Consumer Tech/Coronavirus Edition One

By Richard M. Sherwin

(With Bob Plunkett, Jennifer Auspitz, Marc Burstein and Susan Davis)

Tech Support during COVID-19

Instacart Should Be Carted Off

Since we are old enough to be high-risk during the pandemic, we needed to stay home as much as possible. So, when we were running low on food and other staples, we spent the morning trying to use Silicon Valley’s latest brainstorm, Instacart, the delivery service for our local super market Costco, BJs, Target and other retailers.

Since we are old enough to be high-risk during the pandemic, we needed to stay home as much as possible. So, when we were running low on food and other staples, we spent the morning trying to use Silicon Valley’s latest brainstorm, Instacart, the delivery service for our local supermarket, Costco, BJs, Target and other retailers.

Although we know some who use the service and seem to have no issues, we couldn’t accomplish anything except signing into the account. It was a nightmare. After carefully, painstakingly filling out orders at several different websites, we were told Instacart couldn’t handle the order because A) we either were too far from the stores (maybe two miles), or, even when we were really close to the store, they were too busy and couldn’t process our order for pick-up or delivery at this time, please try again later. AAARGH!  An entire morning shot to hell. Not that we had anything better to do, but still, very annoying. So, against our better judgement, we went shopping in person. (We are OK, thanks for asking.)

To add insult to injury, even after cancelling the account Instacart continued to charge us a monthly fee. Calls to customer service were answered by a recording saying, so sorry, we are too busy serving our customers so we cannot take calls. Six weeks into this ordeal, they finally answered and admitted the service had trouble taking and/or cancelling orders and/or accounts and would refund our $20.

Have A Problem With An Amazon Order? Too Bad!

During our confinement, we thought we could get exercise by purchasing a Microsoft Xbox. Amazon had a decent deal, along with free two-day shipping and free returns (we have Amazon Prime). Walmart and Target had free shipping and free returns, too, but the games wouldn’t arrive for a few weeks. We ordered the Xbox from Amazon, along with a half dozen sports titles to play, as well as a slew of other miscellaneous items.

The Microsoft Xbox came fast – but it didn’t work. We dropped the software and Xbox off at the local UPS store which safely took our returns. It printed a receipt without us having to touch anything.

We waited and waited for a credit, then waited some more. Amazon customer service wasn’t just bad, it was nonexistent. The message, when you called, told you to use the website for returns, credits and tech support. So, we went to the website and it was impossible to get help to find out what happened to our credit. Plus, we got a nasty note saying we were returning too many items, which, evidently, they had sufficient time to write.

So, we called customer service for our Amazon Visa credit card which had live support. We did get a credit…. 6 weeks later. Not sure whether it was the credit card people or Amazon online. Just glad we finally got it.

Service Providers

We are lucky enough to spend summers in New England and winters in Florida. In both communities, I am the point person for cable service and mobile phone provider issues.

Frontier

Up north, some of our neighbors have Frontier, which is nearly bankrupt but managed to purchase much of AT&T’s business. Frontier has decided to end customer service in many areas. It said that because of COVID-19, it was shorthanded – we say bull. Frontier’s financial problems went south (or north) way before the virus. Looks to us it’s just a convenient excuse for not handling consumer problems.

Verizon, Can You Hear Us Now?

A year before the virus, while in the process of buying money-losing AOL and Yahoo, Verizon found the time to lay off 100,000 workers from AOL, Verizon Mobile, FIOS, and Yahoo. Verizon’s purchase of AOL and Yahoo meant taking on even more tech support responsibilities. What this accomplished was to turn Verizon, which had been known for great customer support, into a shadow of its former self – that now racks up thousands of consumer complaints daily. Way to go Verizon.

Altice

Altice (Optimum), a former family-run business, is playing catch-up against Comcast, Verizon, Spectrum, Charter, and Cox Cable to deliver state-of-the-art set-top boxes with voice control, tons of apps and many other consumer-friendly features. Too bad it has fallen flat with its new Altice One box, which is hard to use, unreliable and laughably behind the times. Altice also has, arguably, the worst overseas customer support in the entire northeast. U.S.-based support has gone away – if someone is lucky, they can sometimes get in-home support after getting the “once over” from its new three-level overseas review reps to see if you are “really” having a problem that they can’t solve over the phone.

Consumer Cellular

Mobile phone service providers have become so important during this crisis. We think that No. 1 rated Consumer Cellular has done a bang-up job. (It’s not just for old people anymore!) If you have a problem and can’t reach a real live person right away and you leave a message, a friendly tech-savvy person will actually get back to you pretty damn quickly. Way to go Consumer Cellular! According to our survey, Verizon and AT&T are not doing a good job. As for the now conjoined T-Mobile and Sprint, it’s too soon to tell.

Frigidaire and Lowe’s

Our 7-year-old Frigidaire appliances picked a bad time to die. The dishwasher went first – about a month into our new shelter-at-home lifestyle.

The following month, our over-the-range microwave stopped working. We figured with time on our hands and a paid-up appliance/household warranty, we would let a gloved, masked repairman come in to attempt to fix these appliances. Simple repairs, right? Ha!

The repair service claimed that labor is included, parts are extra. And, you guessed it – the parts for the dishwasher and microwave would probably cost more than new models. So much for home service warranties. But we didn’t give up. We called Frigidaire and, because of the pandemic, it said it would replace and install the dishwasher control panel for free this one time only. And they did!

The microwave was a total loss. So, we ordered a brand-new model from Lowe’s – but it had the same non-working door as the old one. Go figure! Lowe’s sent a repair guy who replaced the door. And, surprise! That, too, had a bad door. So what did Lowe’s do? They took the new one out and gave us and installed another, more expensive one (without charging us more)! Thanks, Lowe’s, now that’s customer service!

Four Important Tech Support Tips

· When you call Altice customer support and it says it will be at least 45 minutes to get a live person, we found that if you hang on, you might get a support person in less than five minutes.

· If you call Comcast at 1-800-Xfinity, and hear the message that it is no longer taking calls and to use the Comcast.net website, please note that the website does NOT work much of the time. If not, hang on and keep saying “representative” – you might actually get a live U.S.-based person.

· When calling Verizon for support for your cable, Internet or home phone, be specific to the automated system, so that it knows you want one of those services, not its cellular division.

· When calling Frontier, especially in the northeast, just pray! So far, I don’t know anyone who has gotten through!