"Your call is important to us." Yeah, right. After an hour on hold, this looped message rings hollower than... something very very hollow. I got a BFG video card because of its lifetime warranty and reputation for great customer service. So far, I don't see that this reputation is warranted any longer.
My graphics card was working fine for the last 6 months but started acting up in the last couple of weeks. More than a half hour of gameplay led to my computer rebooting then letting me know that my "System failed VGA test". I ran a bunch of controlled experiments (patches for new game, running old games, updating drivers, updating bios) and nothing fixed the problem. I decided to start the RMA process and ordered another video card so that I wouldn't have any down time (this would also be the definitive test).
I sent an email to BFG tech support. I got an email about an hour later saying that my message was delayed. Ok. Later, I got an email saying the delivery failed. Hmm... Glitches happen. I sent another message and the same thing happened again. The return message indicated that BFG outsources its tech support (and that these guys aren't that good).
That night, I tried the phone number in hopes that maybe the email system is just going haywire for the day. I gave up on my first call after being on hold for 30 minutes. It was dinner time and I was getting a little frustrated. Later, I tried again determined to get someone on the line. After more than an hour listening to the hold music and messages, I finally got a person to talk to. We spent about 5 minutes together describing the issue and doing some simple diagnostics. After that, I got instructions for RMA'ing the card and she said they'd test it and either send it back or send a new one depending on the test results.
Once I got someone on the phone, everything was peachy. Getting in touch with someone was a big pain in the butt. BFG, if you want to keep that reputation, you need to either replace tims-support or whip them into shape. A la Colbert Report, BFG Technologies, you're on notice.
Posted by kstroke at January 16, 2006 05:20 PM