phunguus
Disciple
In june 2013, i bought TPLINK's 740N router for enabling wireless at my house. It worked more or less perfectly for 3-4 months until one fine day (10 september 2013) all wired ports stopped working.
The desktop wasn't able to detect any wired connection neither from the external LAN card nor from the onboard NIC. The laptop was able to connect to the internet via wifi so i knew wireless connectivity is working fine. I knew it was the router but just to be sure i checked the connectivity after taking the router out of the loop. As suspected, the router's LAN ports (all 4 of them had stopped working) were as fault. I tried resetting the device and installing it again. I tried it at a friend's house and even got my ISP to install it from scratch but it just wouldnt work.
Then started the hopeless attempts of contacting TPLink's service center. I used to call on the toll free number (1800 2094 168 - ) everyday atleast twice from september 19-25. A computerised system would receive the call, thank me for calling and transfer the call to an executive's phone. The phone used to ring 10-12 times, then the computer would apologise for unavailability of executives and finally ask me to go to their website instead.
Then i figured writing to them via email them would be a better idea. On 26th september, I wrote a long mail addressed to support.in@tp-link.com explaining my problem and expressed my disappointment with the toll free help line. The reply - which was copied to their sales team(sales.in@tp-link.com) and an apparently senior official (taylor.lai@tp-link.com) - was really relatively quick and asked me to ship the device to their vasai godown. So without wasting much time, i shipped the device to them on 30th september morning via blue dart from my residence in navi mumbai.
After waiting for a week, when i didnt get any kind of reply/communication from them, i again mailed on the october 9th morning asking for an update. Haven't received it's reply yet. So today me and two of my friends started dialling their number continuously for 4-5 times. Eventually, one of the calls got picked up and i was able to speak to a customer service executive for the first time 20 days after i first tried contacting them.
Not believing that i had gotten through to them, i started explaining my problem when the executive interrupted me to ask my name and contact number. Then i had to interrupt him back to actually let me speak and tell him all that i have written above. I said I just want to know the device's RMA status. He said "you shouldn't have sent the device directly, you should have called us first. You should have let us troubleshoot it first. We could have easily solved it". I lost my cool at this point and blasted him for 5mins. First for being ignorant to the customer's calls & then blaming the customer for not contacting them and then for expressing surprise that the customer had shipped the device without contacting them when they themselves had asked to ship the device on email. He then feebly apologised and asked me how he can help. I said just give me my device's RMA status and ill consider myself lucky.
So finally i got the contact number of the service center in Vasai (0250 663 4921). I called them and they said they have already dispatched the device and should reach me soon.
My friends used to call TPLink as timepass link when they saw the router. I used to say that they dont seem to be as bad as everyone claims. But as can be seen, the situation isn't very far from that. Although the people working behind the scenes are doing their job well but because of the almost non existent front desk executives who from the vital link between the backend and the customer, the end result is a nightmarish experience for the latter.
Listing down contact details for tech support-
Tech support Email - support.in@tp-link
Sales team email - sales.in@tp-link.com
Technical Support Engineer at TPlink - taylor.lai@tp-link.com
All India Toll free number - 1800 2094 168 (Mon-Sat; 1000-1800 hrs)
Vasai service center RMA number - 0250 663 4921
The desktop wasn't able to detect any wired connection neither from the external LAN card nor from the onboard NIC. The laptop was able to connect to the internet via wifi so i knew wireless connectivity is working fine. I knew it was the router but just to be sure i checked the connectivity after taking the router out of the loop. As suspected, the router's LAN ports (all 4 of them had stopped working) were as fault. I tried resetting the device and installing it again. I tried it at a friend's house and even got my ISP to install it from scratch but it just wouldnt work.
Then started the hopeless attempts of contacting TPLink's service center. I used to call on the toll free number (1800 2094 168 - ) everyday atleast twice from september 19-25. A computerised system would receive the call, thank me for calling and transfer the call to an executive's phone. The phone used to ring 10-12 times, then the computer would apologise for unavailability of executives and finally ask me to go to their website instead.
Then i figured writing to them via email them would be a better idea. On 26th september, I wrote a long mail addressed to support.in@tp-link.com explaining my problem and expressed my disappointment with the toll free help line. The reply - which was copied to their sales team(sales.in@tp-link.com) and an apparently senior official (taylor.lai@tp-link.com) - was really relatively quick and asked me to ship the device to their vasai godown. So without wasting much time, i shipped the device to them on 30th september morning via blue dart from my residence in navi mumbai.
After waiting for a week, when i didnt get any kind of reply/communication from them, i again mailed on the october 9th morning asking for an update. Haven't received it's reply yet. So today me and two of my friends started dialling their number continuously for 4-5 times. Eventually, one of the calls got picked up and i was able to speak to a customer service executive for the first time 20 days after i first tried contacting them.
Not believing that i had gotten through to them, i started explaining my problem when the executive interrupted me to ask my name and contact number. Then i had to interrupt him back to actually let me speak and tell him all that i have written above. I said I just want to know the device's RMA status. He said "you shouldn't have sent the device directly, you should have called us first. You should have let us troubleshoot it first. We could have easily solved it". I lost my cool at this point and blasted him for 5mins. First for being ignorant to the customer's calls & then blaming the customer for not contacting them and then for expressing surprise that the customer had shipped the device without contacting them when they themselves had asked to ship the device on email. He then feebly apologised and asked me how he can help. I said just give me my device's RMA status and ill consider myself lucky.
So finally i got the contact number of the service center in Vasai (0250 663 4921). I called them and they said they have already dispatched the device and should reach me soon.
My friends used to call TPLink as timepass link when they saw the router. I used to say that they dont seem to be as bad as everyone claims. But as can be seen, the situation isn't very far from that. Although the people working behind the scenes are doing their job well but because of the almost non existent front desk executives who from the vital link between the backend and the customer, the end result is a nightmarish experience for the latter.
Listing down contact details for tech support-
Tech support Email - support.in@tp-link
Sales team email - sales.in@tp-link.com
Technical Support Engineer at TPlink - taylor.lai@tp-link.com
All India Toll free number - 1800 2094 168 (Mon-Sat; 1000-1800 hrs)
Vasai service center RMA number - 0250 663 4921
