[urbanriot]

So I buy a Blackberry Playbook since there's Boxing day deals here in Canada and right out of the box I have issues where certain things aren't working properly. They sent me an email that I can get free support for 90 days... great!

Unfortunately my first call was met with disaster and the foreign support experience was rage-inducing to the point where I wanted to smash this ******* unit against the wall and tell every single person I know that RIM sells the worst garbage **** I've ever used in my life. I don't believe that because I own and love my Bold 9900 but a bad support experience that wastes your time with low quality support representatives makes you agitated enough to immediately want to do such things.

I called and relayed that the mail app consistently crashes after deleting a few emails, maybe 5 at a time. I was told this is because I have too many emails... and that's that. Well, I'm guessing there's about 30 or so emails in the program since I've only just set it up so if that's the case, the unit is insufficiently capable of reading email.

The second issue was relating to Blackberry Bridge and an inability to read my text messages due to "Text Messages was disabled by IT policy". I relayed a great deal of the steps I'd run through, such as resynching the bridge, ensuring I had the latest bridging software, pulling the battery and fully shutting down the Playbook, etc., however he said he can't help me because this is a BES issue and he needs to transfer me to that department. I told him it's not a BES issue since this is a BIS phone but he said he has no way to tell that my phone is BIS or BES and this is a BES issue. Mother****er.

He then proceeded to transfer me to another choose-your-option phone area for Research in Motion phone support that costs money to obtain...

I was angry to the point where I'm ready to tear a strip into whoever answers and instead of receiving a person, I received a screeching sound that was painful to my areas and I may have heard a 'hello' in between that and then it hung up.

So, in summary, I'm having a bad day because of this Playbook and I'm wondering if there's a way to speak with anyone that works in North American support before I take it back?

[urbanriot]

AhHhh, I breathed a heavy sigh, called back again and was told that there's no way to speak to anyone in North America; however the recent phone rep was skilled enough to support the product, told me he could find out if my phone was BIS or BES (it was BIS as I told the last technician), confirmed it was BIS, and is working with me on the problem and also asked me to send logs concerning the email crash.

We found a few other issues I wasn't aware of as well, since I hadn't had the unit long enough to discover them. Apparently I'm missing the Blackberry Bridge application from the desktop, which is strange since I can access aspects of the bridge connection and it displays when someone calls, I can use remote control from the phone, etc.

[dbmalloy]

Hey... Try getting tech support with Dell

[urbanriot]

I know.. I know... but you'd like to think that despite the fact that they outsource their tech support, a company as smart as RIM would ensure they were at least competent. Now's a time when RIM needs to save face in the American market, not agitate new users. I hear you though, this is the future of tech support, you win some you lose some. This round 3 call is going well so far... at least this technician is working with me...

[BB_Bmore]

I've had nothing but great service from them and I live in the U. S they rma me within 5 days and my PlayBook was fixed. They also extended the warranty on my older PlayBook. Best customer service I ever had.

[Broxster]

Its holiday time.....i doubt they would have full staff working.

[urbanriot]

In the event anyone googles "Text Messages was disabled by IT policy" and this is a hit, I figure I'll post what my resolution was in the event it aids anyone else. Somehow my phone has imported an IT policy, despite never connecting to a BES server, so the rep told me to run loader.exe /resettofactory and then restore my backup but de-select the Policies item. After doing so, Blackberry Bridge is now working correctly. Yayyy

[dave_h_946]

I am glad you have finally resolved your issue. It appears that it was a problem with your BB rather than your PB?
Anyway, it seems that everything went fine and it didn't spoiled your holidays too much.

I have never used RIM's support before but the majority of the posts appear to suggest excellent service.

Enjoy your PB

[Lehomer]

This is news to me , last year when I called tech support told me they were in Canada.Maybe they have changed that ?
I would like to add that the tech support was excellent !

[thecsman]

B#tch is hard to please. lol

[FF22]

I know.. I know... but you'd like to think that despite the fact that they outsource their tech support, a company as smart as RIM would ensure they were at least competent. Now's a time when RIM needs to save face in the American market, not agitate new users. I hear you though, this is the future of tech support, you win some you lose some. This round 3 call is going well so far... at least this technician is working with me...

Funny story and my friend thought so too. He's from India, retired with an American Doctorate in Economics and has a slight accent. At Christmas a few of us were talking about support calls and outsourcing and I turned to him and suggested he could come out of retirement and earn some spening money and do Tech Support but ply the accent a bit more. We all laughed quite a lot!

