Posted in Commentary with tags Asus on May 13, 2024 by itnerd
As many of you know, I own a few ASUS products. Specifically, this gaming PC that I use for cycling indoors on Zwift. And this ZenWiFi XT8 mesh router that I’ve been using for a few years now. But today, I am going public with this statement.
Anyone who reads this blog should not buy ASUS products. Ever.
There’s a pair of reasons that drove me to make this statement. The first is their technical support. Which is abysmal. The second is that there’s an increasing pattern of ASUS not supporting their customers warranty claims by bullying them into paying for repairs that they don’t need.
Let’s start with their tech support. Or rather lack of it. I have had my own issues with their tech support as evidenced by this interaction with them where they couldn’t understand and help me with setting up a PPPoE connection that worked well. I ran around in circles with them for about two weeks before I got fed up with their incompetence. At the time, I said this:
What is worse is that all this troubleshooting was done via email which is the absolute worst way to provide tech support. Especially with complex issues like this. Getting onto a Zoom session or a phone call would have likely resulted in some sort of positive progress, and maybe even a solution. But they didn’t go that route and the net result of this rather negative experience is that it drove me to look at other options that avoided the use of PPPoE to get better performance from the XT8. It also made me decide that I won’t be recommending ASUS gear to my home and prosumer clients anymore. And chances are, my next router at home won’t be an ASUS product. While ASUS has great hardware, their support doesn’t meet the mark. Having competent tech support adds to the value of the gear that a vendor like ASUS makes. Or in this case, not having competent support detracts from the value of the gear that ASUS makes. So if the people at ASUS are reading this, they might want to look at this negative situation and make changes internally to make sure that they’re not on the wrong side of a public post like this as this sort of #Fail reflects poorly on ASUS as a brand. And will likely affect their future sales.
Since I wrote that, I’ve received dozens of emails from people that have had similar experiences with their tech support. That’s not a good look for ASUS because a company is only as good as the support they provide your customers. And if they provide bad support to their customers, those customers will get fed up and not be their customers any longer. And they will tell their friends, or someone like me who has the reach to tell a whole lot of people about how bad that ASUS tech support is. ASUS should consider that and change course before they have no customers to speak of.
That brings me to the second point. Which is ASUS not supporting their customers warranty claims by bullying them into paying for repairs that they don’t need. YouTube channel Gamers Nexus has investigated the bad behaviour of ASUS in the past. And their latest video details what looks like a systemic pattern of ASUS trying to extract cash from users who send in their hardware for warranty repairs by bullying them into paying for extra repairs that they don’t need. I would set aside 30 minutes to watch this video to get the full story:
The thing is, this isn’t the first time that ASUS has been caught doing something shady. If you do a search for “Gamers Nexus ASUS” on YouTube, you can see all the shady stuff that they have been caught doing. In addition, right to repair advocate and YouTuber Louis Rossmann has his own take on this:
If that’s not enough, there’s actually more. A Reddit thread surfaced in the last few days where ASUS quoted a Canadian customer a mind blowing $2799 USD to repair an RTX 4090 GPU that needed its 16-pin power connector replaced. The price is insane because the card had been purchased two week before this happened for $2050 USD. To say that the behaviour of ASUS is a bit suspect in this is an understatement.
On top of the fact that YouTuber JayzTwoCents dumped them as a sponsor to his channel because of their shady behaviour a while back. Here’s the video that details why he did that:
This is pretty bad for ASUS. When A YouTuber dumps you, you know you’re in a bad place.
Now in my case, I’ve been doing some dumping of ASUS products of my own. The PC that I mentioned earlier has been removed from service and replaced by this M2 Pro Mac mini. The PC in question is now sitting in my storage locker waiting to be sold. If you’re interested, I’ve got a fresh install of Windows 11 and it’s ready to go. Email me and we can take it from there. Now while I do have my issues with Apple, they support their customers and they don’t have a reputation for shady behaviour like ASUS does. Thus I will continue to buy products from Apple as they have largely demonstrated that they deserve my money.
Next up is my mesh router. While the XT8 mesh router has been generally reliable, the shady behaviour of ASUS combined with my negative tech support experience will mean that a mesh router from from another company will take its place when it’s time for me to go to WiFi 7. Right now the leading contender to replace the XT8 is Netgear who used to be suspect in terms of how they handled security issues, but have very much improved on that front after being called out on that front repeatedly. Though I have to admit that I’m looking at other companies as well, and I will base my decision on what I go with on the following criteria:
Security posture: In other words, how well they deal with security issues. Such as deploying patches and how fast they go public in terms of letting their customers know about severe issues that need immediate attention.
