Question How can I reach someone at Intel directly?

[mac_angel]

I have had problem after problem in dealing with the third party company that they have hired to look after their tech support and warranty support. It's been going on for over 4 weeks, and over something that should have been a simple RMA.
I have tried reaching out to an office in BC, but that seems to direct to the main office in California. I tried explaining my situation to the receptionist, and she transfers me, without asking, to the regular tech support, which is the third party company that I'm having problems with. And every time I try to call back after that, she hangs up the phone on me without answering. And, bear in mind, I'm being extremely nice and polite. I know it's not her fault about the way I've been treated by this other company, and I know that generally, people are more inclined to help others that are nice to them. So constantly being hung up on is rude, and really shouldn't be how a company such as Intel handles their customers.

 

[CountMike]

I have had problem after problem in dealing with the third party company that they have hired to look after their tech support and warranty support. It's been going on for over 4 weeks, and over something that should have been a simple RMA.
I have tried reaching out to an office in BC, but that seems to direct to the main office in California. I tried explaining my situation to the receptionist, and she transfers me, without asking, to the regular tech support, which is the third party company that I'm having problems with. And every time I try to call back after that, she hangs up the phone on me without answering. And, bear in mind, I'm being extremely nice and polite. I know it's not her fault about the way I've been treated by this other company, and I know that generally, people are more inclined to help others that are nice to them. So constantly being hung up on is rude, and really shouldn't be how a company such as Intel handles their customers.

https://supporttickets.intel.com/s/?language=en_US

https://consumer.intel.com/intelcor...g&RelayState=/s/supportrequest?language=en_US

 

[mac_angel]

https://supporttickets.intel.com/s/?language=en_US

https://consumer.intel.com/intelcor...g&RelayState=/s/supportrequest?language=en_US

those seem to be routed to the third party company still, not Intel directly.
and I'm looking for a phone number or some direct contact.

 

[CountMike]

those seem to be routed to the third party company still, not Intel directly.
and I'm looking for a phone number or some direct contact.

It's Intel's service center. Depending on your question, create a ticket and ask to escalate to an engineer or whatever.

 

[COLGeek]

See here:

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/contact-intel.html?tab=campus-locations

 

[punkncat]

Not specifically Intel related, but I have noted a significant difference in customer service now as opposed to just a couple of years ago pre-covid. This seems to be par for the course now. A lot of the big manufacturers are farming out their customer support to other regions and often aren't giving them much wiggle room as to what they can and cannot do outside of a specific script or plan of action.

I hope you can get things sorted.

 

[mac_angel]

It's Intel's service center. Depending on your question, create a ticket and ask to escalate to an engineer or whatever.

I have. The reply I got back was from the third party company that I keep having problems with.
They asked for my contact info and serial number for my CPU (Core i9 13900K). I took a picture of the CPU and sent it to them. Along with the screen shot of it failing their CPU diagnostic tool, and dmp files of history of crashes. After more than a week of nothing back, I tried to call in. No one ever picks up in the afternoon. I tried to do a call back after waiting on hold for an hour, but their system glitches where you can only request a call back at the beginning of the call when it's first offered. It still offered every 60 seconds or so when you're on hold, but hitting the # key does nothing. So, I called back, hit the # key, and got, "thank you for calling Intel. Goodbye". No confirmation or anything about a call back. I called back again, tried it again, got the same thing. That night, their automated dialer called me back at 12:20AM. I didn't answer. The next day their dialer called me again and the woman says, "sorry for our call getting disconnected". I told her I had no idea who she was, and I wasn't talking to anyone that day. I had a feeling it was this same stupid company, and I was right. After explaining why I was trying to reach them, she told me that she doesn't handle RMA and she would have someone else call me back. No one ever did.
A couple of weeks ago I got a generic email from them asking for my contact info and serial number again. All stuff that I had provided since the beginning. I wrote back with it all, again. Never heard anything back. Last week, I get the exact same generic email asking for my contact info and serial number.

I tried calling the number for BC, as well as California (they go to the same place). I asked for reception and tried to explain that I'm having troubles with this third party company. She transfers me to them anyway. And every time I try to call back afterwards, she hangs up the phone on me. Many times.

 

[punkncat]

How long have you had this CPU and where did you source it?
Have you attempted to get in touch with that retailer?

Have you actually filled out a service ticket request and sent that in, such as several links above seem to offer?

If Intel has moved their support team off to a third party there simply may not be anyone else in a position there "at corporate" to handle your request on the phone, much less the authority to do anything about it.

 

[mac_angel]

Not specifically Intel related, but I have noted a significant difference in customer service now as opposed to just a couple of years ago pre-covid. This seems to be par for the course now. A lot of the big manufacturers are farming out their customer support to other regions and often aren't giving them much wiggle room as to what they can and cannot do outside of a specific script or plan of action.

I hope you can get things sorted.

