ATI charging for phone tech support!?!?!?

[IgoByte]

I was just on the phone with ATI tech support, and the girl told me that they started charging for tech support in June/July.

I'd understand this if ATI were more like NVidia and had other companies produce cards based on their design, but ATI makes their own cards and sells them as such.
Quite frankly, this sucks, and I think that my ATI days are damn near numbered. I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm not going to pay $400 for a piece of equipment and not have telephone tech support for it.
I think that this is an awful move by ATI, just as they are starting to get a bigger slice of the market now...

Anyway...just had to blow off some steam.

 

[Tates]

From ATi.com:

Currently Shipping "BUILT BY ATI" PC Products
Products Complimentary Access to Telephone Support YES
Radeon 9700 PRO
Radeon 9000 PRO
AIW Radeon 8500
AIW Radeon 8500DV
Radeon 8500 128MB
Radeon 8500 64MB
Radeon 8500LE 128MB

After 30 days of purchase and warranty registration
905-882-2626
(Toll Charges May Apply) $1.25 US per minute
900-733-2841
M-F 9AM-7PM EST
AIW Radeon 7500
Radeon 7500
Radeon 7200
Radeon 7000

905-882-2626
(Toll Charges May Apply) $1.95 US per minute
900-733-2842
M-F 9AM-7PM EST



In addition to ATI CustomerCare, ATI Technologies also offers FREE support through Internet electronic mail via our online webform available 24 hours a day.

 

[ElFenix]

looks like they want everyone to use their website.

 

[Red Dawn]

They probably figure that if they are going to have to deal with dumbasses they might as well get paid for it.

 

[Parrotheader]

Originally posted by: ElFenix
looks like they want everyone to use their website.

That's what most businesses in that situation want. It's FAR more cost-effective to route tech help through your web site first and then use phone support as a last resort since you can cut down on that staff required to field tech support calls. Now I didn't say it was easier on the user (although I personally prefer using a web site rather than talking to somebody on the phone.) It just makes financial sense from the company's perspective.

 

[GTaudiophile]

As far as I know, Microshaft has been doing this for years.

 

[IgoByte]

Originally posted by: GTaudiophile
As far as I know, Microshaft has been doing this for years.

As far as I know MS does offer free tech support on its products. I recently called in about a mouse that wasn't working, spent over an hour on the phone with a tech support, who helped me out even though it actually wasn't even the mouse that had a problem.

 

[IgoByte]

Originally posted by: Parrotheader

Originally posted by: ElFenix
looks like they want everyone to use their website.

That's what most businesses in that situation want. It's FAR more cost-effective to route tech help through your web site first and then use phone support as a last resort since you can cut down on that staff required to field tech support calls. Now I didn't say it was easier on the user (although I personally prefer using a web site rather than talking to somebody on the phone.) It just makes financial sense from the company's perspective.

I understand the cost-effectiveness of this, but what happens if their website cannot resolve the problem? Then, you need to email and wait or call and pay....

 

[308nato]

Its cheaper to ignore an e-mail than to pay someone to ignore a phone call.

 

[yakko]

If more companies started charging for tech support then maybe more people would RTFM and learn about the product they just bought.

 

[Freejack2]

Originally posted by: 308nato
Its cheaper to ignore an e-mail than to pay someone to ignore a phone call.

True, true. I suppose on the other hand $1.25 a minute isn't too bad to talk to a live human right away but if you end on the phone with these guys for an hour it's a chunk of change...