In Sept I purchased a Tritton AXPro headset. A month later, it stopped working right (mic issues and hissingspeakers). I put in a trouble ticket on Tritton's support site on Nov 8th, butdidn't hear back. So I placed a response... And another... And another. Noreply.
Twobusiness weeks later, I finally get a response with the excuse that technicaldifficulties kept some tickets from being received on time. I figured I'd try to use other ways to contactthem so it wouldn't happen again. Well I tried the email on their website just auto-replies. I tried calling the number sat on hold until the call wasdropped. I tried e-mailing again more auto-replies.
Fastforward to 3 4 months after my initial service request.By this time my1 year warranty had already expired. Since I still hadn't heard back from Tritton, I contacted the retailerto see if they could help. I was way past the 30 day return period but seeingas they broke past the return period anyway, I figured it couldn't hurt to try. They just sent me back to Tritton. Immediately afterwards, I updated my trouble ticket. Of course, theynever bothered to reply.
At thispoint, I got busy with looking for a new job and other life issues but by Nov (a full year after I placed the original complaint) my 3/10 trouble ticketand e-mails still weren't answered. I again updated the trouble ticket. The ticket system went down for maintenanceshortly thereafter and to this day is still down.
I continued to e-mail and call off and on foranother year. During this time Tritton was bought up by MadCatz. I don't knowif that's why I finally got an e-mail response, but I did finally get one thisNov 2 years after my original service request.
It took abit, but the tech support guy, Jeremy Romio, finally agreed to take the headsetin to be serviced. I went through the motions sending copies of receipts, serial numbers, images of the headset etc. I finally had an RMA number and wasready to ship. Just before I did, I thought to ask how much warranty they weregoing to give me on the repair/replacement.
None Wait, what?! Jeremy explained that since my warranty was expired, they couldn't giveme any further support after this one-time repair and made clear they weredoing this as a favor for me for the inconvenience.
Basically, even though I put a support ticket in 2 months into my warranty, even though Icouldn't get anyone to respond to their trouble ticket, phone, or e-mail untilAFTER my warranty expired, they wouldn't offer any further support. I refusedto follow through with the service. I mean, if a brand new one could die after1 months of use, what's to say a repair will last any longer? It could breakthe next day and MadCatz is saying there'd be nothing I could do about it!
I arguedback and forth with Jeremy but without success. My case would later beescalated to the Service Manager, Michael Browning (probably because I emailedMadCatz's CEO out of pure desperation). After several emails back and forth, Michaelagreed to give me a replacement without shipping in the new one - but again, nofurther warranty service. I argued a bit more and he stated that if I hadissues with the replacement, I could call him. How is that a guarantee it'sgoing to be taken care of? How do I know he's even going to be there for waithow long can I even call!? No thanks.
I argue that if they won't at least give me the balance ofthe warranty I would have had (around 10 months) if they had responded in a timelymanner initially back in then they should refund me the money. Of course, they wouldn't do that either arguing that their department doesn't handle refundswhile at the same time refusing to escalate my case to someone who could.
I put in acomplaint with the BBB in which I explain that although MadCatz is willing torepair the headset, the lack of further warranty of service is why I'mdemanding a refund. But MadCatz's responses were focused on my refusal toaccept repair (no mention of additional warranty time), so the case was closedin their favor. Apparently the BBB only cares if the company responds with an offer - any offer - and closes the cases in a company's favor.
Theinteresting thing about the BBB case was that I returned to the Tritton site toaccess my old trouble ticket to give as proof and while I was there I noticed alink for the company Facebook page. After the BBB case was closed, I went aheadand joined it. I was still pretty peeved about the whole thing so in a wallcomment that had a post by someone who couldn't reach Tritton either (itapparently happens a lot), I put in a comment relating my story.
Trittonresponded by giving me the direct e-mail of someone in tech support. I repliedsaying that I had already talked to the Service Manager and if this person isn'tabove them, then there's nothing they can do for me. Tritton responded byblocking me from their page and deleting all my posts.
Not havinganything else to lose, I sent the email and got Sean Allen who explained thathe banned me from their support page in order to force my hand to contact him. Longstory short, he also wouldn't give me further warranty service. Again he madethe case that my warranty is expired, that they're doing me a favor, and thathe can't refund my money.
He didhowever, unban me and restore some of my Facebook comments.in kind, I agreedthat I wouldn't say anything out of line and that he's free to contact me if Ido. I followed the thread and any time someone asked for shopping advice Isuggested other brands of headsets. When they brought up quality or serviceissues, I replied with my story.
I was again banned and my comments removed. Ididn't say anything vulgar or offensive and in fact, if you browse their pageyou'll see similar comments by other users (but meaner).in addition I wasreported as spam and had my account blocked by Facebook. I e-mailed Sean askingwhy he didn't contact me beforehand if there was an issue. No reply.
I've since sent two emails (12/12 and 12/13) to Darren Richardson (CEO/Pres), Whitney Peterson (VP), Warren Cook (VP), Allyson Vanderford (CFO), Brian Anderson (COO), and William Woodward (Director). No reply.
All I want is my money back. Figuring they weren't ever going to agree to warranty support, I went ahead and bought a competing product so I could have a working headset with warranty - the same thing I was supposedly getting when I spent $166.23 on the Tritton headset.
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