Yea, I agree, it's gotten really bad. So many of these big tech companies hire third party companies that are absolutely horrible, and in most cases, know absolutely nothing about the products they are supposed to be supporting. They know enough to follow a script, but if you deviate from their script, they have to put you on hold to talk to someone else. I think at the very least, if these tech companies are going to keep outsourcing their support and warranty, they should 1, ask for random call logs to see how their customers are being treated. And 2, do a secret customer call every month or two to see how things are being handled. When you're talking about Intel, making billions of dollars quarterly, it's really aggravating that they won't shell out for decent support.
On the flip side, MSI is, and always has been (for me at least, as well as others in Canada) absolutely fantastic. You can request an RMA online and it gets accepted almost immediately. They have a depot in Markham (just north of Toronto), so it doesn't cost an arm and a leg to ship stuff across the border. Monday I dropped off a MAG Z790 Tomahawk DDR4 motherboard, and an RTX 4090 Suprim. I received the replacement motherboard today, and the GPU should arrive tomorrow. If MSI can do these kinds of things, bigger companies like Intel, having billions of dollars more, should be able to do the same.

 

[punkncat]

Totally unrelated side story, recounting just one of the recent issues we have had with a manufacturer.

We picked up a countertop ice maker from Frigidaire. Not even a full week into ownership it started leaking water all over the counter while making ice. I called Fr directly and got tech support. I supplied the model number and the "technician" sent me schematics for two completely unrelated products with completely different model numbers. After wasting hours on the phone with this individual, they tell me at the end of all of that there is another third party company called Curtis International that handles said.

I contacted them and was basically told tough luck. Didn't even try to make right. Keep in mind, this is a less than 10 day old product at this point. We had accidentally thrown out the box, but I called Amazon anyway and to our joy (and a lot of talking on the phone and chat sessions) they opted to make right on what the manufacturers official support group simply refused to do.

IDK how long you have had the CPU and whether you have the packaging and receipt, but calling them might open another avenue for assistance.

 

[mac_angel]

How long have you had this CPU and where did you source it?
Have you attempted to get in touch with that retailer?

Have you actually filled out a service ticket request and sent that in, such as several links above seem to offer?

If Intel has moved their support team off to a third party there simply may not be anyone else in a position there "at corporate" to handle your request on the phone, much less the authority to do anything about it.

I have had it less than a year. Not overclocked, but being a 13900K, with a custom watercooling loop, it seems to have fallen into the bad power limit of the motherboards that Tom's did an article on last week.
Retailers don't take products back after 30 days, unless you buy their extended warranty. And someone shouldn't have to when dealing with a major company such as Intel.
Yes, I have filled out a ticket through that process last week. I got an email back saying someone would look into it and get back to me. The name on the email was someone that I had already been speaking with. I received another email back from them today saying they have identified the markings on the Intel CPU (from the picture that I had sent it), showing that it was going to the same third party company.
And, yes, I well imagine it will be hard to find out someone at corporate that knows what's going on and can help me directly. But, one, that's no excuse to constantly hang up the phone on me, especially when I'm being polite and pleasant. And two, if their customers are being treated this way, it should be brought to their attention. And if they don't care about how this third party company is treating their customers, then it should be brought to the attention of more people.

 

[mac_angel]

See here:

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/contact-intel.html?tab=campus-locations

that's the number that I had been calling where after the first time, the receptionist constantly hangs up the phone on me. And this is after I'm being extremely pleasant and polite. I know it's not her fault about my frustration, dealing with this other company, so I'm always polite with someone new. I also believe that people are more inclined to help out others when they are nice.

 

[punkncat]

The reason I had asked in relation to where you purchased is that (for instance) in some cases if you buy an item from Amazon or eBay (and other similar platforms) that third party sellers might void your ability to retain warranty. Just a guess.

 

[mac_angel]

The reason I had asked in relation to where you purchased is that (for instance) in some cases if you buy an item from Amazon or eBay (and other similar platforms) that third party sellers might void your ability to retain warranty. Just a guess.

no, there's nothing wrong with the warranty. I've sent them all the info they wanted, but then it's just been stalled. There's a more detail description of everything above.

 

[punkncat]

I sure hope you can get it worked out then. I cannot recall ever having an actual CPU be bad out of box. I did have a stock fan be BOB and it was quite unfortunate that my only resolution was to drive all the way across town to return to the retailer. I ended up just buying another cheap cooler since it was less than the gas money and the value of my own time to drive back up there for. Obviously, the cost of the CPU would not fit that scenario...This was also Intel, by the way and they were absolutely unwilling to simply send me another fan that they have to have a mountain of.

 

[JohnBonhamsGhost]

there's nothing wrong with the warranty. I've sent them all the info they wanted, but then it's just been stalled.

where you purchased from and what particular seller is relative here.
there are many who are selling items that have previously voided warranties.

if this is determined by the support team then they will not honor your RMA claim and may just be blowing you off due to this issue.

 

[mac_angel]

where you purchased from and what particular seller is relative here.
there are many who are selling items that have previously voided warranties.

if this is determined by the support team then they will not honor your RMA claim and may just be blowing you off due to this issue.

no, it isn't. It's a boxed unit. I still have the receipt, and it's still under warranty. They have told me as much, repeatedly. Just repeatedly, they keep asking for my contact info, and serial number of the CPU, over and over again. They sent me an email asking for that info 2 weeks ago, even though I had sent it to them from the beginning. I responded with the info, and nothing happened. Then they sent me the same form-mail email, asking for the exact same thing. And again, nothing happened.
None of this explains about them lying to me from the beginning. Nor their phone system giving me a call back at 12:20AM. Or getting another call back at a normal time, just to be told more lies, and then told that she doesn't work in that department, and someone else would call me back, which never happened. Repeatedly, being told someone is looking into it, they will get back to me, and I never hear from them again.