How To Ruin a Good Reputation

In the past I would’ve recommended Linksys (opens new window) products to anyone I know. This was based on my personal experiences using a Linksys WRT54G (opens new window) for my home broadband connection, as well as my bosses’ (opens new window) good experiences with his router of the same model. I’ve also successfully installed/setup a couple of Linksys devices for our clients and am highly impressed that Linksys support open source software (opens new window). I think ‘in the past’ is the operative phrase here as my recent experiences with Linksys and their WAG54G Version 2 (opens new window) product has forever scarred my impression of them. Apparently there are (opens new window) known (opens new window) issues (opens new window) with the WAG54G Version 2 but the company’s headquarters are based in America and as they don’t sell the device there they are ignoring the issues. When I contacted Linksys’ Asia Pacific support desk, which incidentally is located in the Phillipines, I was promised that I would be sent through the Beta firmware for the ADSL router via email but never received it. I ended up contacting the support desk on 6 separate occasions over 4 days this week and giving out 5 different email addresses but still didn’t receive the firmware upgrade. In the end I told the support staff that I wanted a refund of my money and was told to take it up with our supplier. We’re still processing this refund but in the meanwhile my client has no Internet connection (and hasn’t had one for over 2 weeks now!) and we’ve lost a lot of time and money. I think this is a real shame for Linksys as they are irrepairably damaging their reputation by treating their loyal customers in this way.