In the absence of customer support, what can I do other than cancel my subscription and trash it

[cantbereached]

What can I do? I am extremely frustrated that it is impossible to reach Arlo customer support. I pay for an annual plan that renews on January 1, and is paid until next renewal on 1/1/26. It just renewed at $149.99. I got an email telling me the subscription will increase to $215.88 starting February 3, 2025, unless I "Redeem Offer" before that date. I am trying to reach customer support to ask 1. is this a phishing email?, and 2. If not, will my subscription increase 2/3/25, 1/1/26, or what? Two simple questions a person could allegedly answer very quickly. Instead, I've spent hours figuring out how and who to contact. Here is the text of the email "Your Arlo Secure plan will automatically be upgraded in February. As a loyal Arlo user, we also want to extend a special offer which gives you the benefits of our new plans with no price increase. By redeeming the special offer below, you will enjoy the benefits of Arlo Secure 5 and retain your current annual price of $149.99.3 If you decide not to redeem, then your new price will be $215.88 starting on Februar‌y 3, 2025."

[cantbereached]

Update: After spending waaaaaaay too much time trying to reach customer support, when I finally did, it took literally two minutes to answer my question to my satisfaction. It's too bad I'm still very dissatisfied with the service and looking for a company where reaching customer service doesn't take days to accomplish. Of course, this may no longer exist and there may only be AI chat bots that can't answer any questions anyway.

[BrookeN]

You can always reach out here with any questions as well. There is a lot of really knowledgeable users within the community. As well as if you are unable to reach support within the app, you can reach out here and a mode can also gather information and have support reach out to you. 

I do want to apologize for any frustration, that is not at all how we want our customers to feel. If you need anything or have any questions you can also reach out to me and I would be more than happy to assist. 

I hope you enjoy the rest of your week. 

Brooke N. 

[alex_loo]

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@BrookeN wrote:

You can always reach out here with any questions as well. There is a lot of really knowledgeable users within the community. As well as if you are unable to reach support within the app, you can reach out here and a mode can also gather information and have support reach out to you. 

I do want to apologize for any frustration, that is not at all how we want our customers to feel. If you need anything or have any questions you can also reach out to me and I would be more than happy to assist. 

I hope you enjoy the rest of your week. 

Brooke N. 

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I have been thinking about something and now I might have my answer.

Question was: should I help users frustrated with basic setup in the new app?

My answer now: probably not.  This will only encourage ARLO to run an even worse customer support.

The community is supposed to be:

1. a place for users to share experience
2. a place for ARLO to understand user needs and action on the highest priorities
3. a place for ARLO to facilitate management of issue list, between direct users and dev team
4. a place to management user expectation, regarding upcoming events/fixes

Now #2, #3 and #4 are simply not done.

@StephenB ?  You are my best person to ask this.  You are just doing ARLO's job, but for free!

(BTW are you still joining their superuser program?)

Alex

[StephenB]

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@alex_loo wrote:

(BTW are you still joining their superuser program?)

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I am an Arlo superuser (everyone with a "Guru" badge is a superuser).  

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@alex_loo wrote:

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The community is supposed to be:

1. a place for users to share experience
2. a place for ARLO to understand user needs and action on the highest priorities
3. a place for ARLO to facilitate management of issue list, between direct users and dev team
4. a place to management user expectation, regarding upcoming events/fixes

Now #2, #3 and #4 are simply not done.

The community has also always been a place where users help each other.  Whether you want to offer that help is of course up to you.

Arlo does pay attention to the forum feedback, and has sometimes radically changed course in response.  Local Storage (despite its many limitations) was originally a response to the loss of 7-day free storage with the Ultra cameras.  Arlo also announced that they'd drop the 7-day storage for legacy cameras in the original EoL announcement, but reversed course on that.  While the forum feedback was likely not the only factor in those cases, it certainly was one of the factors. 

That said, I think there is opportunity for Arlo to benefit more from the community.  One challenge is that generally people who are happy with their systems don't engage here, so they do need to balance the feedback here with other channels.