IoT garage door opener maker bricks customer’s product after bad review
arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/0...
arstechnica.comPosted Apr 4, 2017, 5:01 PM UTC
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arstechnica.comSome people are really sensitive about bad reviews.
I recently dropped a bug report on an app and it went to the direct to the developer. It was innocent enough, I pointed out the bug and he took it personally, being all insulting about it and basically ended with "just delete the app and don't use it".
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What an asshole
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Hope you took his advice
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Oh I was messing with packet grabbers on a chat/voice app similar to discord. All commands sent to the server were unencrypted and didn't need a verification or authentication. I had 1 single pack with plain text name field I could ban anyone from any server/sub-server and their name wasnt even on the ban list to be removed.
Go ask to talk to Dev's privately in their own voice channels. They ask me to prove it one Dev offers to be the sacrifice. Boom banned in seconds. As I am trying to explain the problem I get booted off tells me wrong password.
The idiot Dev I banned who volunteered changed my password and logged me off. He is an idiot because I recovered my account... Through account recovery and promptly logged back on to berating.
No one else stopped him or wanted to admit there was a problem so he kept changing my password. So I got back on with a different account and banned them all....
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Pettyrevenge
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Devil's advocate: He did it to get free bugtesting and not worring about you claiming credit for helping to fix their product.
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Greatest advert ever, "Buy this expensive door, that we can disable at will"
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The abusive language here and in your negative Amazon review, submitted minutes after experiencing a technical difficulty,...
The firing of the customer was never about the Amazon review, ....
Good save! Over-react to a complaint about the device with a personal attack on your customers, and follow that with a blatant lie.
...Save your pitchforks and torches for your elected representatives. ...
...Admittedly not a slickest PR move on my part.
And illegal. But save your complaints for things you don't actually pay for!
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This exact same thing happened in the ham radio community when Ham Radio Delux started blacklisting their own customers who posted critical reviews.
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I didn't think we'd see these examples of just how bad IoT is quite yet. I thought we'd need another 4-5 years of spreading and deregulation. And yet here it is. No "accidental glitch" murders yet, but people are actively purposefully working on that too.
Remember folks, companies want to do this with your fridge, your heating system, your car, and anything with samsung batteries!
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The worst customer service ever, no help, then breaks it on purpose.
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I mean, maybe I'm just an old fogey, but I'm used to seeing angry emails about products I managed and I never once shot back at them because I knew that'd torpedo our public image.
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Manager, yelling: "only the product should connect to the internet!"
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At least they made it clear exactly what will happen when the server goes down due to reasons including fire, bankruptcy or the company deciding that they want to sell everyone the new version: Every single one of these door openers will stop working.
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If you can't take criticism about your app not working maybe don't be an IoT dev.
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This is why we can't have nice things, and how to get sued.
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I mean, the customer overreacted and was being a dick without bothering to contact or wait for support. Did he deserve to be denied service? No. Not initially. But if he HAD gotten help and was toxic to the support person, then he'd deserve it, and a refund. People are quick to forget that support personnel are human too, and often have to "take it on the chin" for their company. I wish more places "fired" the customer as a wake up call to assholes.
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The fact alone that there is code that allows the makers of the device to brick individual units is BAD. If they can access it, sure as hell a malicious person can leverage it as well. This is why IoT is such a minefield.
That aside, if a customer leaves a shitty review on a product you make, you should comment on the review that you were not contacted about the issue and offer assistance to help your image.
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But if he HAD gotten help and was toxic to the support person, then he'd deserve it
No. That is not how it works.
Once you purchase something, the company can't just take it back or render it useless. That is theft. And it doesn't matter how rude the customer has been.
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But did you read the guys's review:
Just installed and attempting to register a door when the app started doing this. Have uninstalled and reinstalled iphone app, powered phone off/on - wondering what kind of piece of shit I just purchased here...
Junk - DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY - iPhone app is a piece of junk, crashes constantly, start-up company that obviously has not performed proper quality assurance tests on their products.
If he was my customer I would stop dealing with him too.
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If he was my customer I would stop dealing with him too.
And if you sell a product completely free of defects... Well, stop selling garage door openers, and focus on your job of being a god.
The customer only said that it's not working right, with a recommendation (aka "review") for others to not buy it.
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If he was my customer I would stop dealing with him too.
And you'd remotely break his product, would you?
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That's what bad sales people do, good sales people would contact the customer directly and make sure the problem goes away for them.
This will get you follow up sales, even if you can't solve the issue you just got goodwill.
But that's just what good sales people would do...
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you want bad reputation? this is how you get it...