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03/15/2005, 03:41 PM
#1
I have just spent a solid one and a half hours going through hell trying to get a replacement for my defective 650. Here is my tale of woe:
Called Palm store (hold time: 4.5 minutes). Spoke with Gale who has so much trouble hearing me I have to yell at the top of my lungs everything I say. I tell her the following (this will be known as "The Whole Nine Yards" henceforth): My Palm keyboard slows down to a crawl and makes the phone unusable. She asks if I've had the problem before. YES, I yell. Have I spoken to tech support? YES, I yell. Do I have a repair order number. I yell the number to her. Who is my carrier? CINGULAR, BUT I BOUGHT IT THROUGH YOU, THE PALM STORE, I scream.
She says she has to talk to her supervisor. The supervisor, Teresa Lim, tells her to tell me that "Palm and Cingular have an agreement that no matter where I purchased the phone, I must go through my carrier for all repairs." I get a Cingular number and hang up.
Called Cingular at 800 331 0500 and spoke with Gayle Crow. She seems to have absolutely no idea what I am talking about (which is what I suspected would happen) but tells me to call 800 801 1101, which she says is a Cingular third party Warranty Exchange Program company. I tell her I can't believe a 3rd party is going to care about my phone when in fact I bought it from Palm and have no warranty with Cingular. I say to Gayle, "I will call the warranty company if you're absolutely, positively, 100% certain you've given me accurate information and you know for sure this is the right thing for me to do." Gayle talks to her supervisor, Barbara Souza, who says to go back to the Palm Store, Cingular has nothing to do with this problem. (Thanks for NOTHING Teresa!!!)
Second call to Palm One (Hold time: 4 minutes) Spoke with Rachael and reiterated The Whole Nine Yards. I make no mention of my previous calls. She says they could process a return and was in the middle of verifying my serial number when I just got cut off! I literally get a dial tone while she's talking to me. (I myself have used this very tactic: When you don't want to talk to someone, don't hang up when they're talking... hang up while you're talking! Makes it much more believable!)
Third call to Palm One: Spoke with Angel to whom I must restate The Whole Nine Yards again, at which point she tells me to talk to Cingular, at which point I scream "I'm not doing that!!!" over and over again until she relents, says they'll take care of the problem, then proceeds to put me on hold.
Travis, a Treo 650 tech support supervisor, comes on the line and tells me that because I'm within the 30 day return period he can't process the return and tells me to call the Palm Store at 800 881 7256. Extremely exasperated, I tell him that's the number I did call to talk to him. He says to press 3 then 1 but to hang on and he'll call it for me! I tell him it's just stunning how unfriendly and complicated it is to get a return processed. (I say this many times in different ways.) Travis repeats over and over and over again he's just following policy. (It has now been over an hour of being on the phone.) Travis, while following policy, is the first and only human I've spoken with at Palm who had ANY accurate information about how to proceed.
Fourth call to Palm One (at least I didn't have to dial this one; on hold for 7 minutes): Spoke with Eva who nearly immediately said she'd ship out another one overnight, practically with no questions asked. She then said that under 14 days you just call the Palm Store (not tech support) and they exchange the phone immediately, without going through tech support. When it's between 15 and 30 days, then you go through tech support but then the store part still does the exchange (still at no charge), and when it's over 30 days, then the replacement (assuming you don't shoot yourself before you've jumped through every agonizing hoop they place in your way) is done entirely through Treo 650 Technical Support at a USD$25 fee. I am so numb at this point from yelling, talking to clueless Palm-droids, being cut off, that this bizarre and Kafka-esque policy actually makes some sense.
It has now been an entire one and a half hours of the most aggravating, frustrating run-around in getting a simple replacement I've ever experienced from any company ever.
Palm, you are in deep trouble if you think you can keep customers with customer service that makes returns at a French department store look good (and the French know what I'm talking about!!).
Oh, and Palm, if you're listening: Why do you have people like Teresa Lim working for you? Seriously, why???
I await a new Treo 650.
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Originally Posted by ttrundle
