Top positive review
4,038 people found this helpful
Cablecutter app guide
By Kelliar on 5/2/2016 10:53:18 PM
This review is more of a guide for cablecutters, which we have found fire TV a great way to accomplish this. There's plenty of reviews explaining how to use the fire, so this is more for people like us who don't want to pay full cable prices but are ok with paying for access to apps to still watch all our cable shows, at a significant savings to cable, and are used to using a dvr (we used tivo) and don't want to watch commercials. We've had this box for a couple weeks now, and while it has taken some getting used to, since you have to access your shows through individual apps instead of them all being on one big list, we have found it worthwhile to make the switch.
Keep in mind you have to be able to plug an hdmi cord into your tv. We actually had to buy a new tv to be able to use this box but tvs are so cheap nowadays that it was still cheaper to buy a new one than to keep up with our cable bill. The savings in just the first several of months covered the cost of the tv. The interface on the fire tv is really easy to use and navigate through all the apps you wish to use and everything is kept nice and organized. We got the box instead of the stick because we wanted to have a more reliable, faster wired connection to our internet. At first I was sad to read on other reviews that the voice control doesn't work on any of the apps, but honestly I've never even used it once since getting it and once you sign into everything, there's not much need of typing to find your shows on other apps so I really don't miss it at all. If you just want this to watch prime tv included in your amazon subscription then you can stop here, the rest is about what apps we use (and pay for) to watch our shows. I will list what apps we have found useful and what we found we could do without.
I did the math before purchasing this, and even after paying the monthly subscriptions for ALL the apps we'd need to watch our favorite shows, we'd still be saving around $1000 per year! And now after using this for a couple weeks, it will be even more of a savings than I thought because we don't need to pay for Sling tv. The channels we'd mostly watch from sling have their own apps (A&E and History) where you can watch their shows for free with little to no commercials at all. On the Sling tv app you are forced to watch commercials, it has no fast forwarding or recording. We tried watching one show and there was 12 commercials in one of 4 or 5 commercial breaks. After using tivo for so many years, we couldn't handle it. So now, here are the apps we DO pay for and find useful:
1. Playstation vue. (note: you do *not* need a playstation to sign up for this. I do not own one. I made my account from my computer on their website) This one is by far the most expensive monthly fee, but for us it is totally worth it for the amount of channels, content and recording capability. has a lot of our favorite channels. AMC, discovery, fox, tlc, spike, fx, nbc, bravo, the food network, just to name a few! This is by far our most used app, and you cannot get it on other devices, like a roku, which is one of the reasons why we went with the fireTV. And it was certainly the right decision for us. Once you get it set up and add your "favorite" shows, it will act as it's own dvr and records and saves your shows for 30 days after they air. Most channels you can fast forward through commercials, except for a few. Like abc, and fox. If you want to watch such channels without commercials you can do as we did and also subscribe to:
2. Hulu. Commercial free plan is great, though some shows will still have 1 commercial at the beginning and the end, but I find that acceptable. Lots of cable show selections as well as some original shows. You can get a 30 day free trial, which can also include your 30 day trial of:
3. Showtime. As stated, we signed up to this through hulu so you access it through the hulu app.
4. HBO Now. Watch your favorite hbo shows at the same time as they would air on cable.
5 & 6 History and A&E apps, both free, both work great and allow us to not have to pay for Sling. I'm sure there are other channels that have such free app offerings, but these are the ones we have personally used and found to work very well.
And of course you have access to all that amazon has to offer, and netflix if you choose to subscribe to that too! We've had no trouble with any of the listed apps or the amazon box itself, setup was easy and once you choose all the apps you want to install/subscribe to, keeping up with your favorite shows is quite easy too. Hope this helps anyone else out there looking for a lower-cost cable option!
Update: I have been informed that playstation vue is now available on roku as well. I haven't personally used it on any device besides the fire TV though so I can't speak as to how the interface and ease of using the app compares on different devices, but it's definitely still our favorite TV recording & viewing app on the fireTV. Good news for roku owners though!
