I was persuaded to buy a netgear router by a Spark salesman in one of their shops when renewing my fibre account with them,a decision that led me into the descending 7 Rings of Hell.
instead of chain linking this $700 router to my cheap spark modem I said I would prefer to connected directly to the Spark fibre box on the wall and was assured this was completely feasible and achievable.
At this point the Netgear app is useless because it just recommends chain linking and doe
sn't offer any advice past that.
A call was booked for a Spark broadband team specialist to phone me and walk me through what I would consider a pretty simple setup.
But no! They didn't call but a record 14 calls later the device remains unconnected.
In the process of these 14 calls I ended up also speaking to 3 completely useless Netgear call centres in the Philippines and India (twice)
The simple process of just registering the device and showing me how to logon was beyond them all. One call centre guy in the Philippines told me that I had bought an unverified product because he couldn't find the code number for it from probably an unregistered dealer. He asked me how to spell Spark said couldn't find it!
It ended probably 6 hours later with the Netgear call centre operator in India telling me that the Spark shop should have set up this device for me when I purchased it (admittedly I was laughing in a maniacal hysterical way at this point).
Clearly Spark should not be selling a product that they have no idea how to install and Netgear's support in New Zealand is completely nonexistent.
I have never previously bought Netgear because I've been told the customer support is useless (no surprises there) the only way I would ever consider using it is if I was buying it through PB tech in New Zealand who seem to be there only people interested in giving any decent customer support.
Roll on e-SIM and 5G when these devices will be completely redundant and Netgear will join other useless hardware providers and disappear!
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