LMG Sponsor Complaints

[JSTRDI]

Dear Linus and Linus Media Group,

I urge you to refuse partnerships from MSI and refuse any promotions of MSI at any level due to the openly running MSI business in russia with a full stacked office.

By running business in russia, unlike some other PC components companies, MSI keep paying taxes to the government, paying salaries to people supporting the war, and collaborating with influencers who are openly propagating war and genocide of Ukrainians.

Behind business operations hides small actions that are boosting russian economy giving it more chances for a genocide of Ukrainians and planning their invasion to Poland and Baltic Sea countries which are members of EU.

Besides that, if not the people’s and business support during the war, russia would not think of giving nuclear weapons to the country with a self-proclaimed president who is keeping his “citizens” as hostages — belarus now have nuclear weapons provided by russia as deterrent effect agains West.

 

Best wishes to your team!

 

*I was referring to this video where I spotted sponsor segment with MSI

 

[Zoidalex]

UPDATE: 

I have had to get PayPal involved with the situation as it took 4 emails to get a return address. Once I did send it they asked me to declare an £80 keyboard as less than £45; suspicious! 

I'm waiting for the keyboard to ship but who knows what is going on! 

 

Keychron - customer service  

 

I start a new job in September so I thought Id get myself a new keyboard. Having seen your keychron review I bought a K4 96%. I'm working in an office and it's just a little too loud so in the interest of not annoying my colleagues, I emailed them to return it for a refund.

 

According to their website (https://www.keychron.com/pages/return-policy) this is not an issue and I should contact support to get the return shipping address within 7 days of delivery. I emailed them the day the package was delivered asking for the returns address and got back a tracking email (not what I'd asked for). Replying to this, repeating myself, asking for the address and they simply asked if I had opened the package: "Hi, do you open the keyboard package? you should return to China by yourself if you want to return it."

 

The way this is going I am very hesitant to (a) pay to send my keyboard to china & (b) worried I will not have leverage if I do send the keyboard.

 

I don't know what others experience has been (?) but I would love for LMG to do a secret shopper on them to expose this. I'd be less annoyed if I'd asked a really difficult question... or maybe returning items is too much for their customer service team to handle? 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 2, 2023 by Zoidalex
Update

[ElatedErieLotus]

I'm here after watching the video that dropped today. I ordered a battery for my wife's laptop from ifixit about a month ago (paid double what some other retailers were charging, and a stiff premium over Dell directly). Their website had the wrong model numbers listed for which laptops had which batteries in them. Their solution was for me to pay return shipping and get a partial refund... And then pay full price again for the right battery. Support took several days to respond throughout our back and forth and simply ghosted me after I told them I shipped it back but was still unhappy.  I'm out $20 for a mistake on their website. 

[eEKBAh]

The shadiness of the recent Shopify layoffs of thousands of employees where they claimed they would give a certain severance package to some people if they agree to the layoff and then gave them a lower deal when it finally happened is a reason in my books to never use them. Specially since I live in Ottawa and know a few people who lost their jobs there. I guess we will see how the court case against Shopify will go.

 

It's an extra kick in the ass that a bunch of these support staff members are now replaced with an AI chat bot. Which in my opinion degrades the product you are paying the same price as before the layoffs since you might not speak to an actual person about any issues that arise and if you do it's probably going to be a long(er) wait.

 

LTTstore uses Shopify so I doubt this is something that could really be changed or dealt with but I figured I'd put my 2 cents in.

[Monknot]

I was thinking about getting a computer from Build Redux after seeing you guys promote it. However I decided to see how much the parts were and I'm glad I did. On Amazon I can get almost everything cheaper. In case of the NVME M.2 drive it's half the cost on Amazon. Seems like a way to inflate the cost of the PC while only charging "$99" for build cost. 

[Jeremy3020]

Hi everyone at LTT, not sure if Amazon is a sponsor or not but I purchased a 7600x during prime days and got a strange looking package that had a sticker on it saying it's a 7600x but it was a small gift box that was empty. see attached photo. Amazon refused to give a return until I have a police report. I have since then sent that report and have not got a return yet. I looked into this and I am not the only one, I found a review with the exact same issue (Stolen CPU (amazon.com). Since I found this review I also tried to post a review and it never got posted. like they are blocking me from reviewing this item but all other reviews I do work just fine. 
wondering if you want to test Amazon as you all did in your recent video "What Are My Sponsors Hiding?" 

[beat_g]

While my experiance with Asus(Switzerland) has been very postivie overall in the past, there is just one point that I don't like at all:
I own a GA35DX prebuilt pc and while this PC is equipped with an ROG Strix X570-F Gaming mainboard and a RTX3090, they are both OEM versions and retail bios updates don't work.
I wrote to Asus and asked for a bios update for my GPU to enable Re-Bar and to their credit, they sent me and released it on their website a few weeks later, but that was months after the retail version received it.
With the oem mainboard I have a similar issue, the latest bios for my pc is "318" release 2022/11/02 while the retail version has receivced two updates that contain a newer AGESA and should fix: "AMD potential security vulnerabilities for AMD Athlon™ processors and Ryzen™ processors" and "Improve system stability".
According to customer service they are planing to release a new bios for my system in August, but why do i have the impression, that they only act if a customer complains about it.

 

Lenovo (Switzerland) on the other hand is a different story.

I had bought a Lenovo Yoga 530-14IKB in 2019. After about a year of using it as a 2 in1 , I noticed there was a problem with the hinge connecting to the diplay back panel.
The connection was simply not built for a device that you open up 1-2x a day as it was way to week and the diplay module is not glued to the back panel on this model. (They did this on the Yoga 730).

