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My Experience with Vive Customer Support


Blazen

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Last post was marked as spam so here it is again:

 

Fair warning, this is quite a long story.

 

So it all started about a month ago when my 3-1 cable started acting up. Every once and awhile the screen on the HMD would flicker on and off for about 3 seconds. I was worried that it was the HMD that was causing these problems so I contacted customer support. Through some troubleshooting, we found the problem to be the 3-1 cable. I was relieved to find that my HMD was not failing after only 3 months of use. She spoke with the RMA team about shipping a new cable and the request was confirmed. Great, I thought. Then, this was the following question I had and response I recieved (Direct quotes from HTC Transcript)

 

Ana S.: Thank you, I will send you the terms and conditions and let me know if you agree.

Ana S.: File Sent - Vive Accessory Disclosure-Fulfillment.pdf

You: My only question is if the new cable is also under my current warranty, a new one, or no warranty at all?

Ana S.: Oh! It is under your current warranty.

You: Alright awesome! I agree to the terms and conditions

 

As you can see here, I asked about the new cable. The reply I recieved is that it is under my current warranty. "Wonderful," I thought. HTC got a 10/10 on that interaction.

 

Fast forward 2 weeks later.

 

Strangely enough, after installing my new replacement 3-1 cable and less than 2 weeks of some very light usage of the Vive, I begin to notice that the HMD is flickering these green lines and showing green dots all over the screen. I run a few troubleshooting options that I remembered from the previous interaction and found that the new replacement cable that I had received was causing the problem!

 

"Maybe I got a bad cable," I thought to myself. So I contacted customer support again. I was not worried because, as I stated earlier, Ana had told me that this new cable was under my current warranty still. Also, I had hardly used it and every time I did, it was under the warranty's "Normal Use Conditions." However, upon speaking to another customer support representative, I was told that the request to RMA it was denied due to this "one replacement only" policy.

 

I immediately went and studied HTC's warranty policy, and found there was nothing that stated this cable could only be replaced once. I asked if I could speak to a representative from the RMA department, but of course that was denied because they don't speak to their customers. I then asked if he showed the RMA department the transcript between Ana and I where she stated my new cable was under warranty, but he said they still denied it. Keep in mind, my new cable arrived August 1st and this conversation was August 16th, so this replacement cable only lasted about two weeks. I asked if he made that aware to the RMA department, and he said they know all the details and have denied the request.

 

So a couple days later I opened the chat again, requesting a new 3-1 cable. The gentleman I spoke to was very helpful and seemed to be the only person I've spoken to in the last 2 weeks that genuinely cared about customer satisfaction. He brought up the option of sending the request to a higher up team, which I agreed to. He said he would email me back with the answer from them an hour from then. We closed the chat and I patiently waited for the reply. Once it came in, he said it was denied - once again. I - once again - asked if he showed them the details such as the promise that my new cable was under warranty, that it was only two weeks, and that nowhere in the warranty did it state anything about a 1 time replacement. In the end, it was, once again, unresolved.

 

Open chat #4. This one was pretty brief. I simply asked to get a call from the team higher up so that I could speak to them myself on the matter. They said they would call within the next 1-2 business days, but called me while I was at work so it took about 5 days and multiple requests for me to finally get in contact with someone higher up.

 

Of course, once I got in contact on the phone with a representative of HTC, they told me the same exact thing. "One time replacement only" that is nowhere to be found on the warranty. I spoke to him saying that HTC's customer support representative specifically told me that my new cable would be under my current warranty. I said that I understand if people make mistakes, but cannot believe HTC won't take responsibility for these mistakes, but instead screw their customers over because of a hidden "one time replacement" policy. So again, this got nowhere.

 

But I did not falter here. I opened another customer support chat and, to my surprise, recieved the original person I spoke to who told me the new cable is under my current warranty. Of course, she denied saying this until I sent her the transcript of our first conversation. Then, she attempted once more to get it RMA'd, saying she'd see if they could make an "exception". However, I'm sure you can guess what happened next. This third request was also denied.

 

 This has been my two week struggle with HTC's customer support. They do not allow us to get in contact with their RMA department and have very shady hidden replacement policies that are not shown on their warranty. I plan on spreading this news to the reviews of many sites that sell HTC products to ensure that other people should think twice before buying a Vive. 

 

So now I have these two base stations set up in my college dorm with the Vive tucked away in a box underneath my desk. I was really looking forward to having Virtual Reality set up in my dorms, but it appears I made the fatal wrong choice 3 months ago when deciding between HTC and Oculus.

 

tl;dr: The Vive's warranty doesn't mean anything to HTC, refused to replace 3-1 cable after 2 weeks of normal use conditions despite customer support saying they would.

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