Has anyone considered a class action lawsuit? Everyone has problems with the machines and even under warranty the send you a used machine that is “like” new. Then that one breaks and they want to sell you one that is refurbished again.
No actual live people for support just generated emails. If they can type an email they can answer phones.
If they can provide sales associates to sell new machines and they are good machines why are there so many “refurbished” ones?
Maybe they should not sell anymore until they get real support people.
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It’s been mentioned, mostly by people during a fit of pique. You can search the forum for it like so:
https://community.glowforge.com/search?context_id=124405&q=Class%20action
Or google it. I’m sure someone’s still saber rattling about it somewhere.
False. The vast majority of people have no problems through the warranty period.
Also false. I assure you there are people working at Glowforge in support roles.
Do you know how many there are? You’d be the first of us. I myself have received a “refurb” unit that I am 100% certain was brand new, and I’m not the only one.
I’m sure this is coming across as a bit harsh, but if you think I’m being tough wait until you talk to some lawyers that want you to back up your claims to determine whether or not your lawsuit has merit.
I have sympathy for you, dealing with Glowforge support can be really frustrating and feel unreasonably slow. I hope you get things worked out in a way that satisfies you. Good luck, however it works out —lawsuit or some other means.
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Do you have a problem you need help with your Glowforge? Not everyone has had problems with their machines and they meet the terms of their warranty. At any rate, I believe the course of action you are considering is started by contacting a law firm. The law firm canvases for members of the class action suit if they decide a case exists.
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Well, 5 years without issue so I don’t think I could complain. The replacement (failed tube, which was only expected to last 2 years) is basically a brand-new machine.
Good luck!
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There is only emailing, no one you can actually speak to. If the can answer email why not phone?
The have a sales team you can talk to? Does that not raise red flags?
My warranty ended after i got a refurbished one. If it was like new they should warranty it for a year just like a new one.
I understand that things go wrong but there is normal wear and tear and there is not
The warranty is for the stated time, and it begins with the purchase of the machine. It isn’t what most consumers want, but it is clearly stated and it is legal. I just read the warranty information on the Glowforge webpage and it is clearly written and straightforward, in my opinion.
The email support is annoying, but I have had good results with it.
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Anyone who has ever had to answer a phone for a living can tell you that email is a million times more efficient on their end. The minute people get you on the phone, they share their life stories. They also have to wait for people to take pictures of their machines, run troubleshooting steps, etc. I am NOT justifying the lack of phone support for a business, but phone ≠ email.
I’ve had good experiences, as has my makerspace, so I can’t complain. You could probably rally others who would, but this forum may not be the best place for that. People usually get tired of being disgruntled here and take it to FB.
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Mostly because outrage dies without fuel and there just aren’t enough actively unhappy users here. The FB communities are much larger, for better or worse.
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Confirmed. You can multitask email correspondence.
It may feel slower to the individual user but it’s overall far faster for everyone. Sort of counter intuitive like escalator efficiency.
You want to walk up that escalator when it’s more fair and efficient if you stand with everyone else.
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Nope. It’s pretty standard, actually. I just had to contact Starlink support, and they don’t even have an email address. You can only contact them via a form in your app or on the website, and maybe a week and a half later you’ll get a single response with their guess at what’s wrong, what they’re doing about it, and they close the ticket without even waiting to see if they guessed right. We were down for nearly 6 weeks before someone responded to my third ticket who actually read what I wrote and sent me the correct part.
Glowforge, on the other hand, has always been amazingly helpful. It might have taken them a couple of days to answer my message here and there, but they stick with you until they find the problem.
Also, people complain about getting refurbished instead of new replacement machines, but if you Google “bathtub curve” you’ll learn that refurbs are actually a much better option.
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Awesome, never knew that term.
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As someone that made a living creating and maintaining customer help desks, I an assure you that taking phone calls is about as inefficient a method as you could find to resolve issues especially when you have thousands of customers.
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Checking your credit card terms - a lot of then extend warranties on purchases.
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Yawn…
Have you tried calling support at Microsoft or Adobe? I don’t know ANYONE that resets their warranty period after delivering a in-warranty replacement.
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Not everyone. I’ve had mine over two years, use it a lot, and haven’t had any problems other than internet issues or having to clean my air assist fan if it got too full of gunk, which were not the problem of Glowforge. And as far as getting refurbished machines, we used to get the “extended warranties” on our cell phones and if we broke one, they didn’t fix our old phone, they sent us a refurbished one, most of the times which worked far worse than our old broken phone. So the fact that Glowforge sends out refurbished machines that are as good as brand new ones is fantastic. If the replacement is broken, it may just be something that was caused by shipping and not by the Glowforge manufacturing. We’ve all seen how badly packages arrive, and how many times even “fragile” items arrive broken and packages trashed, including Glowforges.
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Do you think Glowforge just opened up business yesterday? They’re 9 years old and have sold over 100,000 laser cutters. There’s never been a class action lawsuit against them because they’re not a criminal enterprise, and their warranty is totally standard for an electronic device.
I doubt their business model is to replace every machine multiple times like you’re implying. It costs them $600+ just in shipping to replace a machine under warranty, ignoring the cost of the working machine they’re sending you, and fixing the one you’re sending them. They’d make no money. Actual people who have seen their financials think they’re doing well enough to invest in them – they raised $20 million of new investment from DFJ Growth and Foundgry Group just last week.
Every email you’ve gotten in response to a support ticket has a name on it. Those aren’t fake or generated. You can get faces to match to the ~20 person support team here. They’re all in-house, full time employees with benefits and all that jazz:
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I’ve had an excellent experience with Glowforge. I’m happy.
No concerns. So I have no reason to be interested in a class action lawsuit.
I’m not sure why you think everyone has problems, I guess probably because the people who are doing just fine are busy working with their machines, while the people experiencing problems are the ones posting more. Gives it the illusion that everyone has problems, maybe?
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I love my glowforge. I had to replace it over the years, though it never collects dust. The support team has always been stellar. It is amazing how they can diagnose and assist with problems from afar. I give them mad props for the support they provide. Shipping heavy lasers everywhere, and some of the random ways we have seen them arrive can lead to some issues. I love user interface also. I have brought so many prototypes to life and seen it through to final product. My glowforge is awesome.
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I have a couple of somewhat esoteric issues that have not been fixed. I have had 2 machines die on me. The first I have learned eventually was entirely my own fault, and the second was after several years of unknown cause and it cost me around $1k for another refurbished one. All three were the original exhaust so I know they were not new, but I could have not told otherwise. This last one I have not even needed to do a calibration for accuracy.
In the several years I have had a total of three zoom calls, and several long email threads trying to solve different issues, so I know several people there. In the first years they were finding issues that could only be found in the face of thousands of users and addressed all of them and a lot more. What has been constant is folks like myself that did not understand even that what they were doing was odd or how it affected the way the machine worked, and so seemed to be a problem with the machine. This is a problem no designing can fix, and while the packaging has become ever more robust, there are issues in shipping that no designing can fix either. I have never seen one where folks paid attention to the fragile or this side up on the box.
Any CO2 laser is a very much more exotic piece of equipment and trickier than a table saw. Glowforge designed it so folks with no deeper understanding than with a table saw can use it, but they cannot change what it is. A different machine can be maintained by someone with a degree in physics and engineering, but it takes that to even own one. So since it is not designed to need that ability, it needs to go to a factory shop to repair what would otherwise be a minor problem. Nobody could design it otherwise.
In the end it comes down to expectations. A Cricut is a glorified printer with a knife, but a CO2 laser is not a knife. To expect the rest to be no different is not reasonable.
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