I sent it in on warranty through the dealer that sold it, but they refused to repair it under warranty and blamed me for using it the way it was advertised:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSZDttOaNws
 

 

 

I tried to get in contact with them, but they don't have a customer service or any other contact in switzerland.
In the end, the dealer paid for the repair and I got my notebook back with all data and applications erased.
The battery went week shortly after receiving it back.
All in all, it leads to the conclusion that I will never buy or recommend a product from Lenovo again.

[anotherboringuser]

I know Framework technically isn’t a sponsor, but I still want to say something about them here. First, I like my Framework Laptop and I love the idea behind the company. The only thing I don’t like is that a few users have issues with random shutdowns during sleep and the issue is still unresolved after nine months at this point: https://community.frame.work/t/laptop-shuts-down-during-sleep/23645/171

[MSMSMSM]

Lenovo.

 

Lenovo, a hundred times. I bought a Legion laptop and have suffered nothing but problems with it. Specifically, the Legion 7 16IAX7, which I bought specifically because it seemed to be a desktop-class machine in a laptop form factor and that its Thunderbolt support^[1] is mired with problems resulting in fatal crashes^[2] and Lenovo has offered no help to alleviate it by means of following Microsoft's mitigation advice^[3].

 

I've also had a slew of hardware failures, I've opened four different tickets to deal with

• The trackpad not working (both in BIOS and in Windows), this resolved itself somehow and the issue closed
• Sporadic disconnection of USB root devices (impacting even the keyboard but not the trackpad as that was over I2C) when under load
  • The blame was shifted to the software I use, my Windows install (which I reinstalled clean multiple times), firewalls, anti-viruses (I uninstalled the McAfee nonsense that's shipped with it and anything I have comes with Windows already), again to the software I use (demanding I contact the vendors and have them fix it).
  • They asked me to come to their service center (I paid for Legion Ultimate Support and one of the explicit reasons I paid for it was on-site service)
  • Eventually after writing long emails and insisting on a technician, they decide to "make an exception" and send me a technician
  • 
  • This repair worsened my machine, I am now dealing with consistent failure.
  • They did eventually give me another board replacement but I still had issues (though admittedly, fewer) but they closed the ticket (part of this message was about the fact that they replaced only one memory module instead of both and mismatching brands left me concerned, also, I accidentally asked for the second DDR4 stick instead of a DDR5 stick, which is what the laptop supports, my bad)
    
    
• A third ticket when "DRIVER_VERIFIER_DMA_VIOLATION" resurfaced and I attempted to talk to Lenovo support. The history behind this is hazy, I went back through my email and don't find much conversation but apparently they did send a technician and marked this ticket as closed.
  
  I'd be happy to send to send the entire e-mail history of all communications with Lenovo to someone from LMG if they reach out.
   
• A fourth ticket which I was forced to file despite the third ticket (or any of the previous ones for that matter) were closed without even asking me if the problem has resolved itself. This time, I went through multiple reps at Lenovo to explain to them that "DRIVER_VERIFIER_DMA_VIOLATION" crashes are a result of an OS bug and the mitigation is disabling a feature that is set in the BIOS which the Legion series doesn't provide and to provide such features by means of a BIOS update so that I can use the laptop as advertised.
  
  Even after a lot of back and forth, they insisted on shipping me a logic board and because one of the previous board replacements worsened my machine, I was apprehensive and told the technician to skip visiting me because I didn't want another bad board.
  
  What do you know? Right after I do that, the Thunderbolt ports cease to work altogether and the webcam is dead (I didn't know the webcam was dead when I sent this email, I discovered that the day after).
  
  

The fourth ticket is still ongoing, I'm three replacement boards deep (the first one to fix the USB root hub disconnection issues, the second one to replace the board given to me during the first one because it was even worse and a third one, for which my email records are kind of hazy but was the best working one of the lot, it wasn't an oven like the second one and didn't crash as frequently... yet)

 

I've attempted to ask them for a refund or replacement to little avail, they stand by their "we only do it as a goodwill gesture during the first 7 days" policy.

 

 

Well, I've spent more time agonizing about this laptop than actually using it... (btw, the latest ticket may seem closed but I'm still talking to Lenovo about it as of this message, also, each ticket takes a month because that's how long it takes to ship a replacement board, I did use the configurator to spec my laptop)

 

 

TL;DR: Laptop brokey, asked for a bike, got a bicycle with tires that flatten every month, told to get my tires replaced instead of getting the bike I paid for or the money if they can't give me the bike

 

[1] - https://psref.lenovo.com/syspool/Sys/PDF/Legion/Lenovo_Legion_7_16IAX7/Lenovo_Legion_7_16IAX7_Spec.pdf, page 5

[2] - The problem is actually due to a documented unresolved bug in Windows 10 build 1803 onwards (see https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/troubleshoot/windows-server/performance/stop-code-driver-verifier-dma-violation#status)

[3] - Microsoft has acknowledged that the mitigation as it stands is to disable "Kernel DMA Protection" and that Lenovo has confirmed that the option to disable "Kernel DMA Protection" is not available in Legion BIOS'es (see https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/Gaming-Laptops/Legion-7-15IMH05-UEFI-BIOS-Kernel-DMA-Protection-toggle-option-missing/m-p/5071219)

 

This can be further confirmed by a conversation I had with Lenovo support after I tried to explain the problem to them as I personally experienced crashes with my machine when it was under load (I compile large projects regularly) and connected to a Dell WD22TB4. They even tried to send me a logic board replacement (and insisted I take one), even to the point of having a technician call me up and ask me what time he wants to come over, even though I sent long emails explaining that this isn't a hardware problem.