Performance: I want my router to give me top notch performance at all times because I want to maximize the speed of my Internet connection at all times.
Product Support: As I said earlier, a product is only as good as its support. So this is going to factor into what I get.
I’m hoping to do this switch this year. But one of the things that I am waiting on is WiFi 7 routers to appear in quantity so that I get a fair amount of choice before serving up my credit card to pay for it.
The only other thing that I’ve done is that I stopped recommending ASUS products to my home and prosumer customers. In fact, that happened about a year and a half ago when I had that negative experience with ASUS tech support. The reason I stopped recommending them is that when I recommend something, it has to be something that I would be willing to stake my reputation on. I can’t stake my reputation on recommending ASUS products. No way, no how.
Finally if you have had an issue with ASUS when it comes to the warranty repair of a product, report it as per the advice of Louis Rossmann and Gamers Nexus. In the US you can file a report using this link:
If I find a similar reporting vehicle for Canada, I will post it here. The point is that if enough people report the behaviour of this company to the feds, then ASUS will have a whole lot of explaining to do.
So in short, I am done with ASUS. Given the issues with ASUS that have been exposed by others, and the issues that I’ve personally experienced, the only conclusion that you should come to is that ASUS doesn’t deserve your money. And one of the best ways to drive that point home to ASUS other than to report their behaviour to the feds is to not buy their gear. After all, ASUS may not care about how consumers feel about them. But they sure will care about their bank account getting smaller and smaller as consumers don’t buy their products. Maybe then ASUS will change course and become a company that cares about consumers rather than appear to screw them over at every opportunity. Though I am not holding my breath on that front given how they have behaved up until now. But I suppose anything is possible.
Posted in Commentary with tags Tango on May 13, 2024 by itnerd
Tango, a leader in the global digital rewards and payouts space, today launched an important new product called Global Choice Link. This game-changing solution offers recipients their choice of digital gift cards and prepaid cards instantly—without the operational headaches of managing complex geographic and currency management issues.
This launch represents a considerable leap forward for Tango—and the industry at large—in ease of use and global capabilities. Until now, sending rewards globally could be challenging even for well-established providers as they struggled to find attractive rewards in emerging countries, worked to localize language, managed unstable supply chains, and dealt with currency conversions. Global Choice Link removes these hassles for our business customers. With Global Choice Link, you send one product to recipients wherever they happen to be on the globe, and they have immediate access to rewards that are relevant and impactful for them.
Upon receiving the Global Choice Link, the recipient selects their country and currency and chooses from a relevant list of rewards available in their local area. This is simply awesome for the recipient.
To learn more about Global Choice Link or request a demo, visit Tango’s website.
Reddit’s announced that they’ve appointed Jyoti Vaidee as their new VP of Ads Product. Jyoti was previously the Director of Product Management at Google where she spent 11 years leading ads products like Google’s Display Ads and monetization efforts. In this new role, Jyoti will drive ads product strategy, execution, and management of the Ads Product organization.
Do Not Buy ASUS Products… Ever
Posted in Commentary with tags Asus on May 13, 2024 by itnerdAs many of you know, I own a few ASUS products. Specifically, this gaming PC that I use for cycling indoors on Zwift. And this ZenWiFi XT8 mesh router that I’ve been using for a few years now. But today, I am going public with this statement.
Anyone who reads this blog should not buy ASUS products. Ever.
There’s a pair of reasons that drove me to make this statement. The first is their technical support. Which is abysmal. The second is that there’s an increasing pattern of ASUS not supporting their customers warranty claims by bullying them into paying for repairs that they don’t need.
Let’s start with their tech support. Or rather lack of it. I have had my own issues with their tech support as evidenced by this interaction with them where they couldn’t understand and help me with setting up a PPPoE connection that worked well. I ran around in circles with them for about two weeks before I got fed up with their incompetence. At the time, I said this:
What is worse is that all this troubleshooting was done via email which is the absolute worst way to provide tech support. Especially with complex issues like this. Getting onto a Zoom session or a phone call would have likely resulted in some sort of positive progress, and maybe even a solution. But they didn’t go that route and the net result of this rather negative experience is that it drove me to look at other options that avoided the use of PPPoE to get better performance from the XT8. It also made me decide that I won’t be recommending ASUS gear to my home and prosumer clients anymore. And chances are, my next router at home won’t be an ASUS product. While ASUS has great hardware, their support doesn’t meet the mark. Having competent tech support adds to the value of the gear that a vendor like ASUS makes. Or in this case, not having competent support detracts from the value of the gear that ASUS makes. So if the people at ASUS are reading this, they might want to look at this negative situation and make changes internally to make sure that they’re not on the wrong side of a public post like this as this sort of #Fail reflects poorly on ASUS as a brand. And will likely affect their future sales.
