Mad Dog Multimedia ,Mad Dog Multimedia's Maddening Tech Support Leads to Total Rip Off. San Diego California

I, like you may have been, was lured to Mad Dog's products by its 2 year warranty service, which if executed right, really would be industry leading. But check this out: After a year and a half or so of faithful service I send a DVD burner back that started to make a grinding noise (I think because I left it vertical all that time and spontaneously decided to switch it to horizontal... the bearings had ground their way into some plastic innards that got noisy with its new orientation). Enter my experience with the "industry leaders" ("Mad Dog is fully committed to providing the best customer support in the industry") in computer peripheral warranty and tech support service.

On February 4th or so I called their hotline, no one picked up. Called back later, again nobody. So I said forget it, leave a message, which I did. Someone got back to me eventually. Maybe it was the next day, maybe a few days later, I can't really recall. This part doesn't bother me (too much). I told the tech about the problem and he knew right away what it was. He offered me an RMA right away and I thought well, I guess that Mad Dog Multimedia is the real deal.

So I sent back the drive (9 dollar priority flat rate box USPS, it's standard to pay return shipping for warranty service the first time) and got a "new" drive in a timely fashion. When I got one back (in a fairly timely fashion I must admit) the box was clearly beat up. Ok I thought, perhaps that's on UPS. Then I opened the box to discover a "new" drive, or so I thought (well I questioned it at the time 'cause the manual was for a slightly different and older model than I was supposed to have, but nevermind, I thought, it was a replacement after all, as long as it works).

So I get it up and running in no time and start burning some data. Lo and behold, every disc fails (from cheapo TDK discs to top dollar certified Taiyo Yuden bullet-proof discs).

I contact tech support again, and being fairly skeptical, as they should be I suppose, that the "new" replacement burner should be fine, they recommended to try flashing the drive, since the firmware was out of date. I was sorry to discover that that didn't help the doomed player either. Not only that, but since I have a mac and the firmware flasher was only for Windows I had to lug it to my friend's place to do this, and it proceeded to crash my poor buddy's WinXP box. He had to reinstall (luckily no personal data was lost). Ironic isn't, a device designed to help back up data can somehow cause you to nearly lose it all.

Well, here comes the rub. The drive they sent me was bad and I as a consumer not trying to be ripped off insisted to have it be replaced for a REAL "new" (at least functioning!) replacement. Not a problem they told me, so long as I payed the return shipping they'd happily send me another (hopefully non-dud) replacement. Pay the return shipping? For a BAD drive!?! Not only was this drive bad but it was BLATANTLY bad as I discovered upon a more close examination of it that it has a red tag on the back and the screws holding the enclosure together are COMPLETELY stripped, which means two things: 1) It was probably already returned as a bad drive and 2) whoever was in charge of "fixing" this bad drive was so sloppy they either used the wrong drill bit or used way too much force than necessary. Either way, this person shouldn't be repairing computer hardware in my humble opinion (computers of course are by nature quite delicate). And they shouldn't be doing repairs for the "industry leaders" of warranty service.

I don't blame the people actually handling the warranty service for this oversight, they have done everything in their powers to help me. The sad fact is they can do everything for me but issue a return airwaybill for the drive. They have forwarded my request for it to the upper management of Mad Dog, but months have gone by and nothing still. It is now May 26th, 2008 and I still have no external DVD burner.

But wait, the story gets more interesting still. Since April, none of my e-mails to the company have been answered. Now, the telephone "tech support" department is an answering machine giving another number that is the private cell phone of some unfortunate citizen named Michael, and the e-mail service is nothing but an autoreply promising a real response 24-48 hours later in time (which of course never happens).

I am fairly certain that this company is now defunct as their products seem to no longer be available anywhere (formerly they were available at Microcenter, Costco, Wal-Mart, and Radioshack, to name a but few retailers/wholesalers). I, well within their warranty period, am convinced I will never get that replacement drive I so foolishly was expecting. I have since purchased another brand's drive and hope for the best with the new one. I would expect compensation for this ridiculous ordeal but I am quite certain that that will never happen.

Are you or, rather, were you lured to their brand by the two year warranty? If so, you may wish to reconsider the brand, as the potential hassles (as I have had to deal with) to actually get them to make good with this "industry leader," being totally committed to having the best customer support nonsense to the test, is just not worth it!

Philip
New Haven, Connecticut
U.S.A.