Western Digital: The Supreme Customer Support Saga

Here begins the tale 'Western Digital: The Supreme Customer Support Saga,' also known as 'The Long Distance, Double HQ Migration Hard Disk Drive Swap'

Around June the 15th, 

my data drive starts to get slow and my games installed there start having visual glitches, like the pavement in GTAIII being transparent. I try to get Steam to verify game cache, which is too intense for the HDD and crashes my computer ever time I attempt it. I eventually download a 3rd party HDD diagnotic tool and WD's diagnostic tool. The 3rd party tool, like Steam, somehow manages to crash while testing the HDD (My OS is on an SSD, I don't even understand how that's possible), and the WD tool confirms that the drive is broken. Time to send it in.

June 18:

"Welcome to WD Support portal!" I've made a support account and created my case. Several days later, I make a call asking about my premailer for sending my HDD back.

June 27: 

'sorry, here's your premailer.' They come through on the premailer and it's up on the support portal. In a few days, I make one or two calls asking what's taking so long and where my HDD is. At this point, I didn't get a tracking number yet.

July 1:

My family moves to the new apartment. No tracking number.

July 16:

Receive an email: "Due to a recent system migration, a large number of email incident cases have been accumulated. We are currently working to reduce the number of pending cases as quickly as possible." They're working on my case, I guess..? Shortly after, we're told a shipping label has arrived at the old place, but I can't find it. Still don't have the tracking number for the order, so I can't ask UPS about the package. I asked about the shipment. Still no tracking number, but apparantly the delivery went to the old place and failed because they took so long. I called, updated my address, and at this point I was told a new drive would be sent out. I then recieved a tracking number for the first, failed shipment, made another call and was told that my case would be escalated.

August 8:

WD CS rep on the phone says the shipment is requested and the drive will go out in the next 48 hours.

August 13: 

UPS sends it to our new apartment once, leaving a delivery slip at the front of our building. I follow the slip's instructions and phone the number on it to try and tell them what to do so they can get inside the apartment building. They don't listen, instead choosing to ignore the instructions given (which I later saw were written on the box).

August 15: 

I have to go to the UPS store and figure it out... oh, and somehow they managed to put the package in mom's name, so it took me and my dad's combined IDs and some goodwill to get us the package. Finally, my replacement drive.

So that's the story I pieced together from my email logs and my notes. It sure took a long time. From failure to receipt of the replacement, it was about 2 months turnaround. And to this date, their computer system still hasn't given me a tracking number for the HDD that's in my computer RIGHT NOW. Talk about slow. What's the point of a tracking number if you get it a month after the bloody thing arrives?

A couple of other notes: WD and UPS have crappy phone trees. WD's phone tree has a hell of a long string of prerecorded messages, too. About 5 minutes worth to get to a human. I could manage by selecting. "I already have an RMA number" by pressing 1-2-1. UPS tells you on the labels to call them if anything goes wrong or you have to tell them anything, but their phone tree at that number makes so little sense the only way to get through it for re-sending instructions is to press "0" for "operator." A handy trick mom showed me from the ancient days when people used telephones.