Just a complaint...chat support asking for username/password

[matttisdale]

I do not have any questions, just some comments.

I am an IT professional with more than 25 years of experience. I have participated in hundreads of support calls over the years. I just experienced one of the worst support calls ever with Arlo support. It was not very helpful and the support person provided no reasonable advise or solutions. Prior to the phone call I attempted to get support from Arlo via their online live chat. During that chat the support person asked me to give them my account username and PASSWORD. If this is a normal practice of Arlo (Netgear) support, they should be ashamed of themselves. This is a horrible security practice. Rule number one for any password is to never share it with anyone. Today’s experience will significantly impact my decisions on future purchase of any Netgear product. If there are any reasonable Arlo/Netgear leadership staff who would like to contact me I will be happy to discuss this further.

[jguerdat]

Just to be clear, are you sure you were speaking with a Netgear employee? There have been too  many folks that have reported here they Googled for support and got some bogus 800 number which then wanted money and perhaps the account credentials. A true Netgear support person should ask you to change your password to a Netgear-supplied password so your's is never in the open. I've had to do that myself.

It's still possible that a Netgear support person wouldn't follow procedure in which case I would bitch loudly, as you're trying to do here.

[matttisdale]

Yes I am sure. I looked the number up on Arlo’s webpage. After I said I would not give out my password she then said I could change it to something else first and then give it to her. This is still unacceptable. If their troubleshooting requires logging in as the customer they need to improve their logging and troubleshooting abilities. I expect better from a company like Netgear.

[pc2k17]

I'm a desktop engineer, working for a major international company that grossed 23.6 billion last year (just so you get an idea of how big the company is), and one of my responsibilities is helping the level 1 and level 2 support folks when needed. What you experienced is now becoming common place. At my work, the level 1 and 2 support used to be based in the USA and then the parent company decided to outsource it to another conutry simply because they could pay the techs less. Once this happened it was downhill fast. The support from the level 1 help desk folks is terrible at its best and dangerous at its worst. This is what happens when you outsource IT support instead of keeping it inside the company where techs can learn first hand and share knowledge quickly and efficiently. A big outsourced call center is always going to have quality issues whether that center is here in the US or in another country. Hopefully MAGA will start to turn this trend around.

And I agree, no IT support tech should be able to log into your account using your credentials (or even resetting the password and logging in). They should have tools to administer/support your account, but never should have access to log into it for any reason. Do that where I work and your fired. I feel your pain, and it's exactly why I never call "support". I find forums and/or just figure it out myself.