Over the weekend, a disgruntled customer was taught a lesson in civility after the owner of an IoT company disabled client's product after a post on the vendor's forum and a negative Amazon review.
The IoT vendor is a company named Garadget, which sells a device that can be mounted on garages and will allow customers to double-check if they left their garage door opened via a smartphone app and open or close it while away from their house, via the Internet.
The whole debacle happened Saturday late evening, when a customer going only by the name of R. Martin went on Garadget's discussion board and left a rather rash complaint.
Just installed and attempting to register a door when the app started doing this. Have uninstalled and reinstalled iphone app, powered phone off/on - wondering what kind of piece of shit I just purchased here...
Almost immediately, without even explaining what "the app started doing" and without giving the IoT vendor a chance to respond, considering it was late Saturday night on a weekend, the customer went on Amazon and left a one-star review with some pretty harsh words.
Junk - DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY - iPhone app is a piece of junk, crashes constantly, start-up company that obviously has not performed proper quality assurance tests on their products.
The following Sunday morning, Garadget's owner wasn't at all pleased with the bashing of his product in a matter of minutes, without having a chance of fixing the customer's problem. His decision was swift and to the point:
Martin,
The abusive language here and in your negative Amazon review, submitted minutes after experiencing a technical difficulty, only demonstrates your poor impulse control. I'm happy to provide the technical support to the customers on my Saturday night but I'm not going to tolerate any tantrums.
At this time your only option is return Garadget to Amazon for refund. Your unit ID 2f0036... will be denied server connection.
Hours after the whole debacle, this short forum exchange was everywhere online, on Reddit, Twitter, Hacker News, and so on. Most people were bashing Garadget for having the nerve to brick a customer's product. Even Elon Musk took notice:
Must be a slow news day if denying service to a super rude customer gets this much attention
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 3, 2016
Responding to all of his accusers, Garadget's owner, a man called Denis Grisak, restored the customer's access and posted the following three messages on his forum, explaining why he took the action he took.
Technically there is no bricking though.
No changes are made to the hardware or the firmware of the device, just denied use of company servers.
Ok, calm down everybody. Save your pitchforks and torches for your elected representatives. This only lacks the death threats now.
The firing of the customer was never about the Amazon review, just wanted to distance from the toxic individual ASAP. Admittedly not a slickest PR move on my part. Access restored, note taken.
A quote from a random guy.
PS: Anybody has Streisand's phone number?
I thought I made it clear I'm not planning on repeating my Apr 1st stunt.
Yes, it was about badmouthing the product that I spent nearly 2 years working on, in the community that I'm trying to foster before giving me any chance at resolving the situation.
So? what are your thoughts on the vendor's response? Was he right to boot the customer off his service?
Image credits: Garadget
Comments
LordWabbit - 7 years ago
No, he was not right to deny a customer (regardless of how rude he was) access to a service he had paid for, and effectively bricking his device.
xrobwx - 7 years ago
He did not brick the unit. I applaud his actions. i'll say this, in a customer service situation, you give me a modicum of respect and I'll jump through fiery hoops for you to get you satisfied and happy. You attack me and start out being an asshole, you will get the base "help". You get more flies with honey and this adage goes both ways.
intique - 7 years ago
If I overspend on my bank card and don't top up the account by month end, the bank sends me a letter (which they make me pay for). If I ignore the letter, they deactivate the card to force me to contact them. This is standard practice in banking, and makes perfect sense in any situation where the best way to solve a customer's problem is for the customer to contact the vendor.
So he was absolutely right. He should make it policy. But he should be discreet about it.
Warthog-Fan - 7 years ago
I can understand Mr. Grisak's anger and frustration with this customer and his rude and insulting reviews. However, the person who keeps their cool and leaves emotions aside and just addresses the issues will be perceived as the better of the two parties involved.
Maybe the customer didn't know what he was doing and had set up everything wrong. Mr. Grisak should have tried to solve his problem and just let the customer make a fool of himself by acting like a jerk.
