JB Say What?

I am normally not one to complain. Ok, that’s a lie. But I generally keep my complaints to myself. I lied again. Let’s start over. I’m not normally someone who shares stories of horrible customer service with the world at large. I would rather just keep things between the complaintee (me) and the complainter (company, service provider, evil clown, etc.). I have been engaged, however, in a saga that is just so mindbogglingly bad, that I thought it was worth sharing. And if it serves as a warning to readers to avoid the company in question like the plague, then so much the better.

For Valentine’s Day this year, I decided to get my darling wife what every woman who walks 1.5 miles to work each day so desperately yearns for: A new pair of earbuds for her iPod. Yes, I know that it must be touching for you to see that after 28 years of marriage, the flame of romance burns undiminished. In any event, I searched the interweb looking at reviews and the like, and decided on getting Z.buds from ZAGG Inc (and no, I didn’t forget to link to them). The reviews were generally positive, and they were touted as providing good sound for the price. Moreover, they came with cords in either red or black, and so by choosing red for my wife, I can maintain the illusion that this is indeed an appropriate gift for Valentine’s Day. The ZAGG people were offering some kind of special, and so I ordered a pair of black ones for myself.

We took delivery of these earbuds about a week or so later. The red ones seems to work fine. The black pair, on the other hand, had a manufacturing defect, and so on February 27, I wrote to the company the following email.

The black Z.bud’s plastic cover of the plug is not affixed properly. Removing the plug from the iPhone by grabbing onto the plastic cover lifts off the cover, leaving the plug still attached to the iPhone. The only way to remove the plug is to pull by the cord. This happened right out of the box. I would either like a replacement or a refund. Thanks.

On March 2, I got the following email back.

Thank you for contacting ZAGG, where we are Zealous About Great Gadgets! My name is Jenn and I appreciate the opportunity to assist you.

I’m sorry to hear that your Z.buds are not coming out of your iPhone properly and the covering comes off. This is not how we wanted you to experience our award winning Z.buds and we would like to help you get a replacement pair.

Before we can send you a trade-in for your Z.buds (Black) you will need to return it to the following address:

ZAGG Inc.
Trade-In: IC786297
3855 S. 500 W. Suite B
Salt Lake City, UT 84115
USA

Please send your Z.buds (Black) to us in a padded envelope or box. We recommend sending it via a traceable method as we are not liable for anything lost in the mail.

After receiving your Z.buds (Black), we will run a diagnostic to determine the reason for the malfunction and either repair or replace it.

Thank you for choosing ZAGG. We appreciate your business!

All the best,
Jennifer S.

I didn’t like the idea that I had to pay for shipping the thing back, and so I wrote back on March 4:

Am I to understand that I am required to return the Z buds on my own dime? This does not seem quite right to me. The product was defective out of the box (the second pair that ordered were fine). It seems to me that a company that prides itself on customer service would at the very least provide reimbursement for returning a faulty product.

Please advise as to how best to proceed.

Best,

Glenn

To which I got the following reply on March 6:

Hello Glenn,

Thank you for contacting ZAGG, where we are Zealous About Great Gadgets! My name is Alicia and I appreciate the opportunity to assist you.

I am sorry that you are having a problem with your Z.buds (Black). If you would like a replacement for the Z.buds (Black) that you purchased, order # IC786297, we would be happy to provide you with one. Before we can send you a replacement you will need to return the defective Z.buds (Black). These need to be postmarked within 45 days of your original purchase date of February 13, 2009.

We recommend you send your return back to us via a traceable method as we are not liable for anything lost in the mail. We will reimburse up to $5.00 for the shipping back to us.

Please send your Z.buds (Black) to the following address in a padded envelope or box with all of the accessories:

ZAGG Inc.
Replacement: Order# IC786297
3855 S. 500 W. Suite B
Salt Lake City, UT 84115

Along with your return, please include your order number.

Once it arrives back to our office, and we are able to determine that the Z.buds (Black) are defective, we will be happy to send a replacement to you at that time.

Thank you for choosing ZAGG. We appreciate your business!

All the best,
Alicia C

I will confess that I initially missed the one change in this boilerplate message offering to reimburse me up to $5.00. Once I got that straightened out, I sent the buds back soon thereafter, They received them on March 12, when they let me know with the following email.

Thank you for your replacement request. Your replacement order has been processed and should ship from our facility withing 2-5 business days. Once your order has left our facility you will receive a shipping confirmation email.

As a reminder, after receiving your replacement, please send your original invisibleSHIELD back to us with your order or registration number. Please note that we only require the original invisibleSHIELD be returned in a regular mailing envelope to keep your lifetime warranty valid. We do not require any of the packaging to be returned.
Our mailing address is:

ZAGG Inc.
3855 S. 500 W. Suite B
Salt Lake City, UT 84115
USA

Thank you for choosing to continue using the invisibleSHIELD as a protection for your device! Please feel free to contact us for any further assistance.

Thank you for choosing the invisibleSHIELD by ZAGG, Inc. We appreciate your business!

All the best,
The ZAGG Team

Which is odd, because I didn’t send back an invisibleSHIELD. But no matter, I just assumed (correctly, as it turned out) that they just hit the wrong auto-generated message script. 10 days later, I got a message indicating that the replacement had shipped and that I was going to be reimbursed. Huzzah.

I got the replacement earlier this week, unpacked it, and immediately tested to see if the plastic covering over the plug had be repaired. Not only hadn’t it been repaired, but it was actually looser than it was when I sent it back.

I sent the following email this morning.

I received the replacement for the Z.buds that I had returned. Sad to say, this pair had the exact same defect as the previous one, namely the plastic casing over the plug is not affixed properly. This suggests to me either 1) I was sent the same earphones back without repairing them, or 2) you have a severe quality control problem, or 3) I’m just “lucky”.

In any event, dealing with your “customer service” has been a less than wonderful experience. I will 1) fix these earphones myself , 2) will never buy another product from this company again, and 3) be happy to share my experiences with anyone who asks.

Hence, this blog.

And for what it’s worth, the sound quality is “meh.”

[Update: The red earbuds that I gave my wife crapped out 2 weeks ago]

Posted by Glenn on Tuesday, March 24th, 2009 at 10:42 am.