Keep in mind you have to be able to plug an hdmi cord into your tv. We actually had to buy a new tv to be able to use this box but tvs are so cheap nowadays that it was still cheaper to buy a new one than to keep up with our cable bill. The savings in just the first several of months covered the cost of the tv. The interface on the fire tv is really easy to use and navigate through all the apps you wish to use and everything is kept nice and organized. We got the box instead of the stick because we wanted to have a more reliable, faster wired connection to our internet. At first I was sad to read on other reviews that the voice control doesn't work on any of the apps, but honestly I've never even used it once since getting it and once you sign into everything, there's not much need of typing to find your shows on other apps so I really don't miss it at all. If you just want this to watch prime tv included in your amazon subscription then you can stop here, the rest is about what apps we use (and pay for) to watch our shows. I will list what apps we have found useful and what we found we could do without.
I did the math before purchasing this, and even after paying the monthly subscriptions for ALL the apps we'd need to watch our favorite shows, we'd still be saving around $1000 per year! And now after using this for a couple weeks, it will be even more of a savings than I thought because we don't need to pay for Sling tv. The channels we'd mostly watch from sling have their own apps (A&E and History) where you can watch their shows for free with little to no commercials at all. On the Sling tv app you are forced to watch commercials, it has no fast forwarding or recording. We tried watching one show and there was 12 commercials in one of 4 or 5 commercial breaks. After using tivo for so many years, we couldn't handle it. So now, here are the apps we DO pay for and find useful:
1. Playstation vue. (note: you do *not* need a playstation to sign up for this. I do not own one. I made my account from my computer on their website) This one is by far the most expensive monthly fee, but for us it is totally worth it for the amount of channels, content and recording capability. has a lot of our favorite channels. AMC, discovery, fox, tlc, spike, fx, nbc, bravo, the food network, just to name a few! This is by far our most used app, and you cannot get it on other devices, like a roku, which is one of the reasons why we went with the fireTV. And it was certainly the right decision for us. Once you get it set up and add your "favorite" shows, it will act as it's own dvr and records and saves your shows for 30 days after they air. Most channels you can fast forward through commercials, except for a few. Like abc, and fox. If you want to watch such channels without commercials you can do as we did and also subscribe to:
2. Hulu. Commercial free plan is great, though some shows will still have 1 commercial at the beginning and the end, but I find that acceptable. Lots of cable show selections as well as some original shows. You can get a 30 day free trial, which can also include your 30 day trial of:
3. Showtime. As stated, we signed up to this through hulu so you access it through the hulu app.
4. HBO Now. Watch your favorite hbo shows at the same time as they would air on cable.
5 & 6 History and A&E apps, both free, both work great and allow us to not have to pay for Sling. I'm sure there are other channels that have such free app offerings, but these are the ones we have personally used and found to work very well.
And of course you have access to all that amazon has to offer, and netflix if you choose to subscribe to that too! We've had no trouble with any of the listed apps or the amazon box itself, setup was easy and once you choose all the apps you want to install/subscribe to, keeping up with your favorite shows is quite easy too. Hope this helps anyone else out there looking for a lower-cost cable option!
Update: I have been informed that playstation vue is now available on roku as well. I haven't personally used it on any device besides the fire TV though so I can't speak as to how the interface and ease of using the app compares on different devices, but it's definitely still our favorite TV recording & viewing app on the fireTV. Good news for roku owners though!
Top critical review
8 people found this helpful
Flawed and Unreliable Fire TV - It's difficult to decide which is a worse Fire TV or Customer Service.
By Syed Ali on 11/6/2015 9:23:35 PM
Flawed and Unreliable Fire TV
Well, I tried to hold myself to give a negative review about Fire TV.
First generation Fire TV gave me so much trouble from buffering, lagging, and the picture and audio that I end up returning it.
Then came the 2nd generation Fire TV so I thought let's give it a try because the description page showed too many promises and fixing the previous issues.
Well, I thought so for a while as well.
First the thing I like about new 2nd Gen Fire tv, and reason for that two stars.
1. It connects real fast to Wifi and showing really good signal strength which was choppy in previous models.
2. The buffering and lags reduced significantly and resolved that issue almost but not completely.
3. It has 4K, but I haven't tried it, but, read the issues other users have it.
Now come the issues.
1. After the great 5.1 Dolby sound disaster which everyone or every other review talked about I had another issue....Most of the Movies I played are just giving me horrible peeping sound like a fire alarm.
Called Fire Support several times and believe me it's real pain these days calling Amazon support in general. Don't want to sound rude, but no offense 8 out of 10 times the call goes to some third world country from the Philippines, to India to Vietnam to somewhere...most of the time I had to repeat myself twice for everything because honestly, they don't understand accent or English or both and after like 10 minutes of frustration I had to ask them to transfer the call to some US rep, which sometimes they do, sometimes they said they can't.