[SlcCorrado]

So I buy a Blackberry Playbook since there's Boxing day deals here in Canada and right out of the box I have issues where certain things aren't working properly. They sent me an email that I can get free support for 90 days... great!

Unfortunately my first call was met with disaster and the foreign support experience was rage-inducing to the point where I wanted to smash this ******* unit against the wall and tell every single person I know that RIM sells the worst garbage **** I've ever used in my life. I don't believe that because I own and love my Bold 9900 but a bad support experience that wastes your time with low quality support representatives makes you agitated enough to immediately want to do such things.

I called and relayed that the mail app consistently crashes after deleting a few emails, maybe 5 at a time. I was told this is because I have too many emails... and that's that. Well, I'm guessing there's about 30 or so emails in the program since I've only just set it up so if that's the case, the unit is insufficiently capable of reading email.

The second issue was relating to Blackberry Bridge and an inability to read my text messages due to "Text Messages was disabled by IT policy". I relayed a great deal of the steps I'd run through, such as resynching the bridge, ensuring I had the latest bridging software, pulling the battery and fully shutting down the Playbook, etc., however he said he can't help me because this is a BES issue and he needs to transfer me to that department. I told him it's not a BES issue since this is a BIS phone but he said he has no way to tell that my phone is BIS or BES and this is a BES issue. Mother****er.

He then proceeded to transfer me to another choose-your-option phone area for Research in Motion phone support that costs money to obtain...

I was angry to the point where I'm ready to tear a strip into whoever answers and instead of receiving a person, I received a screeching sound that was painful to my areas and I may have heard a 'hello' in between that and then it hung up.

So, in summary, I'm having a bad day because of this Playbook and I'm wondering if there's a way to speak with anyone that works in North American support before I take it back?

Your post is ridiculous. We all want our software to work properly, but we certainly don't call tech support as if they are going to push us our very own update where everything works just perfectly. You seem to be reasonably intelligent, so I am going to assume that you researched the product before you bought it. Knowing what you were getting into, essentially a beta product, did you really believe everything was going to work perfectly? BB10 is right around the corner, but instead you come on the most popular BlackBerry fan site and spew vile words about the product. If that's not trolling, I don't know what is...

[urbanriot]

This is news to me , last year when I called tech support told me they were in Canada.Maybe they have changed that ?

Tech support is in Costa Rica.

[urbanriot]

Your post is ridiculous.

And yours is juvenile, I already laid out why I was frustrated and I followed up with a calming post so you can equally relax.

We all want our software to work properly, but we certainly don't call tech support as if they are going to push us our very own update where everything works just perfectly.

No, most people simply return their products when they don't work as advertised.

You seem to be reasonably intelligent, so I am going to assume that you researched the product before you bought it. Knowing what you were getting into, essentially a beta product, did you really believe everything was going to work perfectly?

I had no idea the Blackberry Playbook was a beta product, I treated it with the same respect that I treat Apple's iPad and Android tablets. If you're suggesting I was in error and the Playbook is still in beta stages a year and a half later then it seems I was in error.

BB10 is right around the corner, but instead you come on the most popular BlackBerry fan site and spew vile words about the product. If that's not trolling, I don't know what is...

Talk about trolling. That and I have no idea what referencing BB10 has to do with anything. In any case, I already laid out why I was frustrated and it was due to a tech support experience that was lower than any company would want to knowingly provide.

In any case, you can unbunch your panties I already followed up with a level headed response. Perhaps you've never had a terrible support experience but when these situations occur, they can stress you to an irrational point which prompted my post here. It wasn't trolling, it was venting.

[urbanriot]

It appears that it was a problem with your BB rather than your PB?

Well there was never a problem with its functionality so it's hard to say. My phone was never tied to a BES account, it was verified by them to be a BIS provisioned device ID (amazing how much they can tell you about your phone based on the ID!), and I only have a small handful of apps (free RIM ones), so I can't state what caused it to have this policy. From day 1 it seems my phone functioned in this manner and functioned just fine, synchronizing via Blackberry Desktop and Outlook.

When you have a phone that's never connected to a BES server yet has something in it that's preventing the bridging from working until its cleared, I don't know what you could reasonably blame.

I have never used RIM's support before but the majority of the posts appear to suggest excellent service.

