General Topics
Devices, poor experience and no customer service help. *Warning to all*
Unfortunately I have to post this within the community since calling gets me nowhere. As a customer for almost 2 years now I have gone through every single device this company has created assuming my home (originally my moms home) was literally at fault and I needed a different model which had a different feature, when in all reality every device has 1 good feature and the rest faults. I have gone round and round with customer support over the dang service when I have top notch service in my home and the best out of my neighborhood, yet was talked into the Chime pro ontop of the multiple doorbells, cams, security cams and spotlights I now own. I did not originally buy the ring product to have this many of them, and to have this many issues. I needed a security camera, that was it. And sad to say, due to all of this companies faults especially recently with all of the systems being inoperable and having glitches to where they either go off line for everybody, stop recording, notifying and now currently the systems are claiming there is no subscription (which obviously means no recording [still])... which is unimaginably the worst timing within the past couple months.. because I now have an actual folder of police reports from my house getting broke into and robbed 5 times (!!!) in 2 months and they all coincide either with the systems "going down" or this companies notorious 2 year problem with products glitching and not recording or delaying. It's very convenient that my house and the neighborhoods within a radius of 3 miles have had a trend of break ins that coincide wonderfully with their analytics of systems going down at the same time. Very curious. So this is not just an issue with me, but stats reported are showing it from people everywhere that own these products and its surprisingly a big issue in a 3 mile radius where I am, of not just house and car break ins, but robberies and a\*\*aults with all ring owners while this companies having system failures. I applaud the timing of this because the ones doing it are bold while the world is on lockdown at home... but I applaud you because all the assaults, vehicle and home burglaries are done to those of us who work in public safety and are at work protecting and serving the people and yet you cant keep your systems from failing and now they're being investigated due to them "trending analytically the moment they go down". It's a serious problem and I'll share my side now. \I'd like to add, to anybody that is blessed to see this before they probably delete it from community view to save you from the hassle. This is my personal experience and to boot, which this is something they can never give back to me, but I'll add it for everybody to know. When you pay for your subscription you may not think it's a big deal to have a longer "cloud storage" than they are giving you (max 30 days unless you download the vids) but honestly if you're paying for these devices and to have "live view" and access to YOUR videos outside and in your home then you should have no limit to the amount of time the videos are on your account in your cloud space. I can understand a limit in space and amount of videos but keeping for only 30 days is ridiculous because it's the freaking cloud. But I may be a little biased due in part that my Mother passed away and I called and begged them, BEGGED them to give me time to get out of the hospital and get home to access her account to manually save those videos of the last time she was alive. And now I dont have those last days we spent together on the fourth of july in our front yard. All because I had to download them, my own videos, of my own life, on my own devices with my own subscription to the plan to be able to keep videos on what is an endless cloud with GB limits, not time limits! And this company took that from me. They couldve easily given me a couple days until I could've retrieved those videos. And what made it difficult for me to not be able to download to my phone in the hospital bed was because this companies cruel and money hungry systems that fail continuously would not allow multiple downloads of my own recorded videos.. you have to go in and click each one while playing them to download. So I'm sure you can imagine this tremendous issue with such a simple logical system. I've worker in IT and web design and there is no need to be charging for a 30 day "RENTAL" of the cloud, only limits on GB space and it is childsplay to write the code to allow multiple selections to download ones own personal videos of their own devices to their computers if thats the system and game yall want to play. \So be forewarned people, that their products have many issues (coming from a 2 yr customer), customer support is hard to reach and when you do it is always either their systems were updating, has a minor glitch but is fixed, "you may need to replace your faulty device", or the best excuse yet is "check your wifi signal & with your ISP" - "its your service that is causing the issue, may we suggest our Ring Chime Pro" and ontop of all of this, every one of your videos which may be evidence or be important later (either something suspicious that comes to light with a robbery, r\*pe or m--der, or my case) but your videos... I cannot stress enough that these are YOUR videos not theirs, will be deleted from the infinite time limit (\*not size;GB) cloud that they charge you for. Please people be aware of these problems because they have ruined my life. \And to my original point of this post, the systems have "glitched" for the umpteenth time in 2 years, and the past 2-2.5 months with their back to back system and device failures I have conveniently been broken into and robbed each time (5x, 5 police reports), or at the very least the system was delayed to begin recording [as usual] so it only caught my screen door shutting. \As somebody that works in public safety and has shifts of up to 24 hours I should not be having to worry about this problem with all the devices I was gimmicked into purchasing and putting my trust in yalls hands. So this will be fixed immediately or the next time you hear from me it will be through a 3rd party.