Bottom line, the support people doesn't matter US or anywhere else comes with same troubleshoot book seriously, they are so dumb and repetitive that you would commit suicide by boredom.
They will say the same words and then start troubleshoot, same drill, even though when you informed them that you already did those steps, if you said that then they will have a threat in their sleeve, sir, if you don't want to cooperate or do troubleshoot then we can't help you.
I mean seriously!!!! This is the customer service of a multi billion dollar company?
Customer rep threat customers?
So I didn't have any choice but to comply with the same BS they throw at me.
a) Poweroff the Fire TV box, take out the power cable, from both wall jack and TV.
b) Wait for 30 seconds and then connect both and restart...Bingo..I did that, sir did it resolve the sound issue.
How come switch off and switch on resolve sound issue, can't be any more lame, but I was under threat right so I did that.
c) Then comes the next step of clearing cache by going into settings, except I don't have anymore things to clear in cache because I did that some 10 times already. Of course after doing it one more time I did not resolve the issue.
d) Then comes their ultimate solution... Factory resets.
Some seriously s***.
Because it's so frustrating to do a factory reset because then I have to not only log in to my amazon, but I have to login to Netflix, Hulu, YouTube and all other applications.
But, since If I don't do meaning I am not cooperating and as per them they can't help, after doing 3 to 4 factory resets I had to do it one more time.
So here we go spend another 10 to 15 minutes of doing factory reset and login in again and then comes the same result.
Sir, I hope this resolve the issue, wait, wait, no I didn't.
Sorry to hear that, sir, I have done what I had to do, including threatening a customer as per my book and the issue hasn't resolved yet.
So What I can do is I will transfer to one of our technical support guy, wait what?
WTF! Are you kidding, I thought you are some Crappy Tech support guy, no sir, I will transfer just hold on for one minute..
Meaning you have to hold for almost 5 to 10 minutes, by this time the total call time exceed 45 Minutes already.
Good news, the ultimate tech support guys comes in and then he go through logs or whatever and asked me some 10 questions, including my name, address, email address, my grandmother name, grand father name, where they born and why they are dead already by natural causes or diseased killed them, did they fight in WWI and WWII, so after repeating all that information that ultimate tech support guy will asked me same question from the Bible they have and when I informed them that I had done this, this and this then that tech support guy put me on brief hold which last for another 5 minutes.
Then the torture start, sir, I what TV model you are connecting the Fire TV too, then I had to give that information, then when I informed him that it's basically connected to the AV receiver that's it, that's the issue, I mean seriously!
Fire TV doesn't work if its connect to AV receiver while I have Blu-ray, Roku 2 (3 years old), Nexus Player works perfectly fine with AV receiver.
Then I will be put on hold for another 5 minutes, then comes the ultimate tech support.
Sir, what model AV receiver I have, Pioneer and I also have Harmon Kardon.
Sir, I guess Fire TV doesn't work with Pioneer please connect with Harmon Kardon, I said are you joking what if I don't have the other AV receiver and also how come it was working fine few days back and now after software upgrade its not working on same receiver?
But, anyway If I don't connect to other AV receiver and don't cooperate, then I will be blamed as not supportive and they won't help me right.
So I spend another 15 minutes and bingo... The connected and same result, in fact, I put my phone just beside that speaker and he heard this horrible sound of beep instead of dialogue and he was almost apologetic about all the ordeal and he really don't have any solution now.
So, he start shooting blanks, what model of this and that and after getting TV, AV receiver, Speaker, Sofa, refrigerator, Microwave, Router, Modem and my car model, at that instant I was hoping he would tells me since I am driving Honda Pilot instead of BMW 7 series, that might be the reason my Fire TV is not working, thanks GOD he didn't.
So he put me on brief hold again, which was really 10 minutes and then he came back and start blaming hardware and all.
Then I start helping him out because it seems their ultimate tech support guy is not really technical.
I told him, it was working fine and after the latest upgrade its not working and also, I told him that while you were working on my TV, AV, Microwave model I tested by changing my Audio Settings from Dolby Plus through HDMI to Dolby and switched off it works.
But, at the same time I told him that it kills the purpose if its not work on Dolby plus settings.
