I ordered 801-1205-5000 watchdog contract from a reseller, now what?

[jjbase]

Hello, roughly 24hrs ago I ordered a 801-1205-5000 5yrs watchdog support for my ZD1205 because I want to have software upgrades for my ZD and attached APs (4 r700 and upcoming 1 r720), being an home user/enthusiast with no business connections I literally bought it from the first google result reseller that looked legit, used Paypal and offered international orders (I’m in EU), namely “Barcode Discount” based in Chicago (parent company is Barcodes LLC that operates a number of similar sites).

Now while I wait for my (very pricey, for a home user) order to be honored, I’m growing puzzled about the whole process. Just puzzled for now. First of all, one would expect like a 5 minutes instant digital delivery, but apparently 2-3 days will be needed. (honestly Ruckus should just put a giant “buy premium support with Paypal” button in the ZD dashboard, why they don’t do it and force you thru sales channels is beyond me, but I digress). After an hour I called the reseller (thanks Skype for cheap overseas calls) to ask about the whole process and they said that in the coming days Ruckus themselves would honor the order via email. I find it weird, how so? I paid the reseller and never told them the S/N of my ZD. They have my email of course. And I’m from another world region.

Getting all this to work is also a prerequisite for buying my next R720 ap because otherwise my ZD1205 on an old software would not support it...

So, tldr, I dropped a lot of money on an order and I’m puzzled about the whole process, reseller CS said Ruckus will honor, if tomorrow none of the involved parties (the reseller or Ruckus) digitally delivers my watchdog activation code I will have to make some calls via Skype again...

[kj_liu]

Woah, that is definitely tech support territory. It's nice to know Ruckus' has got their heads screwed on straight.

[jjbase]

Yes, actually they instructed me to do even more (basically clean all records of the AP in its previous incarnation from the ZD using some command line stuff) but it proved not to be necessary.
The process in itself wasn’t out of my reach, pretty run of the mill as far as troubleshooting home network devices goes, what was out of my reach is probably the R700 standalone firmware file itself, because apparently the R700 is EOLed already so you won’t find any software download on the site. Come to think of it, I should make a personal archive of these files for when all support for my devices is over or maybe Ruckus goes thru another ownership transition or something...

[kj_liu]

> ... what was out of my reach is probably the R700 standalone firmware file itself, because apparently the R700 is EOLed already so you won’t find any software download on the site.

That was indeed what I meant by tech support being necessary. I wasn't impugning your abilities!

[jjbase]

Np 🙂 (and, as a not native speaker, I just learned a new verb with “impugning”)

[kj_liu]

Here's another data point. I was quoted and paid for 801-1205-1000 on April 5 from an online reseller (are we allowed to name companies here?). It took the distributor (not my reseller) a whole week (April 12) to get back to the reseller that the quote was missing a reinstatement fee, something needed when the previous support contract lapsed. Needless to say, both myself and the reseller were quite pissed off at the lackadaisical behavior by the Ruckus distributor.

(As an aside: how is it possible professional installers get anything done with this level of incompetence in the supply chain?! I know I'm a mere end-user with no power in the world, but the reseller is well-known at least online and serves many pros. Anyway, continuing with the story ...).

After the error was finally conveyed to the reseller, it took two more business days to sort that out and for Ruckus to finally send me the activation code, which I could activate online.

... only to discover that my contract was backdated to January 8, 2019. It so happens I did start speaking with my reseller at the beginning of the year (Jan 3, to be precise) but I can't fathom why it would have been picked up as the support contract start date when my payment date is clearly listed on the quote as April 5th.

Ruckus, seriously: either do some housecleaning with your distributors or just let us purchase support contracts directly with you online. Having to go through so many steps is entirely crazy especially with the likes of eero, Google Home, etc legitimately breathing down your necks! The Ruckus side (tech support and activation steps) were a total breeze -- it was just the purchasing part that was a nightmare.

At least I finally got 10.x installed on my ZD1200 and R710s. Very sweet -- and no more Java elements!