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06-04-2020 10:49:44
Responses (12)
- T
J is 100% correct. And to be perfectly honest anyone who disagrees is either riding their luck, trying to justify their spending, or simply does not know what they are talking about. Comparatively speaking, there are other economical options for a better quality. It is without a doubt a money hungry system. The company doesn’t even have a repair service that can repair at a cost. It’s either you pay for their $10 per month warranty (which to me isn’t worth it) or buy a new one. It’s a win-win for ring. Spotlight cams have a faulty design whether you are trying to replace the battery and trying to click the bottom back in or thinking that it is at least water resistant to normal weather conditions. In my area... I have normal weather conditions.. owned one for 18 months and the battery terminal gets damaged. If these products are made to be outside and you know they are water sensitive then why not even offer a protective case ? They have them for smartphones. But the reason why is because they want the customer to pay for the warranty or purchase a brand new one. Other companies don’t charge extra or have time limits for your footage on cloud. It supposed to be your cloud not rented cloud. If you do a comparison to other surveillance systems you will find ring products and services are not worth it at all. I’m speaking from experience as well.
•6
03-05-2020 01:08:37
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TMarley, I wish technical information regarding the limits of water resistance was on the label. My camera was located on the underside of the roof minimal water contact and yet the battery terminal was damage. This is only after 1 year and a half of ownership. $200 down the drain. An item designed specific to outdoor application should have lasted longer than this. And the fact that no where on the actual label states the limits of water resistance does not warn or advise to purchase an aftermarket protector. Furthermore these accessories should be offered by ring as a RECOMMENDATION. By completed disregarding the topic altogether on a product specifically designed for outdoor use, is not proper marketing ethic.
•4
04-05-2020 04:37:21
- Z
I fully agree with you. Recently I bought my first video doorbell, but especially the poor support in the installation, answering many questions, and unreliable working of the camera I think this will be my last purchase as well. I tried the community, but - as I got it in a reply to my complaint - community people are just volunteers, sharing their experience, but NOT an official support from Ring. When you encounter serious technical concerns, issues, you want more than just hunting in the thousands of community discussion. My camera records mostly the back of a person who is leaving the front door, but not when he is approaching, so face is not visible (camera motion sensitivity set to High) It records passing cars, but not the postman dropping in letters. (People Only mode enabled...) Camera do not respond at all for more than 24 hours, until someone pushed the doorbell. I could not reach (activate) the camera remotely from another friend's wifi network, ut only through 4G gsm network. Even then activation takes so long, that the person ringing my doorbell has left, so I have no chance to talk to him. Should I mention more? This seems a quality issue, and all what I got from the community was to reset the camera to factory default... I would need a better support to use more Ring device, not even talking about to promote it to my friends
•5
17-07-2020 06:23:33
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EI have a bunch of ideas as to fix your issues. But I'm only a community member. So I won't bother. But Ring does have a customer service. So, why not give them a call. Also, you do realize that every phone can be different, every wifi can be different and every mounting can be different. So, there are many things to check. But here's the contact information. Hopefully they will do better than people that have fixed issues in their own and also own many devices that work fine for them. [https://support.ring.com/hc/en-us/articles/360036196372-Get-in-Touch](https://support.ring.com/hc/en-us/articles/360036196372-Get-in-Touch)
•2
17-07-2020 07:08:29
TZsolt.... I agree with you. I have my fair share of problems. As proven again ..”you get what you pay for.” It’s better to invest in a wired security system
•2
17-07-2020 11:08:22
RI feel your pain. I just put mine up today. It can't detect motion until I'm 5 feet from it. I went to the support system, to chat with someone. Here is there exact response: **Unfortunately, device troubleshooting and first time setup are temporarily unavailable in Chat.** For self-help content, visit: **[support.ring.com](http://support.ring.com)** For product news and neighbor message boards, visit: **[community.ring.com](http://community.ring.com)** That seems like a company that doesn't really want customers. Now to find the boxes and send this thing back before the return window runs out.
•3
18-07-2020 01:33:17
RSure, but on the phone I can't email a video comparing what actually happened to what the Ring saw. People on the phone from some distant call center who are following a script isn't the same as thoughtful tech support. I'll give the phone a try, and update this if it changes my mind.