So he created the ticket and told me that ultimate, the ultimate tech guy will review my case. Gave the case number.
Now today is third day did not receive any response.
And I am too afraid to call the awesome Amazon Customer service.
I will wait for a couple of more days for the resolution, even though I told them what causing the issue and their so called tech support don't have a clue.
Amazon not only needs to fix the sound issue of Fire TV, they need to improve their customer service and bring them back to US.
Else the Fire TV going back and I vow I won't buy another Amazon product again.
UPDATE (Nov 19th 2015):
First of all, I challenge all the ignorant to read the complete review before coming out and calling it rambling.
So I reduced from two stars to one star not because of Fire TV, but because of abysmal and pathetic Amazon Customer Service.
I bought the New unit 2015 2nd Generation Fire TV in Oct and on Nov 4th after their software upgrade I had the issue where Movies giving beep sound and nothing else, I gave the details to their tech support and they listened to the beep sound, still they don't figure it out, so I told them that it's not a hardware issue it's your software issue and also added that they upgrade the software to fix one thing and instead they break another thing.
But, they created the case on Nov 4th, and send the case to their Engineers, and Representative assured me that they will get back to me in 24 to 48 hours, after 4 days or 5 days I didn't get any response or call, so I called the Fire TV support again and Representative told me that the Engineers infact sent the email but, the last rep who should suppose to give me a call didn't do it, I mean seriously! She told me that last rep dropped the ball, I was like how come Amazon deal with issues with individuals, isn't that they created the case and anyone can work on the case instead of just one Rep? Because after that rep took my call, he could leave the company or take vacations? They claim they are a billion dollar company and this pathetic customer service.
Anyway, that rep asked me the questions which I already answered some 10 times, but she told me that these questions being asked by Engineer, so I gave all the answers and she was satisfied and told me that Engineer who are working on this issue can't reach customers so they reach the Customer Rep who in turn reach the customer. She assured me that she sent the email to Engineer and they usually respond in 24 to 48 hours and she will give me a call latest in 3 days, I thanked her and waited?
So after another 5 days and no response, I called Fire TV support again, gave them the case number and asked them why I didn't get any call from the last rep as she promised.
So this Rep Jamie B told me that, she should suppose to give me a call because Engineers responded to the case next day, I mean seriously I asked her the reason why I didn't get the call in spite of assurance from last rep, she said she might forget, I mean how ridiculous they become not sure, this is the height of their non-sense excuse that rep might have forgotten to follow up?
Anyway, Jamie B told me that Engineers couldn't find a solution, mind that I told them already when I switched the Audio settings and turned off Dolby I am getting sound, but as soon as I turned on Dolby settings I am getting Beep sound, so it's their software issue. Before the software upgrade it was working fine with Dolby on, still their Engineers are clueless.
Anyway, Jamie B told me that their Engineer will inspect my defective Unit, I mean seriously, it's defective because you upgrade some crappy software and firmware.
She told me that since my unit is under warranty at the time of I spoke with Jamie B, my unit is just under one month and it's still under warranty. Since its under warranty She has told me that they will replace with brand new 2nd Generation device.
Also, she told me that since I will be getting new device I should pack everything, including Fire TV in the original box and drop at UPS at the earliest so that it reach the Amazon Lab in Sunnyvale, CA.
I told Jamie B that they will definitely send me the brand new Device because I don't want to replace my brand new device with some crappy refurbished 1st generation device, she told me that she is processing the request and she put the request as we are speaking.
As per the phone instructions and instructions sent to me over email with shipping labels.I print the label, neatly packed everyhthig including power adapter, remote, batteries and Fire TV box in the original box and a drop at UPS.
After three days ordered came in.
Lou and behold, when I opened the bubble, yellow parcel I couldn't believe my eyes... all I found was a small black box and inside it was a single refurbished 1st generation crappy Fire TV Box?
I mean seriously, I couldn't believe no power adapter, no remote, just the refurbished Fire TV BOX?
I immediately called the Fire TV support and talked to their manager and after putting me on hold for like 20 minutes he came back and apologized me that as per their policy they can replace with new or bloody refurbished device, I said Jamie B promised me and it was under warranty?
