Seed Fusion Support is TERRIBLE!!!

[jeff.roberts]

Re: Order Number : 180526051001

I sent my board design in and waited a month to get it. Not only did I wait, but the Fusion dashboard show 0 movement for weeks until I finally sent a nasty-gram asking why my order had not been processed yet. When it finally came, NONE of the 5 boards worked.
I contacted support and got a "canned" response saying that they would cover 100% any problems due to solder or wrong components and suggested that it was my design.
Support also suggested that I photograph any issues and write up my test procedures. I did this over the next several days and emailed it to them. I didn't hear back for over a week and sent several more emails asking if they'd received my documents...
Silence until just now, when I received the same "canned" reply with only a few words changed this time telling me that any non-functioning boards would have to be sent back to them. No mention of my analysis, which (to my eyes) clearly shows the problem, poorly manufactured individually addresable LEDs, which are designed to wired in series, get on bad one and no signal get's sent to any subsequent one. I tested every one of them (116 per board) and found a 56% failure rate and was even able to predict which would test bad with a 98% accuracy rate just based on visual inspection of the component.
I don't mind Seeed Support questioning my design, I expected that. What I do mind is the amount of time that I've spent waiting for any sign of life on the other end when all I needed was a personal response, so that we can discuss my findings, which you (Seeed Support) asked for.

Here are two representative examples of the numerous photos that clearly show manufacturing differences between the components that Seeed sourced for my boards.

S4-R_001.pdf

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The attachment S4-R_001.pdf is no longer available

This is the order history:

2018-07-02 18:50:26Your order has been shipped, we will promptly update your logistics status
2018-07-02 02:50:37Your order has been packed and will be shipped soon
2018-05-29 22:21:33Your order has been confirmed and we will start production as soon as possible
2018-05-29 22:07:54Your payment information has been confirmed, we will process your order as soon as possible
2018-05-29 02:05:40Order received

If there is ANY HONOR AT ALL at Seeed, someone will send me an email from a personal address that I can reply to and know that it will not just go ignored so that next steps can be discussed. If there is English speaker that I could have a phone conversation with, that's even better. Regretably I don't speak Mandarin or I would have called weeks ago.

[carmen.zheng]

Hi Jeff,

I'm Carmen Zheng from the Seeed Fusion team. Firstly, sincere apologies for the terrible experience, we have notified the operative in charge of the issues and she will get back to you as soon as possible.

We'll also review each of the problems one by one and see if there is anything that can be done to accelerate the procedure.

Thank you so much for your cooperation,

[jeff.roberts]

5 minutes after posting this, I did get an email (direct this time) from a person in support offering to pay to have the boards shipped back for analysis.
I also noticed that the picture of the bad LED had been removed, so I'm re-posting them both below.

S4-R_002.pdf

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S4-R_002.pdf

(712.36 KiB) Downloaded 190 times

[carmen.zheng]

Thank you Jeff, there does seem to be something suspicious with the LEDs and if so it's a major supply chain issue.

But the engineers will only be able to confirm your findings with the actual boards in hand and then they will report to the supplier if required.

Anyway, as per the manufacturing policy, they'll make sure the boards are fixed and returned to you free of charge and ASAP

If you find any other problems please let us know,

Thank you very much!

[jeff.roberts]

I had to work on other projects and I've only been able to get back to this about a week ago. I've sent several emails to the Project Manager I was working with and once again, I'm not getting responses.

[carmen.zheng]

Hi Jeff,

Thanks for getting back to us,

The project manager handling your case has moved to another department now so I am catching up with the new manager.

They initially decided to make the boards from scratch again but I think it would be better and faster if we just had the boards re-worked and the faulty LEDs replaced.

I'll get back to you with an update soon,

Thank you so much!

[carmen.zheng]

Hi Jeff,

I've been trying to send you an e-mail but it keeps saying I am spam so I'll PM you.

Could you add me to your safe senders list? Thanks