•1
20-07-2020 03:55:33
SGot the same exact warning RSaunders. I've had the service barely a month, purchased the "Plus" tier a year at a time both for the savings and the 60 days storage. I went whole hog, after seeing how many people in the area are being robbed during the pandemic. I have a wired system that has 3 cameras, CCTV (color/audio) with only local storage capability. It's been fine up until now, but with all the home breakins going on I wanted extra reassurance. I read up on having to download my videos a few weeks into storing them, so that I did not lose them. My problem is that everything older than 1 week says "Processing, unable to retreive" OR "This video has been deleted." Let me be clear. I have not deleted any videos. Nothing. I was going through them again today to make sure I was caught up, had the important ones downloaded, as my account is now a month old. I have 60 days to download the videos. Supposedly. Anything older than about a week to 10 days is gone. I "had" full-face videos of local prowlers that the police are looking for, have posted pictures of, and offered to provide proof that they had indeed been roving through folks back yards. I "had" perfectly clear full body videos of my sisters boyfriend vandalizing a neighbors property and car - more covid related madness. I'm unable to even access them, and am being repeatedly told I must have cleared the alerts for them in my app. Even though that begs the question "Why the heck would you use that method, on a mobile device, to permanently delete stored videos, potentially of crimes?!?!" Aren't there evidence laws that data/cloud providers have to comply with simply to do business here in the US? Regardless of how stupid using that method without at least a triple check/warning system in place, and hey how about an undelete, just in case? ... I never deleted any videos. I certainly never chose to erase any alerts. This looks like a case of serious hardware failure that is getting blamed/excused by pointing at the customer and saying "We told you it was permanent!". Simply following some industry "best practices" could simplify your support problems, clear up a lot of customer complaints (I'm betting), AND make it almost impossible for any single full SAN/DAS/NAS failure to completely take out any customers data. Needless to say, I'm not too happy. I bought 4 cameras, and one of the doorbells. I believe I got the entire package for under $500, and almost immediately signed up for the "Plus" tier so that I would have 60 days total to get those valuable videos downloaded. All for nothing. Any time I try to access any video older than about a week, I get one of two error messages - "Your video is processing, please try again later", or "This event's video has expired or been deleted". If things continue in their current state, I feel I've wasted good money on a system that does not perform as advertised. Additionally, I've paid an extra $100 for a "service" that is essentially worthless. I didn't even get 2 weeks to download my videos, much less 60 days. I've worked in IT, systems/network admin for close to 30 years. I was a developer before and during that. I did not use the "clear alerts" "feature", so that's not the source of whatever this issue is, but I can tell you that this is a completely unacceptable way to include this functionality within the application. As soon as I saw the warning, I cringed. Simply seeing that the "feature" is included in the application, and the way it is coded to delete without the possibility of recovering... unacceptable. The fact that it's included in a shipping version of the application? Worse than unacceptable. I spent the last several decades reading up on any and all "best practices" that I could find when working as a systems and network admin, and I did the same sort of research when coding. There are simply things that you do not include in a shipping version of the application, unless there are multiple levels of both explanation AND chances to cancel out. Nobody should be given the ability to wipe their entire video recording library for their security system with one command, a swipe. It should be hidden behind a few layers of warnings, some red borders, some flashing lights and sirens. Better yet, implement a couple of the Microsoft or Amazon Cloud Services/Data Storage, Redundancy and Security Best Practices. Your service will be far more reliable, and capable of handling a simple "Could you restore this for me?" request. If I had known Ring was going to be this unreliable, I would have been backing up to my (lifetime) 2TB pCloud cloud storage drive, that I picked up on sale for a little over $200. A tad expensive for a hard drive, but one you can reach from anywhere on the net, fully encrypted? If Ring cannot improve their service and app, I see no reason to recommend it nor use it myself. As it stands, I have slightly over a week of videos to comb through and quickly get them transferred. Since I have been unable to even reach a support person, and was turned instead to the forums, has anyone else ever run into error messages like this? And is Ring so backwards that they truly do not do their own backups, offsite and remote mirroring? There are companies that exist solely to provide these services to corporations, at extremely reasonable rates. Hundreds to thousands of TB, for less than the cost of a 2 person team to handle the task. It would have been cheaper and more reliable to go CCTV, and upgrade the one I have to something accessable via the internet. I do have an additional bit of info that may help - I'm hoping that the app is not designed this way... NONE of my videos show any indication that they are in a "processing" state nor that they are deleted. They look exactly like all the recent ones, that I can indeed download. Does this point to (hopefully!) something fixable?
•1
12-08-2020 03:38:05
- C
I have just one outdoor camera aand for two weeks now I can't view videos. Tried everything. It is rubbish.
•0
08-05-2021 07:18:38
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- M
I cannot get help with anything either. Ring has my money since April 20, 2021 but I still don’t have camera with spotlights and can’t get any help from a human.
•1
11-05-2021 12:30:28
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Eagle328
Never had any issues with over 20 devices on my house. Never been robbed except before I had Ring. Once I was robbed I got the Ring products. I adopted a dog. Got a CCTV system as a back up and shotguns as well. Many years later. Everything still works fine. No issues at all. So not everyone has the same experience. I know many that would agree. As for the recordings. It's all stated. If you can't find the time in a month to download oh so important videos, that's your fault. You rant on go on as being public safety. Then you should know better. I'm public safety too. Your failures and your own and not Rings. And if you get robbed that often and do little more than just install a few cams, you've not done enough. Moving to a better area would be my first step. So, going on a rant and then using a bunch of tags looks childish. So, don't group everyone in your failures and say all Ring products don't work. My work as stated and I know all the rules. No problems at all. No more house being robbed either.
2
06-04-2020 11:05:12
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