He then placed me on hold for another 10 minutes and came back and told me the same thing, he can't do anything as I already got the refurbished device, I said what do you mean by he can't do anything? He said he is sorry there migth be some mistake from Amazon rep who wrongly promised new device, I said what the heck, if its amazon customer rep mistake then you should take the blame and recrtify it and send me the new device, he put me on hold again and after 5 minutes he came back with more bulls*** and told me that they rightly replaced my device with refurbished device because its out of warranty, at this point I lose my cool, I said go and have a look, when the order was created and when I talked to Jamie B it was under warranty, you guys process the reuqest after 3 to 4 days and its your mistake.
He said he can't do anything, I said what the heck I am gonna do with this crappy device, you asked me to send power adapter and remote and battery and replaced with crappy refurbished box, how I am going to plug in.
At that point the representative said Sorry and disconnect the call after more than 50 minutes.
I am sorry to say, but this is the most bulls*** customer rep and customer service I ever come across.
So after 15 minutes I called again this time it connects to somewhere else and then it took me 15 minutes to repeat my story.
So I was put on hold again for 5 minutes three to four times and finally the manager came, that lady told me that she can't do anything and I was kind of fed up hearing the same s*** again and again that they can't do anything.
If they wanted to replace with this s***ty refurbished device, then why the hell, they asked me to send all the accessories?
After telling her that I can't plug in the device she put me on hold for 10 minutes and then told me that she will try to give some money so that I can shop for accessories like power adapter and remote and batteries.
At that point I said " You know what just shove this fire tv box where ever it fits" and give me my money, I don't need your bulls*** Fire TV box and I will not go to use another Fire TV again.
I challenge Amazon or anyone who needs my case number I will provide it. I am going to put everyting on online blog because I have been lied by Aamzon representative and its fraud pure and simple.
Well, I tried to hold myself to give a negative review about Fire TV.
First generation Fire TV gave me so much trouble from buffering, lagging, and the picture and audio that I end up returning it.
Then came the 2nd generation Fire TV so I thought let's give it a try because the description page showed too many promises and fixing the previous issues.
Well, I thought so for a while as well.
First the thing I like about new 2nd Gen Fire tv, and reason for that two stars.
1. It connects real fast to Wifi and showing really good signal strength which was choppy in previous models.
2. The buffering and lags reduced significantly and resolved that issue almost but not completely.
3. It has 4K, but I haven't tried it, but, read the issues other users have it.
Now come the issues.
1. After the great 5.1 Dolby sound disaster which everyone or every other review talked about I had another issue....Most of the Movies I played are just giving me horrible peeping sound like a fire alarm.
Called Fire Support several times and believe me it's real pain these days calling Amazon support in general. Don't want to sound rude, but no offense 8 out of 10 times the call goes to some third world country from the Philippines, to India to Vietnam to somewhere...most of the time I had to repeat myself twice for everything because honestly, they don't understand accent or English or both and after like 10 minutes of frustration I had to ask them to transfer the call to some US rep, which sometimes they do, sometimes they said they can't.
Bottom line, the support people doesn't matter US or anywhere else comes with same troubleshoot book seriously, they are so dumb and repetitive that you would commit suicide by boredom.
They will say the same words and then start troubleshoot, same drill, even though when you informed them that you already did those steps, if you said that then they will have a threat in their sleeve, sir, if you don't want to cooperate or do troubleshoot then we can't help you.
I mean seriously!!!! This is the customer service of a multi billion dollar company?
Customer rep threat customers?
So I didn't have any choice but to comply with the same BS they throw at me.
a) Poweroff the Fire TV box, take out the power cable, from both wall jack and TV.
b) Wait for 30 seconds and then connect both and restart...Bingo..I did that, sir did it resolve the sound issue.
How come switch off and switch on resolve sound issue, can't be any more lame, but I was under threat right so I did that.
c) Then comes the next step of clearing cache by going into settings, except I don't have anymore things to clear in cache because I did that some 10 times already. Of course after doing it one more time I did not resolve the issue.
d) Then comes their ultimate solution... Factory resets.
Some seriously s***.
Because it's so frustrating to do a factory reset because then I have to not only log in to my amazon, but I have to login to Netflix, Hulu, YouTube and all other applications.
But, since If I don't do meaning I am not cooperating and as per them they can't help, after doing 3 to 4 factory resets I had to do it one more time.
So here we go spend another 10 to 15 minutes of doing factory reset and login in again and then comes the same result.