Since I wrote that, I’ve received dozens of emails from people that have had similar experiences with their tech support. That’s not a good look for ASUS because a company is only as good as the support they provide your customers. And if they provide bad support to their customers, those customers will get fed up and not be their customers any longer. And they will tell their friends, or someone like me who has the reach to tell a whole lot of people about how bad that ASUS tech support is. ASUS should consider that and change course before they have no customers to speak of.
That brings me to the second point. Which is ASUS not supporting their customers warranty claims by bullying them into paying for repairs that they don’t need. YouTube channel Gamers Nexus has investigated the bad behaviour of ASUS in the past. And their latest video details what looks like a systemic pattern of ASUS trying to extract cash from users who send in their hardware for warranty repairs by bullying them into paying for extra repairs that they don’t need. I would set aside 30 minutes to watch this video to get the full story:
The thing is, this isn’t the first time that ASUS has been caught doing something shady. If you do a search for “Gamers Nexus ASUS” on YouTube, you can see all the shady stuff that they have been caught doing. In addition, right to repair advocate and YouTuber Louis Rossmann has his own take on this:
If that’s not enough, there’s actually more. A Reddit thread surfaced in the last few days where ASUS quoted a Canadian customer a mind blowing $2799 USD to repair an RTX 4090 GPU that needed its 16-pin power connector replaced. The price is insane because the card had been purchased two week before this happened for $2050 USD. To say that the behaviour of ASUS is a bit suspect in this is an understatement.
On top of the fact that YouTuber JayzTwoCents dumped them as a sponsor to his channel because of their shady behaviour a while back. Here’s the video that details why he did that:
This is pretty bad for ASUS. When A YouTuber dumps you, you know you’re in a bad place.
Now in my case, I’ve been doing some dumping of ASUS products of my own. The PC that I mentioned earlier has been removed from service and replaced by this M2 Pro Mac mini. The PC in question is now sitting in my storage locker waiting to be sold. If you’re interested, I’ve got a fresh install of Windows 11 and it’s ready to go. Email me and we can take it from there. Now while I do have my issues with Apple, they support their customers and they don’t have a reputation for shady behaviour like ASUS does. Thus I will continue to buy products from Apple as they have largely demonstrated that they deserve my money.
Next up is my mesh router. While the XT8 mesh router has been generally reliable, the shady behaviour of ASUS combined with my negative tech support experience will mean that a mesh router from from another company will take its place when it’s time for me to go to WiFi 7. Right now the leading contender to replace the XT8 is Netgear who used to be suspect in terms of how they handled security issues, but have very much improved on that front after being called out on that front repeatedly. Though I have to admit that I’m looking at other companies as well, and I will base my decision on what I go with on the following criteria:
I’m hoping to do this switch this year. But one of the things that I am waiting on is WiFi 7 routers to appear in quantity so that I get a fair amount of choice before serving up my credit card to pay for it.
The only other thing that I’ve done is that I stopped recommending ASUS products to my home and prosumer customers. In fact, that happened about a year and a half ago when I had that negative experience with ASUS tech support. The reason I stopped recommending them is that when I recommend something, it has to be something that I would be willing to stake my reputation on. I can’t stake my reputation on recommending ASUS products. No way, no how.
Finally if you have had an issue with ASUS when it comes to the warranty repair of a product, report it as per the advice of Louis Rossmann and Gamers Nexus. In the US you can file a report using this link:
https://reportfraud.ftc.gov
If I find a similar reporting vehicle for Canada, I will post it here. The point is that if enough people report the behaviour of this company to the feds, then ASUS will have a whole lot of explaining to do.
So in short, I am done with ASUS. Given the issues with ASUS that have been exposed by others, and the issues that I’ve personally experienced, the only conclusion that you should come to is that ASUS doesn’t deserve your money. And one of the best ways to drive that point home to ASUS other than to report their behaviour to the feds is to not buy their gear. After all, ASUS may not care about how consumers feel about them. But they sure will care about their bank account getting smaller and smaller as consumers don’t buy their products. Maybe then ASUS will change course and become a company that cares about consumers rather than appear to screw them over at every opportunity. Though I am not holding my breath on that front given how they have behaved up until now. But I suppose anything is possible.
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