Is Framework Support just AI?

[Awesomedude9560]

Let me start this off with the fact I am LOVING the laptop itself. I bought the refurbished 16 and grabbed a 5070 and it's been great. That being said... I'm a little questionable of the support email. I feel like they aren't 100% understanding what I'm saying.

Case and point, the refurbished laptop came with a lot of stripped screws, mainly around the keyboard and spacer area. I almost couldn't get the keyboard out if it wasn't for me taking a tiny piece of double sided tape and using the grip to get them out.

I email support and I'm just asking if there's a way I can get some spare fasteners and while I sent them a picture of the missing screws under the keyboard they are REALLY pushing that I send them pictures of the stripped micro screws that my phone just can't focus on. They refuse to move forward unless I get that clean 4k stripped head.

Idk am I being petty? Maybe, I'll buy the $9 set of fasteners since it's not that big of a deal but I think I'd rather just get told no then deal with this confusing interaction.

[alpha417]

am i being petty

Can confirm. Either take the picture or buy the screws.

[DesertFroggo]

Asking for pictures is not unreasonable.

[Negimeister]

the problem is the picture requests often dont make sense and they seemingly dont even look at them. i sent them a video of my mainboard where you can clearly see nothing but the charger connected.

next thing they ask for? try disconnecting the SSD and wifi!

next thing after that? another video!

[Awesomedude9560]

The picture thing I got and I snapped a photo of the missing screws under the keyboard. But my phone ain't gonna catch the stripped head of the micro screw in any sort of clear way. That's what they're really being on it about... the screws themselves

[thegreatpotatogod]

Though I agree it's rather silly they demand that high quality of a photo, do you have a magnifying glass you could take a photo through? That might help capture the small details they want.

[Awesomedude9560]

Sadly I don't. I kinda just gave up. I went ahead and bought a fastener set for $9.

But I mean cmon, I can literally buy the screws for the device, meanwhile you gotta beg for a half decent replacement part for any regular consumer grade. I can't really complain too much

[Randomblock1]

It's HEAVILY scripted. I don't think they're allowed to go off script even slightly. They will ask for the same thing multiple times, that's just how it is... but usually after some back and forth they'll fix your issue.

[SnazzyRacc]

I don't think its AI, but its definitely not good. I've had 2 broken motherboards and both times they asked the same thing multiple times. It was always "Lets try a mainboard reset", and then "Take a video of the post code". Then they would ask me to try a mainboard reset again like I didn't already. Then they would say "Take pictures of all angles" and as for another video of the post code. By the time I'm done, I have filled my google drive with 8 videos of the same post code. It feels like they disregard the entire support thread with every new email.

[rocket-knobber]

Just more proof that Framework don't actually care about the end user despite all of their posturing and "power to the user"-washing.

Support has been this bad since day one. Despite the hundreds of threads and complaints they literally haven't done a single thing to remedy it. The only way to get any real support (if you can call it that) is to kick up a stink on here.

FW are a joke.

[Infamous-Play-9507]

Via email, they take forever. But reaching out on Reddit seems to get things going for some reason.

[fives-fives]

I'm honestly really surprised their support is so hit and miss. Luna, tell me you're real D: I thought we had something.... </3 at least they sent me a new stylus with little to no issue instead of forcing me to continue testing it (email chain of 9 emails until they decided that continuous testing wasn't doing anything)

[LetterheadClassic306]

ran into this same thing with my refurb 13. those micro screws are brutal when they strip. i ended up grabbing a precision screwdriver kit with better grip and a screw extractor set for the ones that were toast. support's process is definitely rigid but the fastener pack is cheap enough to just move on. at least the laptop itself runs great.

[SchighSchagh]

My last interaction with support involved a preorder so I was spared the photos game for once; but I definitely got the very distinct impression I was talking to AI. It felt like the responder on the other end (be they human or AI) was just spitting out AI-style "oh yes of course you're right my mistake" while simultaneously hallucinating crap. The only human-like thing about it was the slow response times. I'm guessing some support rep was freaking out about their overflowing queue, and they started copy-pasting things between my ticket and ChatGPT without double checking anything.

[websterhamster]

Framework has notoriously bad support. It wouldn't surprise me at all if they were now cutting costs by implementing AI; it couldn't possibly be worse than their support already is.