 

 

 

[r4v3rrr]

Hi guys.

I have a complaint to make regarding your partnership with IFIXIT. 

 

On the first of January 2022 I identified a security vulnerability on the IFIXIT website. I can't go into details here for ethical reasons, but suffice it to say that the vulnerability is typically rated 'medium' severity and in this case, may allow a malicious third party to steal session information from a 'victims' browser. I reported the vulnerability via the email address provided in their vulnerability disclosure policy. I received no response. 

 

On the 26th of January 2022 I followed up with 'proof of concept' pictures that I had forgotten to add in the first email. No response to this either. 

 

On the 5th of February 2022 I sent a follow up email reminder. Still no response. 

 

On the 9th of April 2022 I followed up again. Still no response. 

 

I also attempted to contact them via twitter. They did respond to this. They linked me back to the disclosure policy. 

 

This issue not only demonstrates a lack of commitment to keeping the website users safe, but I lost out on the bug bounty payment they offer in their policy. 

 

For anyone reading this who is unfamiliar with how bad theft of session information can be. Ask Linus . 

 

I didn't know this thread existed until today or I would have raised this sooner. I haven't checked in a while if the vulnerability still exists. At the time it affected Firefox users only from my testing. 

 

As a security researcher, I can't share the screenshots here on ethical grounds as they clearly identify an easily reproduceable bug. 

 

Happy to work with anyone from LMG to get this to the right people though. 

 

 

 

 

[Verathor]

I bought a PC through Build Redux for my little brother during the pandemic when it was a lot easier than trying to source parts individually. The PC came broken, I went through months of trying to get them to warranty repair the computer, finally they agreed to fix it. We shipped the computer back to them and now they are basically refusing to fix it and send it back to us. So effectively they have just stolen our money outright. We are working on getting a legal case going against them currently.

[PenguinMaster]

Hi LTT members and employees --

 

I am not sure if this is the right place to complain about this but I would like to share my story of my Prusa (the 3D Printer company) MK4 Kit buying experience as I know they have been mentioned in LTT videos a couple of times.  I bought the MK4 Kit back on release day (April 12, 2023) and it took them until July 14th, 2023 to ship the printer, and July 19th, 2023 to deliver it.  When I was shopping for the printer I compared many options and was ultimately between the Prusa MK4, the AnkerMake M5, and the BambuLab P1P or X1 Carbon.  I decided to wait and buy the Prusa MK4 printer because of the company's reputation, the ability to service parts and the alleged stellar customer support experience that people have been raving about. 

 

Starting off they missed their original delivery window for me by a week or so but it was okay because I was just excited to get the printer.  The next thing that happened was I was hit with a very high import tax (almost $50) that on the original product page was not listed there.  Now (as of today) when you go to checkout there is a disclosure there.  The import tax doesn't even make any sense when you consider that the printer is $799 and the import fees are supposed to be on items over $800.  I just shrugged it off and paid the import fees that DHL demanded because I was excited about the printer. 

 

When I got the printer it sat until the weekend (about 3 days) when I had time to put it together.  I started putting the printer together and when I got about a 1/4 of the way through all of the steps I noticed one of the X-end clips had a hairline fracture through it.  I stopped putting the printer together and contacted support about the broken part.  They had me send a picture of the part and asked for the serial number and all of that information and I thought everything would be fine and that it would just be a short delay until I could start using my 3D Printer.  I was pretty bummed out about it because the part had clearly been broken before it was packed in my kit, and I had already been waiting so long for my printer to come.  I am not sure how that got through their QC but I did not mention anything about that.

 

Today the replacement part comes (July 26th, 2023) and it was the wrong part in the wrong color.  This was very disappointing as I was not sure how they could have shipped me the wrong part when I sent them multiple photos of the broken part and told them what the part was called as it was listed in the directions.  The box was also totally mangled but that is DHL's fault, not Prusa's.  I contacted their support again today and I said that the wrong part was shipped to me and that I was disappointed since this was my second time contacting them about this.  I was very polite to the customer service agent and asked them if there was anything they could do for me just because I had been waiting so long up until this point and now I still can't use this printer.

 

I asked if they would be able to give me a spool of PLA filament just to get me started with the new printer when I got it up and running and the agent informed me that the best he could do for me is a $15 voucher.  The $15 voucher is very nice but a single spool of Prusament is already around $30 and they charge outrageous shipping costs of $20+ to my USA location.  I asked the agent if since they were already shipping me the replacement part if I could still buy the spool of filament, but if they could combine the two products (the replacement part and the spool of filament) so that at least the shipping cost would be covered.  Again the agent said that was the best he could do and that they would not be able to combine the two products into one box.  That does not really make any sense to me since both products are coming from the Czech Republic from the same location.  Not to mention just in general that is a waste of space (in an airplane) and resources since the box they just shipped to me today definitely had enough space to fit a spool of filament in the empty space in the box.

