Archive for December, 2005

Sometimes I wonder about companies. I really do. I got a new wireless router this month and decided to try and set it up. It’s a Netgear router, which you’d think would work flawlessly. At least I did. Silly me. Here’s what happened.

1. Buy Netgear wireless router 2. Connect as instructed in documentation 3. Ensure all lights are on as necessary, pings to router are working, etc. 4. Receive a “things aren’t connected right, dumbass, make sure all the lights are on and try again” error from the Netgear software 5. Try again. Same message. Wash, rince, repeat. 6. Try and call Netgear with number on box, but it’s the wrong one. 7. Find number in documentation package. 8. Call Netgear to try and figure out what’s wrong, since all seems to be working properly. 9. Get a “you can’t talk to support until you register your product” (after 15 minutes on hold). Of course, the only way to register is to be online. 10. Disconnect everything, go to http://netgear.com/registration, the address they supplied. It’s a 404 error. Yay. 11. Surf around the Netgear site to find the registration page. 12. Enter details. 13. Have to re-enter the serial, because I used the product number instead of the serial (too many damned numbers). 14. Serial doesn’t work. 15. Enter letters as uppercase. Serial doesn’t work. 16. Enter serials with “*” characters on either side (which is what the sticker has). Doesn’t work. 17. Try nearly infinite variations of the serial, part number, date of purchase, retailer purchased at, etc. No workee. 18. Call Netgear to try and figure out how I can get support for a product I can’t even register. Select the customer service menu option. There’s no option to just talk to a customer service rep (I’m not a reseller, I’m not calling about my “RMA” and I’m not checking on the status of an existing order). 19. Try pressing 0 to get an operator. The system hangs up on me. 20. Throw router at wall. 21 Plug it in, and it works.

Okay, I was kidding about the last two bits. But it’d be nice if that’s all it took. I’ve decided to email “support@netgear.com” to see if they can help. Apparently it can take 4-12 days to receive an answer though. Guess I’m not using this little prezzie anytime soon.

This is sad. I mean, I’m a fairly smart guy (shush). I’ve done this before. But the documentation (online, support forums, knowledge base, etc) was insufficient to answer the “why won’t everything that should work work?” question. And their phone support was useless. And their registration page didn’t work. Hell, they couldn’t even get the number on the box right for CALLING support, and their phone message didn’t know where their registration page actually was.

All in all, a wasted 2 hours.