Seagate - Awful Customer Service Experience

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ElaihBloo

New Member
I've had a member of Seagate staff, named Adama, refusing to acknowledge or answer some of my questions, and being unnecessarily difficult to the point where I am seriously reconsidering using or recommending Seagate ever again if this is the type of customer service that is present.

The problem results from a post previously written here. Whereby there was concern that the new Seagate hard drive cables are proprietary and alternative cables can not be used on their drives.

My email is below, as I was concerned about storing large amounts of data onto a product of which the cable will eventually be discontinued. I needed to know if I could find an alternative cable to prevent this problem later.

"It's the part after the warranty, when Seagate stops producing that cable that I'm concerned about.

You say that it's a SATA connection. I've never opened up a portable HD so, is the connection on the GoFlex enclosure, the same connection as inside the enclosure, on the hard drive itself?

So, I could use an alternative cable like this (see attached image) as it would use the same connection?"

Responses:

"Thank you for your inquiry to Customer Support for Seagate.

For further assistance, please give us a call at 00-800-4-7324283. (Office hours 9am t0 5 pm GMT)

If you have any additional questions, please let me know."

Adama

- Email re-sent - I received no reply

- Re-sent + added an additional question about warranty.

Response:

Dear Client,

Thank you for your inquiry to Customer Support for Seagate.

Provide us your serial number.

If you have any additional questions, please let me know.

Adama

My Reply:

Adama,

As you have ignored my last two emails regarding my questions, I'd like my emails forwarded to a senior member of staff before I make an official complaint.

I'm in the process of purchasing a number of hard drives and due to the refusal of informing me on the subject, it's highly unlikely that they will be Seagate now.

I'm not at home where my existing Seagate drives are, so I can not access the numbers at present. I'd expect that the warranty is valid from the date of purchase, using an Amazon.co.uk and a Play.co.uk receipt as proof?

Response:

Dear Client,

Thank you for your inquiry to Customer Support for Seagate.

We need to have a serial number before escalating it .

If you have any additional questions, please let me know.

Adama

Adama has refused to acknowledge my initial questions. He has refused to answer if Seagate hard drive warranties are valid from date of purchase rather than from manufacture, without me giving him my serial code, which I don't have available at present. He has refused to escalate the problem to an alternative or senior position without me giving him my serial code. I have since requested to escalate the initial question to a senior position, without the warranty question. I received no reply.

All of Seagate's customer service email addresses, go to the same [email protected] address, so I cannot seem to approach a different sector. I have been unable to find a complaints email address. The main question is. Why on earth should I need to be going through the stress of trying to fix this? All of this is totally unecessary behaviour towards a customer. It's disgusted me to know that this is the response that I receive as a paying customer. Yes, it is us who actually give you a job and allow you to earn a living. You should remember that rather than ignoring my valid questions and making things far more difficult than they need to be.

This information will be posted on a large number of computer forums, to prevent any potential customers from having to put up with this standard of service
 
they always ask for serial numbers for product enquiries, think your best bet would have been to call them when they sent you the customer service number
 
jamesd1981 said:
they always ask for serial numbers for product enquiries
Click to expand...

The warranty question was whether their policy is to take the warranty date from the date of manufacture. No serial number is necessary to tell me this. The customer support was being unnecessarily difficult.

They didn't bother to acknowledge or answer my intitial questions which bothered me the most.

Are there any review centres/forums that focus on the customer care of these companies? I'd go with the company with the best policy and customer service regardless of price any day.

For any future posters, don't try and rationalise what is wrong. I see this on the forums all the time. You're the people that allow companies to do the wrong things they do. Those things that actually cause problems for yourselves and for everyone else.
 
Yeah, customer support for most IT companies sucks, especially when dealing over email. They have a small number of people dealing with a large number of requests, so the vast majority of the time you're going to get a canned response. What doesn't help the situation is being difficult yourself and refusing to cooperate with whatever procedure they have in place to address your particular issue.

You have to realize that you're not dealing with some engineer or IT specialist, you're dealing with someone that sends out a copied and pasted reply depending on your request. In this case, there would obviously be no canned response, so they tell you to call in, which is really the only way you have any chance of talking to someone that knows anything with most companies. I'm not sure why you would resend the same email and expect a different reply.

As for your actual inquiry, I'm sure that the drive inside the enclosure has a standard SATA connection.
 
ElaihBloo said:
The warranty question was whether their policy is to take the warranty date from the date of manufacture. No serial number is necessary to tell me this. The customer support was being unnecessarily difficult.

They didn't bother to acknowledge or answer my intitial questions which bothered me the most.

Are there any review centres/forums that focus on the customer care of these companies? I'd go with the company with the best policy and customer service regardless of price any day.

For any future posters, don't try and rationalise what is wrong. I see this on the forums all the time. You're the people that allow companies to do the wrong things they do. Those things that actually cause problems for yourselves and for everyone else.
Click to expand...

going by the chip on your shoulder your one of those people companys wish they didnt have to sell to, want want want, and when asked for some input like a serial number its a big song and dance regardless of wether you think you need it they asked for it to deal with your question, would have been easy to give them it, they also asked you to call them, so they gave you two options both were reasonable, can only think they assumed most people would make a song and dance about checking a serial number
 
I was just looking at a lot of Seagate hard drives on NewEgg. I was disappointed to see only 2 year warranties on their products. Seagate used to have 3 year warranties. Samsung and Western Digital have 3 year warranties on their products (some Western Digital hard drives have 5 year warranties). What is the deal with Seagate? Are they afraid of their quality control?
 
I wouldn't be surprised to find out that Adama is not even a real person but some kind of robotic software that responds with canned text after scanning your email for certain keywords.
 
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