Registered: Nov 2001
Location: Sumner, WA
Posts: 70

Visor Neo Saga

*sigh* Sometimes, I wonder about customer service these days.

I bought a Visor Neo at the end of November 2001, from Franklin Covey. A week later, I returned it for a replacement because it was slower than crap when it came to running things and the battery life was averaging a DAY. Something was seriously wrong.

About 2 months later, my Neo would not hotsync if you hit the button on the cradle. It would still hotsync if you used the icon on the Neo itself. I called HS and got a replacement cradle sent to me. Same problem. I got a 2nd cradle sent to me. SAME problem. *sigh* About this time, I was past the 3 months free support, so I had to call the 800 support line ($19.95 per incident). However, they didn't charge me since I was working on a problem that was a continuing problem. I asked for a replacement PDA, I sent in my Neo when they sent me a box, and instead of getting a replacement, I supposedly got a new Neo. Wrong. It showed up the day that my Neo should have hit HS, and it had a new stylus, and a new protective cover, but it was the same Neo I sent them, and the problem was NOT solved. I was not pleased. I called HS, and they told me that I would always get it repaired unless I paid $25. This option was NOT explained to me when I sent my Neo in for replacement. About a month later, using the icon on the Neo stopped working for hotsyncing. Now if that didn't really make it hard to transfer information to the Neo. *sigh*

I am low income so I had to wait to get the $25 to send in my Neo for replacement. I did this about 2 weeks ago. I called and had to go through the entire thing of installing the Palm Desktop and they wanted to send me a new cradle. Took me 30 minutes to convince the tech that NO, I didn't want another cradle, that I wanted my Neo replaced. Well, their computers were down, so I couldn't get a tracking number. *sigh* I wasn't sure he was going to send me a replacement when I hung up.

Well, 2 days later, I got a replacement Neo, I backed up my old Neo using the SM Memplug I have (thank goodness!) and transferred the information onto the new Neo. Then I tried to hotsync the new Neo. It worked like a charm! Which meant what I'd known all along, my old Neo did have a problem! I was glad that I wasn't imagining things.

So, anyway, I am trying to get my $25 back since they didn't replace the Neo when I asked MONTHS ago, and I think they should refund the money since they took forever to get around to do it. Customer Service would refund my $25, if they were part of tech support, which they aren't. I called Tech Support and the idiot I talked to said it's a handling fee and he wouldn't refund it, however, when I asked to be given to a supervisor, he went to look for one and after 10 minutes came back and said he couldn't find a supervisor, and this was after I'd been on hold for 30 minutes before I even got to talk to anyone! ARGH! I'm going to try again later this week.

DanaWheels

Registered: Jul 2002
Location: Toronto, CANADA
Posts: 21

Have you even tried hard resetting the Neo before you asked for a replacement????
Most likely the button functionality for the buttons was reversed

Registered: Nov 2001
Location: Sumner, WA
Posts: 70

quote:

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Originally posted by Limitles
Have you even tried hard resetting the Neo before you asked for a replacement????
Most likely the button functionality for the buttons was reversed

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Registered: Jul 2002
Location: Toronto, CANADA
Posts: 21

In all honesty I don't believe they will refund your 25 bucks. They really cant - it's a shipping and handling fee. Everyone has to pay or otherwise send it in for repair. And take it easy on the agents, they can only do as much as they are authorized to do!

Registered: Jul 2000
Location: USA
Posts: 75

It is kind of a pain dealing with Handspring. I had a Visorphone with a bad headset jack. I had to go through tech support first, which meant giving them my credit card number and facing the potential hassle of having them charge me in error. I also had to go through endless soft and hard resets to prove that the phone jack was bad, that there was not a problem with the Visor. As if !

Not only that, the documentation I got with the Vphone said to call Voicestream for help. They kept me on the phone for 15 minutes before telling me I had to call Handspring.

I understand that there are many people who think their phone is bad when it's something else, but it's frustrating being lumped in with them !

The story had a happy ending, I got my new Visorphone the next day and sent my old broken one back. My headset works flawlessly, and my friends and family don't get feedback and screeches when they call.