Have a 20X that’s been occasionally rebooting itself, support want me to RMA the device, but have given me an return address in Hong Kong.
Does anyone know the cost of shipping from UK > Hong Kong and also what customs forms I’d presumably need?
Also does this effectively mean I’ll be without a Balance for however long that takes?
I’m not convinced it’s a hardware fault to be honest, it was rebooting fairly frequently previously until I disabled PMTU discovery on a SIT tunnel and it’s currently had 15d of uptime (The reboot 15d ago wasn’t initiated by me as far as I can remember)
Support have arranged for one of their partners to handle the RMA, interestingly not the one I purchased from but I presume it’s something to do with it being a Primecare part and peplink handling the case directly.
The partner I purchased from did at least respond to my email but it looks like this has happened in the meantime (or the partner did some prodding from their side)
I’d have liked some more detail as to what support saw that made them come to the conclusion it’s a hardware problem but I doubt i’ll get that so I’ll go ahead with the RMA and see if it does indeed solve it.
The partner who sold it did agree in the end to take the RMA, however now Peplink are saying since they do not have the unit yet they’re not sending out a replacement, so i’ve gone from having a balance that occasionally rebooted (as in it had weeks of uptime) to not having a balance and being given the run around.
Given the current experience of getting the unit replaced I really cannot recommend peplink at all, they seem to think it’s reasonable to request the customer ship a unit half way round the world, provide no help with the logistics of doing so and then be largely dis-interested in providing a workable alternative.
To be clear the quote I got for shipping to HK was around £150 although that was just a quick quote on a couriers website, the quote I got for shipping to the distributor was more reasonable but due to Brexit I was unclear on if I’d need any customs paperwork to ship it, I go No help from either peplink or the distributor on that matter.
I’m not someone who needs to ship things abroad so I have no idea what’s required so I don’t think it unreasonable to ask the distributor or peplink who must be doing it on a fairly regular basis for help with the required paperwork, at no point did I ever ask them to pay for shipping just for help with the paperwork.
All I want is a working Balance 20x to replace the one that support requested me to return, I don’t think that’s too much to ask.
I’ve also suggested in the ticket Peplink overhaul the RMA process for primecare devices.
Something is broken in that process there for sure. Thanks for taking the time to highlight the issue.
I’m sure Peplink will investigate what happened here and look at ways to improve things.
Hopefully some light at the end of the tunnel, Support are currently looking at if they can do anything to speed up the RMA process and the partner I purchased from has offered to loan me a b20 (don’t have a 20x available at the moment).
It looks like my 20x is somewhere in transit between the partner and peplink at the moment, I’ll wait for an update from support before confirming with the partner regarding the loan device (I Have a tik doing balancing at the moment so it’s not super critical but I’d like to get my SF bonding back)
I received the same Hong Kong shipping “answer” almost four years later when a MAX BR1 Pro 5G owned by my employer failed. The device has a valid Prime Care warranty, the cellular modem appears to have failed, and Peplink support via support ticket has been unable to find a US based authorized retailer to process the RMA.
If any US based authorized retailers read this post and can support an RMA request, please let me know.
I am working with my employer’s purchasing department to determine what partner sold the device. It was purchased before I joined the company. I have also asked Peplink support for assistance tracking down the partner. Peplink support requested a well known partner to assist with the RMA. The well known partner declined the RMA as they had not sold the device.
I personally own a B One, SD Switch, and seven APO -AXs mostly purchased on Amazon. When I had an issue with the B One purchased from Amazon, Peplink issued an RMA to ship the device to a partner in Moorhead, Minnesota. The replacement device came from Hong Kong, but I did not have to pay international shipping and taxes in this case.
While we have helped many owners of Peplink equipment where the purchase was not made through us, one must understand the position of the Partner you contacted vis-a-vis support issues. Many owners of Peplink products deal directly with Peplink through faceless retailers such as Amazon. It’s easy to understand why. When I checked a few days ago I found Peplink was selling – through Amazon – several models of routers for significantly less than our cost (and, I mean SIGNIFICANTLY), dramatically “undercutting” their Partners and effectively cutting the latter out of the process. So, it has been increasingly difficult to support owners who go this route.
I know quite a number of the Partners who participate in the Forum here, either personally or by reputation, and I’ll say that without exception they are competent and support their customers extremely well. Indeed, some are extraordinary. So, as a customer you have a choice: You can go for what appears to be the best price or you can place a value on support and relationship. In the former case, yes, you may be returning a defective product (rare, but it happens) to China or elsewhere. In the latter case you should expect excellent assistance from the Partner, as @MartinLangmaid has suggested.
If you have not done so you may wish to submit a ticket here to get the RMA process started.
As we used to say where I grew up … “you pays your money and you takes your chances.” ;<)
Thanks for the response. I assumed something was not quite right about the partner relationships with Peplink when the well known partner refused Peplink’s request to support my RMA. I am sorry to hear that Peplink is undercutting their partners; that’s not cool.
Question 1: Will renewing the existing company device PrimeCare plans with an authorized partner in the future allow the company to work with the reseller for future RMA requests?
Question 2: For the device that is owned by my employer (not my personal devices from Amazon) with an active PrimeCare plan, is there a way to lookup which reseller sold the device? I have an open ticket and have requested which reseller sold the device from Peplink directly but have not yet received a response. I am also searching internally within the company to locate purchase records but the receipts were most likely deleted when my predecessor’s network account was deleted. All I can find are the most recent PrimeCare renewals receipts.
The ticket approach is the way I would go also. You may wish to post the ticket number here to give it a “bump.” The response to tickets has slowed greatly over the last couple of years-- I think as the volume has increased.
I’m about to get on a plane for a several hour trip but I’ll send you a PM with more info.
Short update on eventual resolution of this issue:
When the well known reseller refused to process the RMA, Peplink offered an RMA directly through Peplink via international shipping to Hong Kong. After I requested assistance locating the original reseller in the US to avoid international shipping, Peplink offered and an RMA to a different US based reseller. Peplink also upgraded the PrimeCare RMA to an Advanced Hardware Replacement (AHR), which is a PrimeCare+ service and appreciated.
I contacted the well known reseller again, and luckily, spoke with a more knowledgeable employee who was able to track down the 22 HD4 MBXs and handful of BR1s that my employer had purchased. My employer had dispositioned (deleted/destroyed) the purchase records due to records retention periods having expired and employee turn over (our mistake). With the purchase records located, the reseller employee searched using a number of methods to track down this specific device, as it had been RMA’ed previously and the new serial number was NOT associated with previous orders. Lack of new serial number associated appears to be a significant contributing factor of this issue (in addition to loss of purchase records). The reseller apologized for the confusion and assured me that there would be no support issues in the future now that we have the purchase/RMA information.
Thank you everyone for your assistance and responses.