 

I am very disappointed with Prusa so far because of all of these issues and it definitely makes me have severe buyer's remorse since I am already over $900 into this printer that still does not work today.  Another reason I bought the Prusa MK4 was because of the multi-color/material printing ability with the MMU3 attachment (not released yet), and it comes in cheaper than the comparable BambuLab X1 Carbon with the multi-color/material attachment.  The buyer's remorse really comes in because for just $200 more (MK4 Kit + MMU3) I could have had the BambuLab X1 Carbon already assembled, in an enclosure, and on my doorstep in a week.  I also just saw that BambuLab released a multi-color/material printer called the P1S that comes in at $949, already in an enclosure, and could be on my doorstep in a week also.  Not to mention it costs the same price as JUST the MK4 kit, after all the shipping/import fees not including the MMU3.  The only reason I didn't go with a BambuLab was just because it is a closed-source printer, and I remember hating that with my XYZPrinting DaVinci 1.0 (DRM filament).

 

Did I make the wrong choice?  I am not even sure what to do at this point, I feel like I have invested so much money into this Prusa printer already.

[randy123]

1 hour ago, Verathor said:

I bought a PC through Build Redux for my little brother during the pandemic when it was a lot easier than trying to source parts individually. The PC came broken, I went through months of trying to get them to warranty repair the computer, finally they agreed to fix it. We shipped the computer back to them and now they are basically refusing to fix it and send it back to us. So effectively they have just stolen our money outright. We are working on getting a legal case going against them currently.

Can you explain why they are refusing to send it back?

[Erioch]

2 hours ago, PenguinMaster said:

Hi LTT members and employees --

 

...

 

Did I make the wrong choice?  I am not even sure what to do at this point, I feel like I have invested so much money into this Prusa printer already.

Whoa.  Learn to paragraph.  Who's going to read all of that?

[PenguinMaster]

9 minutes ago, Erioch said:

Whoa.  Learn to paragraph.  Who's going to read all of that?

Fixed -- still a lot of writing but wanted to make sure I didn't leave out any details.

[JamesSP]

VOLTA CHARGER, I saw them sponsoring TechLinked few times.

 

I bought a VOLTA 130W Charger earlier this year. 

 

Last week, I was charging my Macbook and iPhone with it, after awhile I realized that the charger was extremely hot to touch.

 

I disconnected it immediately. I took a closer look and saw that charger plug plastic has melted.

 

I contacted VOLTA, their response were quick. What they said was since 130W isn't available anymore, they offered 200W for a 20$ fee. 

I stipulated that these kind of problems are serious, and is an possible danger to my home and family. Urged them to provide a full refund as I wasn't confident using a charger that could cause a fire.

 

This was last week, and I haven't heard back from the since. Seeing from their swift responses in the beginning, I can only think that they are ghosting me. 
 

That being said VOLTA keeps popping up as LMG sponsor, while their product could be serious danger to someone, and they wont do the necessary actions to fix them (not to mention trying to upsell their product). So I think some due diligence is in order.

 

[CorerMaximus]

Cross posting my comment from the sponsor secret shopper video that went out yesterday:

 

Ooh boy, you do a sponsor showdown, but have BestBuy as your sponsor. I bought a Segway scooter from them last week, only to find out multiple agents outright lied to me about the repairs program, as well as protection plan I was getting (I have chat logs for both). I tried cancelling the order before it was shipped (contacted BestBuy), contacted their shipping partner (OnTrac), but the package was still delivered to god knows where and now, they're still finding the package. If you're going to evaluate sponsors, you should probably evaluate the one you guys are currently working with.

 

 

 

Edit- here are the logs.

Spoiler

Chat #1: Lied about the return window + what I was getting

 

 

 

You: I recently spoke to a rep but had to exit the call. They sent me an invoice to my email, but the link isn't working. Can you help me out? My name is *** Jalan; email is ***; and phone numbers ***

 

Customer Care agent: Thank you for contacting Best Buy Sales. My name is ***. How may I assist you today?

 

Customer Care agent: Thank you for the verification details.

 

Customer Care agent: Do you want to place the order?

 

You: The link isn't working; can you try sending me the purchase link here?

 

You: Here's the link I have; is there a different one? https://www.bestbuy.com/ihc/invoice/c3c6f029-593d-4460-9922-2c8fd4f102be/review

 

Customer Care agent: Please provide the SKU of the item.

 

You: 6541285

 

Customer Care agent: Thank you for the SKU.

 

Customer Care agent: Would you like to prefer shipping or store pickup.

 

You: Shipping

 

Customer Care agent: Please confirm the shipping address ***.

 

You: Yep, that's the one

 

Customer Care agent: Thank you.

 

Customer Care agent: I have sent a secure payment link on your email id. Once you click on it, you’ll be redirected to the payment page and you can pay accordingly.

 

You: The "MY BEST BUY" is a subscription to Best Buy Plus?

 

Customer Care agent: Yes.

 

You: I assume its for 1 year and provided to match the return policy at Segway and amazon that I requested?

 

Customer Care agent: Yes, it will for 1 Year

 

You: So I can cancel it after placing my order so it doesn't auto-renew and still keep the benefits for a year?

 

Customer Care agent: Yes, absolutely corret.

 

You: One more thing- I had asked for a price match to segway.com; can you update the invoice to reflect that?

 

Customer Care agent: Let me quickly check and help you with the price match.

 

You: It's $929 over there; $909 after using the new user welcome discount https://store.segway.com/ninebot-kickscooter-max-g2

 

Customer Care agent: Thank you for the price and competitor link.

 

Customer Care agent: May I have 2-3 minutes while I check this for you?

 

You: Sure!

 

Customer Care agent: Thank you. I appreciate you for being on hold.

 

Customer Care agent: I have checked the details for you and I am glad to inform you that the item is eligible for price match for $929.99.

