Advance in Customer Service???

We have a product in our home that I have bragged on many times. A couple of weeks ago, it quit working. Since it is only a few months old, I contacted the company about it. There was no telephone number listed on their website. Instead, I was urged to send an email detailing the problem, or to "chat" with a customer service associate. Now, when I say "chat", I do not mean with voices. I mean that you type messages back and forth to one another.

O.K. I decided that I would give it a try. Soon after I clicked the "Chat" button, Oscar came on the line. I do not know if Oscar is a live human or a robot. Back and forth, we discussed the issue at hand. Eventually, he sent me a l-o-n-g list of things that I should try. For instance, was I sure that I had plugged the product into the electrical outlet? Duh. Had I put water into the reservoir.... etc., etc., etc. I typed in that I had done all of these things but had had no luck.

Eventually, Oscar told me that he could not help me (after I had typed to him for about 30 minutes) Ugghh... At that point, I guess that he decided that I "deserved" to have their phone number. So, I called the company directly and was then told that I need to send the product into their office for repair or replacement. That phone call required less than 5 minutes of their time as well as my time.

I am not convinced that this new option is a good one...

VLE-B