DrkKnight - 7 years ago
Being a consumer myself who has made my fair share of purchases on Amazon, most have been pleasant but then there have been others that are down right garbage and after leaving negative feedback for some of the "junk" dealers, a lot of them have the nerve to loose their minds when you do, but honestly, if your going to take my money you had better be sending me EXACTLY what you are advertising and it BETTER work.
So yes I understand the consumers frustration here, when one lays down their hard earned cash for something, in this case a gadget that lets you check to see if you left your garage door opened, you expect it to work and work correctly out of the box. There are far too many startups that are racing to put out the next best , neatest gadgets and do not do their due diligence, especially when it comes to testing, they are all looking to become the next "shoe lace millionaire". I would have left negative feedback also, only mine would not have been as nicely worded.
I bought a necklace for my wife off Amazon, the thing looked beautiful in the picture all engraved and such, when I got it, it was the dinkiest piece of crap I had ever saw and the engraving was so small you could not even read it, I was so embarrassed when opening it I could not even give it to her. I immediately got onto Amazon and drove the seller into the dirt, I got my refund, they got their piece of crap back in pieces.
There is something to be said about truth in advertising on Amazon, obviously they don't moderate it as anyone can say and sell anything they want on there.
Ryan87 - 7 years ago
I'm mixed on this, if the customer paid for the service they should have access to it, but at the same time he considered the product garbage and from the sounds of it wasn't going to complete setting it up anyway so weather the service was rejected or not the product most likely wasn't being used so it had no real impact on the customer.
Also the only thing the customer said that didn't work was the app, which in most cases if you look at the reviews of the app ect if other other people arent having issues then the problem probably isn't with the app it's probably with the phone in which case it's outside of the vendors hands. So the snarky remarks and poor attitude toward the vendor are uncalled for.
FilledWithHate - 7 years ago
No, Grisak was not right to respond the way he did. He's also a complete hypocrite.
The customer used the word "shit" to describe the product, and accused them of not doing QA. That was, in essence, the extent of his offense. Note also that those comments were not directed at any individual.
And for that, the owner ridiculed him, as a person, directly and publicly. He mocked his supposed "lack of impulse control", called him "toxic", and referred to his behavior as a "tantrum". And yet ironically, Grisak then had his own impulsive tantrum in the form of blocking the customer.
I do not have insight into the customer's experience, really, but I absolutely understand how frustrating modern technology can be. You have a PC that has all sorts of issues. You have phones with all sorts of issues. And it's true; QA is rarely done right. It can be incredibly frustrating.
For those who think the customer is somehow at fault for the iPhone app's crashing, you clearly don't know anything about development. It should be bloody near impossible for a customer to make an app crash. And release notes for a recent version of the Garadget iOS app say that it "Fixed a crash".
JesseBropez - 7 years ago
Legen....wait for it...DAIRY!
CaveStoryKing64 - 7 years ago
I fully agree with 'FilledWithHate' user's comment. A user leaves a one star review (1 star is an option for a reason), and Grisak throws a tantrum and bricks a customers device that he payed for. That's considered censorship. Also, go to the product's amazon page. It is filled with one star reviews saying the product does not work. I think we should add some to the mix. Not even for it being a shitty product, really, but for treating someone like this.
Richard_Stallman - 7 years ago
The problem with this product is that it is designed to give the
company power over the users. The product works only in conjunction
with a specific server. Even worse, that server knows who the user
is, which means it snoops on people. These malicious functionalities
made it possible for the company to retaliate against an individual.
If the device had been designed ethically, it would connect directly
to the users' devices, would not use any server (except optionally the
owner's own), and would not send any personal information outside the
home. Especially not the person's name.
In addition, its software would be freedom-respecting, so that users
could make modified versions that they like better, and users (even
non-technical users) could install the versions they prefer. (See
https://gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-even-more-important.html.)
Looking at this incident narrowly, you might think that justice has
triumphed. After all, public opinion has compelled the company to
restore service to that user. Bravo.
But the underlying wrong in the design is unchanged. The device is
still tethered to a specific server which collects data about the
user. See https://gnu.org/proprietary/proprietary-tethering.html.
It ought to be a crime to make such products. Let's make it so!