 

You: Sure

 

Customer Care agent: I have sent a secure payment link on your email id. Once you click on it, you’ll be redirected to the payment page and you can pay accordingly.

 

You: Awesome; do you mind sticking with me while I order it?

 

Customer Care agent: Yes, please stay connected on chat.

 

Customer Care agent: Let me know once the payment is done, I will be happy to stand by on this chat to confirm the order details.

 

You: Yep; just waiting on the email

 

You: Just got it! Placing my order now

 

Customer Care agent: That's sounds good.

 

Customer Care agent: I hope you are working on the payment link.

 

You: I'm here; just finding my credit card

 

Customer Care agent: Please keep responding every 2 minutes.

 

You: Just bought it

 

Customer Care agent: Congratulations! I have successfully placed the order and here's the order number: ***. You'll receive an email confirmation shortly.

 

Customer Care agent: I wish you unbox happiness once you receive it.

 

You: How do I stop bestbuy plus from renewing??

 

You: Hmm- I thought the order included bestbuy plus?

 

You: The one year free thing we discussed earlier

 

Customer Care agent: I have check and see that your account does not have any membership.

 

You: > The "MY BEST BUY" is a subscription to Best Buy Plus?

 

Customer Care agent: The my BestBuy is a for standard customers.

 

Customer Care agent: You can become a My Best Buy member. You get free shipping with no minimum purchase.

 

Customer Care agent: You can become a My Best Buy member. You get free shipping with no minimum purchase.

 

You: I don't mean to be accusatory, but you confirmed the included "MY BEST BUY" is a subscription to Best Buy Plus and was being included as a way to offer me a return policy similar to Amazon/ Bestbuy earlier. I made my purchase on that assumption that if there were issues with the scooter, I'd have 30 days to return it.

 

Customer Care agent: My apologies, I think they was little bit confusion.

 

Customer Care agent: No worries, with My BestBuy you will get 15 days return and exchange.

 

You: That's not the point.

 

You: This feels kinda deceptive 

 

Customer Care agent: If you want to return the scooter you can come on chat with us again and we will be glad to help you with the return.

 

Customer Care agent: Please accept my sincere apologies.

 

You: But the idea was to have a longer time to return it; like amazon and segway allow me to do.

 

Customer Care agent: No worries, wherever you want to return the scooter please feel free to come on chat and we will be glad to help you.

 

You: So I can return it within 30 days and use this chat as a reference?

 

You: Ideally; there'll be nothing wrong and I won't have to do so; I just want that peace of mind you know?

 

Customer Care agent: Need not worry, you will receive the best scooter.

 

 

Chat #2: Lied about in store repairs

 

 

Virtual agent: Hi, I'm Best Buy's chatbot. I'm here 24/7 to answer most questions. Or I can find the right person to help. Ask me a question or choose one of these Order Status, Cancel an Order, Change Shipping or Pickup, Price Match.

 

You: human

 

Virtual agent: I can transfer you to a live agent. To help me connect you to the right person ASAP, please let me know which most closely matches your issue. My Orders or Account, Product I own, Shopping for a product.

 

You: My Orders or Account

 

Virtual agent: A live agent will be happy to help you.

 

Select the button below when you're ready to chat. Chat with an agent.

 

Customer Care agent: Hi ***! How are you doing? Thanks for contacting Best Buy! My name is ***. How can I help you today?

 

You: Is there a geek squad protection plan that I can buy for order ***?

 

Customer Care agent: Oh hello there, ***! Sure! We can go check on this for you and help you with the options. I too do want to make sure my items are protected. First off, to pull up your account, is *** the email you're using?

 

You: Yep

 

Customer Care agent: Perfect. Thanks for confirming, ***. We do have our service agent who can help you add a protection plan to your order. I'll connect you to them now. Please stay on the chat.

 

Customer Care agent: Thanks for contacting Geek Squad! thanks for your patience my name is Shawn as I see that you have just been transferred to me. May I please have 2-3 minutes to review the start of this chat?

 

You: Sure!

 

Customer Care agent: Thank you for staying online.

 

Customer Care agent: If I understand this correctly you are looking to add protection plan to your scooter. Am I correct?

 

You: Yep!

 

Customer Care agent: Sure, I will help you with that.

 

Customer Care agent: I am really sorry to inform you that as I checked we are not offering protection plan for scooters 

 

You: What about this? https://www.bestbuy.com/site/2-year-geek-squad-product-replacement/5334402.p?skuId=5334402

 

Customer Care agent: Both are different models, it depends on the type model, because for your scooter manufacturer is offering 2 year warranty with the product that is the reason there is no extended warranty for the scooter.

 

You: Lemme put it this way- I'd rather go to you guys for issues than Segway 

 

You: From what I've read, their customer service leaves a lot to be desired

 

Customer Care agent: Under manufacture warranty we do offer repair services for your scooter.

 

You: Would I need to buy that protection plan for you guys to offer repair services?

 

Customer Care agent: If you face any issues in future you can visit any nearby best buy store ad get it repaired under warranty.

 

You: Or is that something I get just by shopping at bestbuy.com?

 

Customer Care agent: As we are not offering protection plan for the scooter, under manufacture warranty we will repair the scooter for you.

 

You: So that means I can come to you guys to have it fixed? No extra protection plan required?

 

Customer Care agent: Yes, that is correct 

 

You: Awesome! Also; what's the typical turn around time for repairs? Lets say the brakes need to be tightened- how long would my scooter be out of action for?

