NetGear Charge you before they fix anything

My Netgear N300 router stoped working. I attempted to follow the online support but when all of those suggestions failed I called the hardware support. 

Despite a lifetime hardware warantee, I was told that I would need to pay for any support before it was given becasue phone support expired. I was told that this support costs $70 for 6 months (the router itself only costs $75). So even though my hardware is covered under warantee I have to pay them to reactivate phone support in order to find out if I can get the faulty hardware replaced. 

When I asked why it would not be covered under hardware, the tech lied and tried to tell that despite the device not being connected to the internet (the device was unpluged during the call), he detected that the device was functioning fine.