[ratinox]

Originally Posted by MGlitch

Except a larger company has more employees to do the same thing. But yes do ignore that, I'm sure Kobo has the same number of employees as Amazon in every department.

Except the whole customs thing, which is out of Kobos control entirely. And again the CS reps you speak to have only so much power.

Okay, you asked for it:

I am finishing up a terrible Customer "Care" experience with Kobo and I figured I would write this up as an example of a worst case scenario should anyone ever need to RMA a Kobo device.

I ordered a Kobo Forma 32GB on 8 August 2019.

Within a few days of receipt I discovered it was defective. It would freeze up for no apparent reason and require a hard power off/on to get it working again. No rhyme or reason and neither my Aura HD nor Aura One behave this way, and I found no reports of similar behavior on recent firmware, so this was clearly atypical. After several attempts at self trouble shooting I contacted Kobo Customer Care.

The first person I dealt with there had me try several hard resets and when they did not resolve the problem agreed to RMA the device. I made a point of identifying the Kobo Forma 32GB as the model being replaced. This was 18 August.

On 29 August I received a Kobo Forma 8GB.

I immediately opened a new case with Kobo explaining what happened. The second person I dealt with got the data entry right: RMA Kobo Forma, ship Kobo Forma 32GB. This was 29 August.

On 4 September I called Kobo. I still had not received shipping labels and a number of emails to Kobo requesting status updates were ignored. I was given an excuse about a "system error" but I did finally receive the new shipping labels late on 4 September and shipped the device the next day. Device was delivered to Kobo 9 September.

On 11 September in the morning (about 9:30am Eastern time) I called Kobo again. The return was stuck at "Return Received" and my emails requesting status updates were again ignored. At this point I was very specific with the support advisor: overnight ship it today (Wednesday, 11 Sep) so I would have it by Thursday or I would request a refund.

On 12 September (today) in the morning (about 8:30am) I called Kobo yet again because there was no update on the processing. I immediately escalated to a manager and reiterated what I had reported to the support advisor yesterday. He said he would look into it. I spoke again with this manager again at around 3:30pm. He told me that the warehouse was aware and would ship "today or tomorrow". I informed him that was not good enough. I looked up UPS options: Toronto to my residence has 8:30am delivery. I informed him of this and reiterated a modified requirement: deliver it by 8:30am Friday or give me my money back.

Early 13 September Kobo confirmed shipping... via UPS Ground with an estimated delivery date of Tuesday, 17 September.

Written request for a refund has been made.

Requests for confirmation of receipt made morning of 13 September (incorrect From address used by mistake) and afternoon of 13 September (correct From address). Second request included the following:

Please confirm receipt of my refund request.

If I do not receive written confirmation from you by the end of business on Monday, 16 September, 2019, I will ask my credit card company to initiate a chargeback.

Late 14 September I received acknowledgement of my refund request along with the initial processing for the refund. Uncertain at this time if things will go properly since the 13 September shipment will not be received by me but returned directly to sender.

16 September first USP delivery fails. UPS instructed to return package to sender.

16 September I received a followup from Kobo because they had not heard from me and "we want to make sure that all issues are fully resolved." Probably an automated message. I replied that no, all issues were not fully resolved, that shipping was in progress, that I had not received a third return label but did not need one because second unit was already being returned to sender.

16 September I received an apology for not receiving the third return label. Someone or several someones at Kobo are clearly not reading or not comprehending.

19 September, 10:19AM Eastern time UPS delivers returned package to Kobo. Request made for Kobo to acknowledge receipt and initiate refund process. 10:40AM Kobo support notified of return, first request for acknowledgement and refund processing made.

20 September, 9:00AM Eastern time made second request for acknowledgement and return. Response from Kobo at approximately 10:00AM indicated that they see the return in tracking and will issue the refund once the warehouse confirms device processing.

23 September, 10:30AM Eastern PayPal confirmed refund from Kobo (US) Inc.

None of this is related to the number of employees Kobo has in the customer "care" section unless they are so severely understaffed that they can't support their customer base and if this is the case it's all the more reason to avoid Kobo.