 

Customer Care agent: usually it takes 1 to 2 days for major repairs, if it is the minor repair it will be repaired on same day.

 

Customer Care agent: Is there anything else I can help you with?

 

You: That's it; thanks a lot!

 

Customer Care agent: You're welcome!

 

 

 

[Raiyu]

Volta cables doesn't provide shipping unless you subscribe to promotional text messaging updates. They send a link in the email which will demand you to enter your number to receive updates on promotions. I will never buy their cables again unless if change is implemented to these malicious attempts to force users to subscribe to get updates. It's not hard to send a tracking number in an email.

[CyberChr1s]

I’m having a bit of a mare with ASUS right now. I’ve got their PG35VQ, which was a £2300 monitor when it first shipped in the UK. During a desk swap, I accidentally cracked the screen. 
 

I contacted ASUS and after some faff finding the best way to get through, I managed to raise an RMA where I accepted it would be at cost, as I have selected “cracked screen”. My RMA was rejected due to user damage and I was informed ASUS “does not offer repairs”. 
 

Over the next few days of going back and forth, they weirdly changed their tune, saying for ~300€, they could arrange for collection and assessment of the monitor, however, the total repair price would remain unknown. 
 

I pushed back and asked was it not possible to quote me for worst case, replacing all screen related components. I was informed this wasn’t possible, but again, weirdly after maybe a week, they can back and said they could do the “repair” for almost 1800€. At that stage, it’s not a repair, it’s a replacement, but that’s more cost than buying a replacement monitor, brand new for Amazon, and you’d get a new warranty!
 

Terrible experience, and the amount they back peddled felt like a scam. I have all the emails for this, so very happy to share if it’s useful. I ended up buying a replacement PG35VQ. 

[Skipple]

14 hours ago, Raiyu said:

Volta cables doesn't provide shipping unless you subscribe to promotional text messaging updates. They send a link in the email which will demand you to enter your number to receive updates on promotions. I will never buy their cables again unless if change is implemented to these malicious attempts to force users to subscribe to get updates. It's not hard to send a tracking number in an email.

Bumping this so it doesn't get lost in a sea of other complaints coming in after the video. 

 

If true, this is genuinely a massive issue and needs to be addressed ASAP.

[QwertyChouskie]

6 hours ago, CyberChr1s said:

I’m having a bit of a mare with ASUS right now. I’ve got their PG35VQ, which was a £2300 monitor when it first shipped in the UK. During a desk swap, I accidentally cracked the screen. 
 

I contacted ASUS and after some faff finding the best way to get through, I managed to raise an RMA where I accepted it would be at cost, as I have selected “cracked screen”. My RMA was rejected due to user damage and I was informed ASUS “does not offer repairs”. 
 

Over the next few days of going back and forth, they weirdly changed their tune, saying for ~300€, they could arrange for collection and assessment of the monitor, however, the total repair price would remain unknown. 
 

I pushed back and asked was it not possible to quote me for worst case, replacing all screen related components. I was informed this wasn’t possible, but again, weirdly after maybe a week, they can back and said they could do the “repair” for almost 1800€. At that stage, it’s not a repair, it’s a replacement, but that’s more cost than buying a replacement monitor, brand new for Amazon, and you’d get a new warranty!
 

Terrible experience, and the amount they back peddled felt like a scam. I have all the emails for this, so very happy to share if it’s useful. I ended up buying a replacement PG35VQ. 

The panel is like 90% of the cost of most monitors, so once you add technician labor, shipping, logistics, etc., a price that comes in above MSRP is expected IMHO.  Obviously the experience could/should have been better, but IMHO the price is to be expected.

[iFixItHater]

The '2 day express shipping' order from iFixit EU store turned into a several week headache. I have ordered a battery for my phone expecting a flawless experience from a reputable company, yet I've got the complete opposite. After 3 days after placing the order I still had not received a single email about my order status, so I was forced to contact the customer service. Multiple days later I got a reply with a tracking number for the first time (a week in) and the email said that FedEx was unable to deliver due to incorrect address. Now this just set me fuming, because if I login to iFixit and go to my order page, I can see A MAP with MY HOUSE marked in it. They also claimed they had no way of reaching me, even though my phone number was stamped all over the shipping and billing information. So clearly they are lying to either get more time or iFixit just failed to put a correct sticker on my package. Now a weekend has begun and both iFixit and FedEx are unreachable until Monday. The whole situation is completely ridiculous as I could have driven to iFixits warehouse and picked up my order in less than a day, but somehow they fail deliver my package in weeks. This is the first and the last time ordering from them. The situation is so infuriating I had to create an account to share it. Anyone else had similar experiences?

[volatus146]

On 7/28/2023 at 11:28 PM, Skipple said:

Bumping this so it doesn't get lost in a sea of other complaints coming in after the video. 

 

If true, this is genuinely a massive issue and needs to be addressed ASAP.

So ive got this email, but i still get shipping notifications and australia post tracking numbers both from volta and auspost mypost

[DJUnreal]

Hey folks,

 

I've seen you ramping up your Secret Lab sponsorships recently, and wanted to make you aware of their customer service behaviour - in short, it's frankly appalling (and I say this as someone who works in customer-facing service/support roles and has done for approaching two decades now).

 

I've got a Titan from 2020. Great chair, super comfortable, but it has one repeat problem - the arm rests. I've been through three sets of arm rest tops/covers now, and each time it's been a fight to get them replaced. The company claim a five year warranty if you post about your new chair on social media to activate it (which I did the day it arrived), and they haven't disputed the length of cover, but they HAVE tried to make it as difficult as possible for me to get replacements for the arm rest tops free of charge under warranty.