Sir, I hope this resolve the issue, wait, wait, no I didn't.
Sorry to hear that, sir, I have done what I had to do, including threatening a customer as per my book and the issue hasn't resolved yet.
So What I can do is I will transfer to one of our technical support guy, wait what?
WTF! Are you kidding, I thought you are some Crappy Tech support guy, no sir, I will transfer just hold on for one minute..
Meaning you have to hold for almost 5 to 10 minutes, by this time the total call time exceed 45 Minutes already.
Good news, the ultimate tech support guys comes in and then he go through logs or whatever and asked me some 10 questions, including my name, address, email address, my grandmother name, grand father name, where they born and why they are dead already by natural causes or diseased killed them, did they fight in WWI and WWII, so after repeating all that information that ultimate tech support guy will asked me same question from the Bible they have and when I informed them that I had done this, this and this then that tech support guy put me on brief hold which last for another 5 minutes.
Then the torture start, sir, I what TV model you are connecting the Fire TV too, then I had to give that information, then when I informed him that it's basically connected to the AV receiver that's it, that's the issue, I mean seriously!
Fire TV doesn't work if its connect to AV receiver while I have Blu-ray, Roku 2 (3 years old), Nexus Player works perfectly fine with AV receiver.
Then I will be put on hold for another 5 minutes, then comes the ultimate tech support.
Sir, what model AV receiver I have, Pioneer and I also have Harmon Kardon.
Sir, I guess Fire TV doesn't work with Pioneer please connect with Harmon Kardon, I said are you joking what if I don't have the other AV receiver and also how come it was working fine few days back and now after software upgrade its not working on same receiver?
But, anyway If I don't connect to other AV receiver and don't cooperate, then I will be blamed as not supportive and they won't help me right.
So I spend another 15 minutes and bingo... The connected and same result, in fact, I put my phone just beside that speaker and he heard this horrible sound of beep instead of dialogue and he was almost apologetic about all the ordeal and he really don't have any solution now.
So, he start shooting blanks, what model of this and that and after getting TV, AV receiver, Speaker, Sofa, refrigerator, Microwave, Router, Modem and my car model, at that instant I was hoping he would tells me since I am driving Honda Pilot instead of BMW 7 series, that might be the reason my Fire TV is not working, thanks GOD he didn't.
So he put me on brief hold again, which was really 10 minutes and then he came back and start blaming hardware and all.
Then I start helping him out because it seems their ultimate tech support guy is not really technical.
I told him, it was working fine and after the latest upgrade its not working and also, I told him that while you were working on my TV, AV, Microwave model I tested by changing my Audio Settings from Dolby Plus through HDMI to Dolby and switched off it works.
But, at the same time I told him that it kills the purpose if its not work on Dolby plus settings.
So he created the ticket and told me that ultimate, the ultimate tech guy will review my case. Gave the case number.
Now today is third day did not receive any response.
And I am too afraid to call the awesome Amazon Customer service.
I will wait for a couple of more days for the resolution, even though I told them what causing the issue and their so called tech support don't have a clue.
Amazon not only needs to fix the sound issue of Fire TV, they need to improve their customer service and bring them back to US.
Else the Fire TV going back and I vow I won't buy another Amazon product again.
UPDATE (Nov 19th 2015):
First of all, I challenge all the ignorant to read the complete review before coming out and calling it rambling.
So I reduced from two stars to one star not because of Fire TV, but because of abysmal and pathetic Amazon Customer Service.
I bought the New unit 2015 2nd Generation Fire TV in Oct and on Nov 4th after their software upgrade I had the issue where Movies giving beep sound and nothing else, I gave the details to their tech support and they listened to the beep sound, still they don't figure it out, so I told them that it's not a hardware issue it's your software issue and also added that they upgrade the software to fix one thing and instead they break another thing.
But, they created the case on Nov 4th, and send the case to their Engineers, and Representative assured me that they will get back to me in 24 to 48 hours, after 4 days or 5 days I didn't get any response or call, so I called the Fire TV support again and Representative told me that the Engineers infact sent the email but, the last rep who should suppose to give me a call didn't do it, I mean seriously! She told me that last rep dropped the ball, I was like how come Amazon deal with issues with individuals, isn't that they created the case and anyone can work on the case instead of just one Rep? Because after that rep took my call, he could leave the company or take vacations? They claim they are a billion dollar company and this pathetic customer service.