The second gentleman redeemed the first by far, enough that I'd say his service was excellent. While he didn't know the product inside and out, he was capable of logical problem solving and referred to his superiors whenever necessary so as not to inhibit our progress. I think I just had a bad luck experience with my first support representative, that escalated my agitation to a level that was difficult to restore, especially since he didn't listen to me.

In any case I'm happily using my Playbook so thanks to those that listened to me vent. 1 bad RIM experience neutralized by 1 good RIM experience.

[Gray]

I think you might experience this with any company who have outsourced their help desk. No matter what the product. We need to bring support back home.

[Goint]

I think you might experience this with any company who have outsourced their help desk. No matter what the product. We need to bring support back home.

I agree but we have voted with our dollars and don't care about this issue enough to pay for it. Now everyone has to do it in order to compete.
Same goes for local manufacturing, we would prefer to buy a ton of low quality products as opposed to fewer quality ones.

[colinstone]

The first post reminds of a couple of lines from a poem:

"Dost think in a moment of anger
'Tis well with thy seniors to fight?
They prosper, who burn in the morning,
The letters they wrote overnight."

Makes for a much more peaceful life.

Sent from my BlackBerry� Curve 3G using Tapatalk

[urbanriot]

The words are true however I feel they were written before outsourced technical support

A bad support experience can send a person beyond the stratosphere of stress, enough to make one immediately engage in rash actions, bypassing any sort of decision making process as evidenced above!

We need to bring support back home.

I agree with this in the general sense of a domestic economy, reducing the frustration of users of a product, etc.. But I think at the very least some companies need internal audits to be a little more all-encompassing.

My first call involved a support representative that wouldn't even listen to me explain one of my problems before shuffling me off into another automated system while the second call lead to a support representative that was easy to understand, worked with me on resolving the issue, sent me an email with the case information, told me to send him the logs for one of my issues, and called me back when the system hung up on me (by pulling my number out of my device ID). One agent was great and the other was terrible, and that's not an issue exclusive to any area of the world.

I'm on day 2 with my Playbook and I'm very happy with its functionality outside of a minor delay in accessing bridge functions, which I believe to be inherent to the bridging itself.

[Spencerdl]

The one time I had to deal with RIM tech support because Sprint had no clue, was a satisfying experience. The RIM rep even exchanged BBM pin# to make sure the problem didn't resurface on my Bold 9650. He kept in touch for about a month before deleting my pin#. Now I do realize that was some time ago and things might have changed, but i haven't had any problems since

[Lehomer]

Well, it wasn't in Costa Rica last year. I asked the lady and she said she was in Canada.This was for playbook support at the time.

[cjcampbell]

They have call centres all over. They still have them in Waterloo. I know this because they are hiring to fill positions now. I was curious as to what kind of hiring they were doing in Waterloo since the mass layoff and noticed a couple of customer service positions.

[CairnsRock]

Well, it wasn't in Costa Rica last year. I asked the lady and she said she was in Canada.This was for playbook support at the time.

I,ve had both Canada and Costa Rica. Neither of my 2 issues were resolved, so I wasnt too chuffed. One was fixed by 1314, the other by perseverence.

The CB subscribers as a group are roughly in the top 5% tech savvy of BB users, so when they do call support their needs tend to be exotic in nature. RIM or any tech support can easily handle 95% of normal calls.

This group by definition will be much harder to please.

Relax, smile, pat the dog, hug your kids.

[DrBoomBotz]

Your post is ridiculous. We all want our software to work properly, but we certainly don't call tech support as if they are going to push us our very own update where everything works just perfectly. You seem to be reasonably intelligent, so I am going to assume that you researched the product before you bought it. Knowing what you were getting into, essentially a beta product, did you really believe everything was going to work perfectly? BB10 is right around the corner, but instead you come on the most popular BlackBerry fan site and spew vile words about the product. If that's not trolling, I don't know what is...

Your response is Vogon poetry.
The Playbook is not a beta product.
IMHO it is reasonable for the OP to expect the email app to delete messages without crashing.

[SlcCorrado]

Your response is Vogon poetry.
The Playbook is not a beta product.
IMHO it is reasonable for the OP to expect the email app to delete messages without crashing.

That hurts..

But in response to your "opinion," no, the playbook as a whole (hardware) is not beta. And surely the software wasn't intentionally beta. But it is. It's pretty straightforward