joecage...
I don't work for Chumby... and I don't work with tech support anywhere, but I can see the logic and frustration with involved with all parties...
It can take some time to figure out if a problem is hardware related... either due to it being flat-out defective, or there being some sort of misconfiguration (I got my Chumby almost a year ago... It took a good two weeks till I felt like I had managed to REALLY get the touch screen aligned), or if it's user error. And terminology for damage can vary... can anyone not looking at your Chumby know for sure if "bleeding" is an accurate description, or if it's a group of discolored pixels that respond differently to touch than the others... My husband, for instance, said his father got a error on his machine on boot... and showed me a message regarding a .dll file. When libraries are loaded in the operating system, to me, that's far past "on boot"... On boot would be post messages or beeps.... or something telling me to find a system disk. My father in law has no idea what "boot" means, and my husband has been around computers long enough to know there is a difference between booting and loading and whenever it is you decide to click your first icon on the desktop...
Hardware and tech issues are annoying for all parties involved. You may be sure and one hundred percent correct from the start that the screen is borked. But customer service can't see your Chumby or have any idea how much you know about the hardware you're working with. They can't know what you've done to test the issue unless they've been told -- I am assuming of course that you did point them to the video/images you took in your original support request and they missed it... and that's why you're itchy about the fact it wasn't addressed first time around.
There's this saying in medicine that you're more likely to find a horse than a zebra.... Works here too. Customer support sees a lot of horses, but that doesn't mean there aren't zebras (and I'm thinking... customer support is usually far more willing to consider a zebra than a doctor, but hey...) But they've got to rule out "horse" first. It takes time... it's annoying... but they've got to do it.
I spent two hours, for instance, on the phone with my internet provider because I lost my network connection. My Linux boxes and my Chumby couldn't connect to the internet, and, because the tech couldn't use anything but Windows to troubleshoot, I started our XP machine for that purpose. After two hours on the phone... I am told to reinstall Internet Explorer, and everything will work. EVERYTHING. And when I asked the fine tech support guy... "So reinstalling IE will make all my Linux machines connect to the internet, and will allow me to ping from this XP box and not still be getting a 100% packet loss status?" He told me his name (which was different, incidentally, than the one he told me originally) and to have a good evening.
My modem burned out some bit of the board somewhere.
Is it unreasonable to ask for EVERYTHING back when returning a defective product? Maybe. But every other hardware manufacturer on earth does it. If a hard drive in my new build goes belly up after a week, I am welcome to RMA to where ever I got it... along with its original packaging (box, WITH UPC) and any cables, drivers or package inserts for refund or replacement. Pretty standard. The hardware manufacturers don't usually *replace* just the defective bit. They put it aside, and send you a new one, to save you time, and give them a chance to troubleshoot and potentially spot design errors.
They could let you keep your charms, bags, power cord and booklet and just send you a naked, lonely Chumby. And if (I'm sure this isn't the case, but that's not to say things like this can't happen) there's some weirdness going on with the way your power cord is delivering power to the Chumby and it bleeds out your screen again... Nobody's gotten anywhere.
Granted, I didn't see if the responses (which probably were canned, that's where most troubleshooting processes start... horse/zebra) were polite or whatever. Then, I've done enough dealing with hardware to realize that the first request to tech support is generic, even when my details were specific. It's okay, it's annoying, but it's not unique to any one hardware manufacturer. If they miss a point you mentioned, or have to ask a further question just for their own records... it's not personal, they aren't necessarily blowing off (until they tell you to reinstall IE and have a nice night.)
I don't think there was anything particularly offensive about Sam's tone (at least on the forum). I don't think there was anything unreasonable about the manner in which Chumby handled this. It seems pretty industry standard. It doesn't mean it's not a pain you could have lived with out to return your Chumby for a new one... but they didn't seem to make you jump over any more barrels than any other place.
Fed Ex confusion happens (and a year on, I still have my Chumby web order... and the packaging) and maybe you printed out the email with the correct address in it and INCLUDED it with your RMA'd Chumby, or perhaps you didn't and thought that someone in packing and labeling the order had access to the support ticket and emails with your mailing changes. I like and trust the guys at Chumby, and hey, NewEgg and a lot of other tech retailers. But I also don't really want to hedge my bets, or know that somebody printing FedEx slips can see my whole store profile and every communication therein. And hey, yes, I know... I may not understand the specifics of what went on there, because they weren't actually supplied.
You did not call Sam a name, I agree. But to post an issue on the forum, and then tell others that they don't understand the specifics and to stay out of it is pretty unrealistic. If you had the issue with Sam or CS in general, or the way things were handled... fine, tell Chumby Industries. Tell Sam's supervisor, or tell Steve Tomlin. But coming here to ask if anyone else has gone through this, and then telling them to stay out of it can lead someone to the conclusion that it didn't matter to you at all how the matter was resolved.