problem, playing devils advocate shipping related issues are sometimes handled with the shipping courier and not the person who shipped them, though most of the time companies will deal with claims themselves and just ship out a replacement of sorts. The UPS guy not delivering the package sounds like it's something that needs to be handled by UPS themselves. By "put up the sticker", I presume it's a "could not be delivered sticker" of some sort? Is there something that'd be obstructing them from delivering the package, like animals, plants, etc.?

 

You could try calling your local UPS office and explaining the situation, I'm sure if you spoke to a manager of some sort and explained that the drivers potentially aren't even making an attempt to deliver your package (video evidence is a big plus) then they could make special accommodations for your package.

[Birblover12]

On 5/17/2023 at 5:02 PM, Mathieu Godin said:

But I find it really predatory to charge such a big amount without any notice.

I'm fairly certain that's kinda the point of the services, they're meant to be easy to charge you, it's not just Grammarly. Also, I'm certain if you looked within the Terms of Service/Privacy Policies you'd find that it's very likely that they (legally) don't have to provide notice before charging you, I also have a feeling they explained how to cancel the service before you signed up, so I'm guessing you're gonna have a tough case to fight unfortunately. 

 

As a helpful tip, if you find you're getting charged for services you don't want, there are apps/companies that allow you to make "alias" credit cards and regulate the amount of money one can spend, when they can spend it, etc. all while they're connected to one card. Perhaps that would be of use to you.

[Quackers101]

19 hours ago, 97hummer said:

So I'm back again but unfortunately with another concern with Asus and this time with their routers.

Spoiler

We have an Asus RT-AX3000 router that's about 2 ish years old. This entire time it's actually been rock solid and the best router that we've had, but 2 days ago it had a problem saying there was an DHCP failure and to call my ISP, so first thing I did was just reboot the router and that fixed the problem. 

I thought it was probably a one time glitch since it's been so solid but then hours later it happened again and again reboot fixed it. Then it happens several more times over the last 2 days to the point it's getting annoying and was going to call the ISP until I read Reddit (thank you Reddit) and found out this was Asus at fault.  

I'm pretty tech savvy but I'm not totally sure what is going on and Asus hasn't been very clear about what has happened. What it looks like (from reading the Asus subreddit) is Asus pushed some update to routers that is bugged causing the router RAM to run out of space so the router can no longer deal with the DHCP leases causing the router to lose connection with the internet. Asus says it's fixed and to reboot your router or you might have to reset the router entirely, but looking at the subreddit I'm not sure it is fixed yet and can't say if mine is fixed yet or not.

 

This has been hard because of needing reliable internet with working at home and not knowing if the internet could stop working at any moment. That's why I had auto firmware updates off so I could update when the time was right for me and could deal with any possible problems that came with it.

 

Now for my concerns.

I have auto firmware updates turned off so I don't understand is how Asus is updating my router when auto firmware updates are off. Looking at the subreddit they could even be updating other pieces of software on it like the trend micro Ai network protection (even when not used) without my knowledge, so again concerned since didn't know it was doing that. But again Asus is not clear about this stuff and I had no knowledge of it happening.

Also I did not know my router was communicating with Asus servers at all and thought that would have only happened when it updated. So now I'm concerned about what else is my router communicating with Asus about and is it sending any information back to them.

I did find in the router logs showing it was doing an auto firmware check even though it's still turned off. I'll attach a pic.

a bit chaos there, sucks to be in that situation would hope that one could get feedback on it.

Edited May 20, 2023 by Quackers101

[97hummer]

On 5/20/2023 at 11:48 AM, Quackers101 said:

a bit chaos there, sucks to be in that situation would hope that one could get feedback on it.

It does seem like our router is back to normal as have not experienced an issue in over a day now . 

But I still have a bit of an issue with Asus response, they say they found it during routine maintenance. Like ok but everyone else saying it happened from a bad update done by asus so it sounds like they're not quite wanting to say “hey we messed up and we're getting this fixed now”. 

Idk but that attitude is just something seeing a lot of and with my personal experience with them doing the same it's eroded a lot of trust with that attitude alone. 

 

Update. I spoke too soon about the router being fixed. I had to be reset again and now we have no upload. I have tried everything to verify it's just the router causing the problem and it unfortunately is. 

After each reset it's getting 0.50 upload then after about 10 minutes it's down to 0.02 upload before it goes to 0.00 upload.

Edited May 21, 2023 by 97hummer
Update.

[Pitboy64]

Re the Eightsleep subscription discussion.

Out of pure curiosity ... and a definite desire to avoid fixing my dual zone mattress cooling issues by way of building a home made system a-la Linus and Alex video on May 20, 2023 ... ... I take a deep dive at the sponsor eightsleeps website to see their plug and play product, and am hit with a serious misgiving:

- Sure ... it costs $2,700CDN up front, before tax, but lets assume I'm fine with that outlay ... then you realize you actually cant buy it without signing up to a monthly/annual membership which provides access to the 'Pod'.  To be clear, the website doesnt in plain language define what is the 'Pod'.

You MUST purchase this membership for the initial one year period at the $240CDN billed annual rate. From one side you could say that its just a scammy way of charging $2,940 for the upfront purchase (before tax).  Welcome to 2023 ... Moving on.