 

Essentially what happens is that the PU leatherette covering on the top of the arm rests will wrinkle up over time, and eventually end up completely splitting at the sides where it's wrinkled so much. This exposes the memory foam inside, and the wrinkled tops are not comfortable for resting your arms on (and that is, after all, the whole point of them). Each time this has happened, through nothing more than regular use of the chair and regular resting of my arms on the arm rests, it's taken multiple weeks of back-and-forth e-mailing to even get them to accept that it's a warranty issue. They tried to blame me every time, and came up with all kinds of fun excuses.

 

The first thing they try to do, which is shady at best, is refuse any service unless you have both the serial number from the chair AND the serial number from the (frankly MASSIVE) instruction sheet (full shiny cardboard), which are not the same. They insist on having both of those serial numbers to even begin discussing the issue with you, and if you've thrown away the cardboard, I assume you'll be out of luck. I hadn't, fortunately, so was able to get support, but really, that's a pretty sneaky first step.

 

They'll then ask for photos of the top and bottom of each affected arm-rest (understandable, maybe, if they had multiple types of fittings for them, but not understandable since they already have the serial numbers, so know exactly what product the arm-rests are attached to anyway). I got told the photos I sent weren't clear enough, and asked for more, which I provided. Eventually they agreed that there was a problem with the arm-rests, but immediately started trying to charge me for replacements.

 

My first failure was reported less than four months after purchase, under normal use. During that e-mail chain (which went on for two months), they claimed they couldn't send out the replacement covers due to a parts shortage (fair enough, maybe, but for two months? Unlikely since they were still selling chairs), and then essentially called me fat and sweaty, claiming that the wrinkling was caused by "excess sweat and friction". Not a great customer service approach. I did finally get the first set of replacements but it took a while, and a lot of fighting to get there. When the replacements arrived, they were boxed in retail packaging, which was nice (they'd clearly grabbed them from their website sales team to ship), but were shipped with a flat head screwdriver which didn't fit the hole in the bottom of the arm rest, not the Phillips head screwdriver that fit the screw which holds the arm rest cover in place. Given the amount of photos and serial numbers they had demanded, this seemed like a massive oversight on their part, and I let them know about this. They assured me they would put the correct screwdrivers in the packaging in future.

 

The second failure was reported a year later, and this one took a month to resolve. Very similar issue - wrinkled up PU leatherette - and very similar fight - weeks of back and forth with them, demands for extra photos, accusations of me mis-treating the chair and so on. I got this one sped up a bit by tweeting publicly about it, and their social media team must have stepped in and pushed them to expedite the replacement. Maybe it was the fact that it looks really bad if someone publicly points out you've been keeping them running around for a month to get a replacement for a design flaw. They also told me during this RMA that "We would usually advise customers to do a wipe down of all PU portions on the chair after each use with a microfiber cloth dampened with a little water, and for another wipe down with a dry microfiber cloth to minimize any moisture left behind". Are you kidding me? They want every user to wipe down their arm rests with damp and dry cloths AFTER EVERY USE? Nobody on the planet would do that, ever!

 

The third failure happened ten months later, and this time I'd put fabric covers over the PU leatherette to mitigate their previous claims of friction and sweat. Not that I should have had to, but I did anyway, because I don't enjoy arguing with Support people constantly. This time I took to Twitter pretty much immediately after raising the case, and did get it resolved in two weeks, but only because I tweeted multiple times, went back and forth with their support team, pointed them to a Reddit thread with 200+ comments on it all talking about similar/identical issues with these chairs and their arm rest covers, and fought to get the replacement. This time I got three different answers about why they were trying to charge me for replacements - firstly that "it's not covered under warranty as it's wear and tear", secondly that "there has to be a small charge made for replacements", and thirdly that "we're giving you them for free, but you need to pay the shipping fees". The shipping fees which were conveniently the same list price as the arm rest covers were shown at on their website. I'm not exactly a brain surgeon, but that looks fishy, even to me.

 

There's three major problems here:

- Using arm rests to rest your arms should absolutely be covered under warranty if there's a design flaw with them (and there clearly is if multiple hundred other users have the same issue)

- Inconsistent responses about why they are trying to charge me for something which should have been handled free under warranty

- Time wasted arguing when they could have just replaced the arm rest covers in the first place, and saved everyone weeks of messing around

 

Oh, and as a final cherry on top, they also said that the third replacement was a good-will gesture and that they will not replace these again under any circumstances, despite there being plenty of evidence of it happening to others (and in fact, despite a friend of mine having the same problem with his chair, at the same time, reporting it at the same time, and going through a similar argument with them).

 

In short, whilst the chairs themselves are great, the company's practices are awful, especially where support and service are concerned.

 

 

Here's the Reddit post about it, which has been going for 3 years now. There's also been talk of class-action lawsuits against SecretLab, though I've not got any information on those myself.

 

I'd suggest care and caution working with these folks - it could damage the LMG reputation significantly.

[KeyringHardhat]

On 7/29/2023 at 7:44 PM, DJUnreal said:

Hey folks,

 

I've seen you ramping up your Secret Lab sponsorships recently, and wanted to make you aware of their customer service behaviour - in short, it's frankly appalling (and I say this as someone who works in customer-facing service/support roles and has done for approaching two decades now).

