What should you do when you have trouble with your Internet connection? N. tells Consumerist that his combination DSL modem and wireless router from Netgear simply won’t work. According to the ever-helpful technical support team at Netgear, there’s nothing left that they can do, and his only option left is to call the Geek Squad to perform a house call. If it didn’t require a $139 house call to troubleshoot a $79 device, N. might go along with this plan.

We purchased a Netgear DGN2200 – Wireless Router with DSL Modem, about a month and a half ago. Five calls to their tech dept. and it still is not working correctly. Half the time I do not know if they understand what I am saying, half the time I do not understand them (a lot of times it is like they mumble on purpose so you cannot make out what they are saying).

We have had to reboot the router every 3-4 days, after it loses connection with our devices. Internet is intermittent. When trouble shooting we often get a modem error. Which I have told them repeatedly. We have been on the phone 1-2 hours with each call. Walked through upgrading, re-booting yet again and several other steps to no avail.

One thing we are having trouble with is an on-line game, which I even got the ports for just in case. The router will not except these ports or even hold the changes I put into it. I even went as far as to go to Panera, who has Internet connection to make sure it wasn’t on our end.The game worked fine.

On the fifth and final call they suggested I call the Geek Squad (approximately $139 for them to come to our home) to trouble shoot it and if it proves the modem is bad they will send me a new unit at that time (which I only paid $79 to begin with). If I had known their customer service was in Asia and this is the kind of run around we were going to get I would have never purchased it ,no matter how good the price was.

Whatever happened to companies standing behind the products that they sell and good customer service or even a local service center to go to? They actually told me, “Well we are in Asia, what do you want me to do?”

There must be some kind of escalated technical support or customer service on this side of the planet that can help. Use an executive e-mail carpet bomb or customer service ninja tactics to find them and avenge your failing modem/router. And if any readers have experience with higher forms of life at Netgear, please share.

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