Lets just start by immediately discounting the more expensive 'lifetime warranty' option. One: 'lifetime' means nothing. Who's to say that upstart eightsleep will even be around in 25 years. Should they survive for even 10 years, I will have put an additional $2,400 (plus tax) specifically towards the warrantee ... you see the problem, as that's basically the value of the system. At the end of the day, we dont know if the warrantee will be valid in 10 years, and we will be able to repurchase the product by then anyways ... wait ... what?  Thats not a warrantee, its an insurance policy.

 

Not even a car manufacturer will charge the value of the product after running their scammy sub system for just 10 years.  For a $50,000 car that would be almost $500 a month for a warrantee.  For eightsleep ... this is a flag all on its own.

And 2 ... it speaks to a manufacturer that ONLY warrantees their product beyond 30 days, if you pay a lot more for it. Auto red flag.

 

Beyond all that, we dont actually know what the warrantee covers.  Lets say at the end of the first year, I decide to not continue with the 'membership' ... then what?

 

- Does it simply mean a loss of any future upgrades or updates eightsleep come up after this date? Sure ok, if 100% of the system still works, then Im fine with that.  That would be like running Win98 on an offline closed system that works perfectly well for the low end industrial task it has to do ... fine. It could continue to work for years and years.  I would be a happy mattress cooling product owner.

 

- or does it mean I lose connection to adjust the dual temperature system or lose access to the software at all? Or do I lose connection to my parallel health devices that eightsleeps software links to?

 

- The website details the service as 'Automatic temperature, vibration & thermal alarm, sleep & health reports' ... but what does that mean? 'Automatic temperature' ... sounds like a basic function ... no?  Thats all it says ... its undefined.

 

- The problem here isnt the limitation really, its the company being open and forthright as to exactly what will not work the same, or at all, if the membership is cancelled. The way it is detailed on the site ... we just dont know what will happen and how my near $3000 purchase will operate post 12 months.

 

For this reason, I backed away from the site.  I wont be buying in.

In addition I felt it to be reasonable to discuss this with LMG here about eightsleep as a sponsor, and the reality of just what their followers are actually signing up for.  I'm not saying cancel the sponsorship, but perhaps someone on the LMG team could head over to the eightsleep website as a potential purchaser and try to parse through just what are the actual risks involved for their followers. 

If you cancel the warrantee, what actually happens?  Should this staff person purchase the product and summarily cancel the warrantee, to see what happens? Should Linus and Yvonne cancel theirs and report on what happens?

If that someone walks away feeling unsure on behalf of their viewers ... perhaps some follow up with eightsleep to have more clarity on their website regarding this warranty issue ... is warranted.

Thank you.

[Rogue Arnold]

Don't see that anyone has brought up infinite cable in here. I ordered 144 short patch cables and the products themself are fine good quality but the package does not seem great and with Linus wanting them to have all sustainable recyclable I thought I should bring this up. Each cable came in it's own plastic bag and then plastic bags for each pack of 10. Seems like a lot a waste that could be improved upon. Plus after unpacking them my hands just felt greasy and dirty.

[elfensky]

1 hour ago, Pitboy64 said:

Re the Eightsleep subscription discussion.

snip

 

I looked at it from an European standpoint, on their EU site (for the Cover, not Matress) and it doesn't feel right. Sure they mention a "limited default warranty" that'll cover it for the legally required 2 years, but it's hidden away, and the marketing heavily implies the warranty is linked to the subscription.
 

IIRC AppleCare+ was actually discontinued here in Belgium, because it was marketed the same way.

Anyway back on topic, the fact that you cannot use it without a subscription at all makes it so completely worthless. I first thought that you could at least set a 'static' temperature without it, but it seems the (cloud) app is required for any/all functionality. Company goes under, your 3k€ purchase is fucking e-waste. Ridiculous.

Given Linus' insistence on self-hosting, hate of subscription and hate of cloud-based solution, I am surprised it passed the muster at all.

[NullFragment]

1 hour ago, elfensky said:

Given Linus' insistence on self-hosting, hate of subscription and hate of cloud-based solution, I am surprised it passed the muster at all.

I’ve been a long time viewer/lurker but never really felt the need to post on the forums but yeah. This felt like a weird sponsor given that there was even a WAN Show clip uploaded to LMG Clips a few days ago called “Let Me Buy Your Product” that is a 15 minute long rant about disliking companies that have this exact business model.

[IEDaryl]

To add to the concerns regarding Eightsleep, in the video in question today Linus specifically mentions that the product is powered by and controlled by their third party app. There is no mention of local control in the spot or on the products site, but I am open to correction on this.

 

Given Linus recently gave an anecdote on the WAN Show regarding his dismay at being asked to pay a substantial sum for a automated floor cleaner which fully relied on an app, it seems strange to then promote a product with seemingly a similar inherent flaw.

[SynthX]

33 minutes ago, NullFragment said:

I’ve been a long time viewer/lurker but never really felt the need to post on the forums but yeah. This felt like a weird sponsor given that there was even a WAN Show clip uploaded to LMG Clips a few days ago called “Let Me Buy Your Product” that is a 15 minute long rant about disliking companies that have this exact business model.

Same here. I made an account on the forum just to voice how bad this sponsor is to be showcasing. I get taking a company's money when they want to shell out big bucks but their anti-consumer behavior seems completely against what I thought LTT stood for.