 

I've got a Titan from 2020. Great chair, super comfortable, but it has one repeat problem - the arm rests. I've been through three sets of arm rest tops/covers now, and each time it's been a fight to get them replaced. The company claim a five year warranty if you post about your new chair on social media to activate it (which I did the day it arrived), and they haven't disputed the length of cover, but they HAVE tried to make it as difficult as possible for me to get replacements for the arm rest tops free of charge under warranty.

 

Essentially what happens is that the PU leatherette covering on the top of the arm rests will wrinkle up over time, and eventually end up completely splitting at the sides where it's wrinkled so much. This exposes the memory foam inside, and the wrinkled tops are not comfortable for resting your arms on (and that is, after all, the whole point of them). Each time this has happened, through nothing more than regular use of the chair and regular resting of my arms on the arm rests, it's taken multiple weeks of back-and-forth e-mailing to even get them to accept that it's a warranty issue. They tried to blame me every time, and came up with all kinds of fun excuses.

 

The first thing they try to do, which is shady at best, is refuse any service unless you have both the serial number from the chair AND the serial number from the (frankly MASSIVE) instruction sheet (full shiny cardboard), which are not the same. They insist on having both of those serial numbers to even begin discussing the issue with you, and if you've thrown away the cardboard, I assume you'll be out of luck. I hadn't, fortunately, so was able to get support, but really, that's a pretty sneaky first step.

 

They'll then ask for photos of the top and bottom of each affected arm-rest (understandable, maybe, if they had multiple types of fittings for them, but not understandable since they already have the serial numbers, so know exactly what product the arm-rests are attached to anyway). I got told the photos I sent weren't clear enough, and asked for more, which I provided. Eventually they agreed that there was a problem with the arm-rests, but immediately started trying to charge me for replacements.

 

My first failure was reported less than four months after purchase, under normal use. During that e-mail chain (which went on for two months), they claimed they couldn't send out the replacement covers due to a parts shortage (fair enough, maybe, but for two months? Unlikely since they were still selling chairs), and then essentially called me fat and sweaty, claiming that the wrinkling was caused by "excess sweat and friction". Not a great customer service approach. I did finally get the first set of replacements but it took a while, and a lot of fighting to get there. When the replacements arrived, they were boxed in retail packaging, which was nice (they'd clearly grabbed them from their website sales team to ship), but were shipped with a flat head screwdriver which didn't fit the hole in the bottom of the arm rest, not the Phillips head screwdriver that fit the screw which holds the arm rest cover in place. Given the amount of photos and serial numbers they had demanded, this seemed like a massive oversight on their part, and I let them know about this. They assured me they would put the correct screwdrivers in the packaging in future.

 

The second failure was reported a year later, and this one took a month to resolve. Very similar issue - wrinkled up PU leatherette - and very similar fight - weeks of back and forth with them, demands for extra photos, accusations of me mis-treating the chair and so on. I got this one sped up a bit by tweeting publicly about it, and their social media team must have stepped in and pushed them to expedite the replacement. Maybe it was the fact that it looks really bad if someone publicly points out you've been keeping them running around for a month to get a replacement for a design flaw. They also told me during this RMA that "We would usually advise customers to do a wipe down of all PU portions on the chair after each use with a microfiber cloth dampened with a little water, and for another wipe down with a dry microfiber cloth to minimize any moisture left behind". Are you kidding me? They want every user to wipe down their arm rests with damp and dry cloths AFTER EVERY USE? Nobody on the planet would do that, ever!

 

The third failure happened ten months later, and this time I'd put fabric covers over the PU leatherette to mitigate their previous claims of friction and sweat. Not that I should have had to, but I did anyway, because I don't enjoy arguing with Support people constantly. This time I took to Twitter pretty much immediately after raising the case, and did get it resolved in two weeks, but only because I tweeted multiple times, went back and forth with their support team, pointed them to a Reddit thread with 200+ comments on it all talking about similar/identical issues with these chairs and their arm rest covers, and fought to get the replacement. This time I got three different answers about why they were trying to charge me for replacements - firstly that "it's not covered under warranty as it's wear and tear", secondly that "there has to be a small charge made for replacements", and thirdly that "we're giving you them for free, but you need to pay the shipping fees". The shipping fees which were conveniently the same list price as the arm rest covers were shown at on their website. I'm not exactly a brain surgeon, but that looks fishy, even to me.

 

There's three major problems here:

- Using arm rests to rest your arms should absolutely be covered under warranty if there's a design flaw with them (and there clearly is if multiple hundred other users have the same issue)

- Inconsistent responses about why they are trying to charge me for something which should have been handled free under warranty

- Time wasted arguing when they could have just replaced the arm rest covers in the first place, and saved everyone weeks of messing around

 

Oh, and as a final cherry on top, they also said that the third replacement was a good-will gesture and that they will not replace these again under any circumstances, despite there being plenty of evidence of it happening to others (and in fact, despite a friend of mine having the same problem with his chair, at the same time, reporting it at the same time, and going through a similar argument with them).

 

In short, whilst the chairs themselves are great, the company's practices are awful, especially where support and service are concerned.

 

 

Here's the Reddit post about it, which has been going for 3 years now. There's also been talk of class-action lawsuits against SecretLab, though I've not got any information on those myself.

 

I'd suggest care and caution working with these folks - it could damage the LMG reputation significantly.

I’ve had very similar experiences, made to purchase new arm rests that don’t last regardless of warranty they tout in your sponsor ad read. I’d buy a bean bag over one of these again.