Friday, July 11, 2008

Iomega India: Pathetic Products, Bad Service

11 AM - Neoteric Engineer arrives to baby sit the copying process on Iomega 1Tb 150d. He goes in and out of our office throughout the day to kill boredom of copying files from one box to another.

4:37 PM - "Can't find mapped device"
On further interrogation, it is found that Iomega 150d decided to change its static IP address from 192.168.1.20 to 192.168.1.2 -- probably 150d got bored and wanted some fun! Started file transfer again. Neoteric Service Engineer disappeared long back.

7 PM - Copying is still going on. About 137 GB left -- I think it will take the whole night. Have lost more than 27 hours copying the data to another device. I wonder if it is going to take the same amount of time to put the information back on it -- just for a forced and silly firmware update!

Lessons from the story: 
a. Never buy or recommend any Iomega products to friends and foes. Just for a silly firmware update (which you are forced to perform) you will loose all your life's hard work. 
b. People in Iomega India don't care unless their asses' frying on burning charcoal.
c. If you want to update any firmware, please understand that the device will loose the most vital information -- especially Iomega's designed devices. I will never buy an Iomega home toaster if they make it! I like to keep my toasts on setting 2 -- always!

Previous Iomega Posts:

5 comments:

Satyajit said...

there are 6 stages of frustration while dealing with service provides
1) criticism
2) mild heartburn
3) request/coxing stage
4) blog wars
5) violence
6) acceptance

what stage are you at?

as discussed u can write a book on "how to deal with assholes"

Geeta Bose said...

If I were you Mr Iomega, I’d do the following to win back my clients and make new ones too:
- Acknowledge that I’ve a bad product apologize for the bad service.
- Assure them that Iomega knows about these and has rectified the problems.
- Withdraw this model from the market completely. For all those who have this model, replace with the “good” new product.
- Encourage constant feedback and provide support to all the users of the new product.
Historically, all companies committed to their customers have done this in the past. Nokia offered to replace all its faulty cell phone batteries (mind you there were just 10-15 faulty cases reported around the world!) from the market. Similarly, Sony replaced all the laptop models globally that they received complains about. And not to forget our very own Tata Motors, who withdrew Indica from the market and offered replacements of the faulty parts. Although the problem was not evident upfront but they offered replacements at their own costs. And, today all these companies have great brand loyalty.

For companies committed to “quality” and “customer delight” this is not a new thought. So, Mr Iomega, you still have a chance to redeem yourself!

Harshad Bastikar, Mumbai said...

I am in the same 'hell-hole'.....
my iOmega external HDD just wont get recognised on the system. All my data, of past few years is lost. I have been trying to find some service support to recover my data, but am just eing shunted from one company to another. All that everybody seems to be saying is, why dont you buy another external HDD and get along with it !!@ !! Is it that simple ? What happens to all my dta and who is responsible for it ? Is iOmega not acountable for providing Data Recovery service for their "gone bad" product ?

Is this why we purchase iOmega products ?

Anonymous said...

Within 5 days of purchasing an eGo portable hard disk the paint has started coming off. I know I'm talking about a relatively insignificant issue with aesthetic issue but god knows what's coming up on 50 days time.

Naren said...

Very true. just had a worst customer service experience ever with these guys. Spread d word..never ever go for any goddamn iomega product in India or anywher in this world