Anyway, that rep asked me the questions which I already answered some 10 times, but she told me that these questions being asked by Engineer, so I gave all the answers and she was satisfied and told me that Engineer who are working on this issue can't reach customers so they reach the Customer Rep who in turn reach the customer. She assured me that she sent the email to Engineer and they usually respond in 24 to 48 hours and she will give me a call latest in 3 days, I thanked her and waited?
So after another 5 days and no response, I called Fire TV support again, gave them the case number and asked them why I didn't get any call from the last rep as she promised.
So this Rep Jamie B told me that, she should suppose to give me a call because Engineers responded to the case next day, I mean seriously I asked her the reason why I didn't get the call in spite of assurance from last rep, she said she might forget, I mean how ridiculous they become not sure, this is the height of their non-sense excuse that rep might have forgotten to follow up?
Anyway, Jamie B told me that Engineers couldn't find a solution, mind that I told them already when I switched the Audio settings and turned off Dolby I am getting sound, but as soon as I turned on Dolby settings I am getting Beep sound, so it's their software issue. Before the software upgrade it was working fine with Dolby on, still their Engineers are clueless.
Anyway, Jamie B told me that their Engineer will inspect my defective Unit, I mean seriously, it's defective because you upgrade some crappy software and firmware.
She told me that since my unit is under warranty at the time of I spoke with Jamie B, my unit is just under one month and it's still under warranty. Since its under warranty She has told me that they will replace with brand new 2nd Generation device.
Also, she told me that since I will be getting new device I should pack everything, including Fire TV in the original box and drop at UPS at the earliest so that it reach the Amazon Lab in Sunnyvale, CA.
I told Jamie B that they will definitely send me the brand new Device because I don't want to replace my brand new device with some crappy refurbished 1st generation device, she told me that she is processing the request and she put the request as we are speaking.
As per the phone instructions and instructions sent to me over email with shipping labels.I print the label, neatly packed everyhthig including power adapter, remote, batteries and Fire TV box in the original box and a drop at UPS.
After three days ordered came in.
Lou and behold, when I opened the bubble, yellow parcel I couldn't believe my eyes... all I found was a small black box and inside it was a single refurbished 1st generation crappy Fire TV Box?
I mean seriously, I couldn't believe no power adapter, no remote, just the refurbished Fire TV BOX?
I immediately called the Fire TV support and talked to their manager and after putting me on hold for like 20 minutes he came back and apologized me that as per their policy they can replace with new or bloody refurbished device, I said Jamie B promised me and it was under warranty?
He then placed me on hold for another 10 minutes and came back and told me the same thing, he can't do anything as I already got the refurbished device, I said what do you mean by he can't do anything? He said he is sorry there migth be some mistake from Amazon rep who wrongly promised new device, I said what the heck, if its amazon customer rep mistake then you should take the blame and recrtify it and send me the new device, he put me on hold again and after 5 minutes he came back with more bulls*** and told me that they rightly replaced my device with refurbished device because its out of warranty, at this point I lose my cool, I said go and have a look, when the order was created and when I talked to Jamie B it was under warranty, you guys process the reuqest after 3 to 4 days and its your mistake.
He said he can't do anything, I said what the heck I am gonna do with this crappy device, you asked me to send power adapter and remote and battery and replaced with crappy refurbished box, how I am going to plug in.
At that point the representative said Sorry and disconnect the call after more than 50 minutes.
I am sorry to say, but this is the most bulls*** customer rep and customer service I ever come across.
So after 15 minutes I called again this time it connects to somewhere else and then it took me 15 minutes to repeat my story.
So I was put on hold again for 5 minutes three to four times and finally the manager came, that lady told me that she can't do anything and I was kind of fed up hearing the same s*** again and again that they can't do anything.
If they wanted to replace with this s***ty refurbished device, then why the hell, they asked me to send all the accessories?
After telling her that I can't plug in the device she put me on hold for 10 minutes and then told me that she will try to give some money so that I can shop for accessories like power adapter and remote and batteries.
At that point I said " You know what just shove this fire tv box where ever it fits" and give me my money, I don't need your bulls*** Fire TV box and I will not go to use another Fire TV again.
I challenge Amazon or anyone who needs my case number I will provide it. I am going to put everyting on online blog because I have been lied by Aamzon representative and its fraud pure and simple.
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