Complaints

The complaint text that is displayed might not represent all complaints filed with BBB. Some consumers may elect to not publish the details of their complaints, some complaints may not meet BBB's standards for publication, or BBB may display a portion of complaints when a high volume is received for a particular business.

• Initial Complaint

  Date:09/13/2023

  Type:Service or Repair Issues
  Status:

  AnsweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  The product we purchased has never worked. It started with a bad QR code which wasted several weeks of back and forth emails b/c they refused to see the issue was on their end. Once we got past that, it still didn't work and now it's too late to return it. We have wasted countless hours emailing back and forth with them to try to get it work - it won't. They "cannot" call us and walk us through it; they just keep sending the same useless instructions via email. We've disputed it with the credit card company but that hasn't helped. We just want to send this product THAT HAS NEVER WORKED back and get our money back.

  Business Response

  Date: 09/25/2023

  The customer already got the return on 9/13/2023. Here is the logs of the communication with our system

  
  ***************************
  
  Sep 13 10:00
  To:
  Firewalla
  Show more
  Thank you, I appreciate it. I withdrew the dispute and will close the BBB case as well.  We will send it back ASAP.  
  
  
  
  
  
  Customer Success
  Assign
  
  
  
  Sep 13 10:23
  
  Hi *******,
   
  I am so glad to hear that, thank you again for being willing to resolve things with us!
   
  Please feel free to share the tracking for the return, so we can closely monitor it as it makes its way back.
  
  
  Customer Success
  Assign
  
  
  
  Sep 18 17:38
  
  Hello there, we have received your return for order Firewalla-64129 and you have been refunded. You can expect to receive an email about it soon.
   
  Thanks for sending the item back!

• Initial Complaint

  Date:08/31/2023

  Type:Service or Repair Issues
  Status:

  AnsweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  Firewalla sells consumer-size firewall protection for home and small business networks. The device cost about 175 dollars and connects to the home network. A ** code on placed on the device is used to pair the device to your phone via a mobile application. That application allows you to monitor activity on your home network. During a recent app software update, my device became unpaired from the mobile application. Upon trying to re pair the device to the mobile app, I found that the ** code had faded and I could not reconnect the device. I contacted ******************** and was told that it could cost ***** generate ** code. This is about 1/3 the cost to replace the device itself. The idea that an engineer re-generating a code is going to cost the company 1/3 of the price to replace the device entirely is not realistic and borderlines on extortion, because the device is basically in operatable without the connection to the mobile app.

  Business Response

  Date: 08/31/2023

  Firewalla ** license code is unique to each ******************** Box. It is up to the customer to keep it in a good shape. In case if something happen to the ** code within the 1 year warranty period, Firewalla Support should be able to recover / or generate a new ** code at no cost to the customer. The customer can send ******************************* an email to open a case. If this happens outside of the warranty period, Firewalla support will charge a fee (labor cost) to search / recover or regenerate a new ** license code for the customer. 

• Initial Complaint

  Date:12/10/2022

  Type:Product Issues
  Status:

  ResolvedMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  I purchased a Firewalla Purple on Mon, Sep 26, 11:39 AM and received it on October 1, 2022. I had been using this product for less than 2 months when the unit started degrading the wifi speeds in my home. I am on a 1GB ******************** and was getting ***** MBPs via Wifi with the unit connected. I went ahead, restarted the unit, reset the unit, reconfigured the unit etc etc. I spent hours reading their Firewalla's articles but was still getting the same degraded Wifi speeds throughout my home network. The minute that I would disconnect the unit I was getting ******* MBPs speeds which it what I should be getting. I contacted Firewalla's support team via email as they have NO PHONE SUPPORT on December 4th. They offered solutions that I had already gone through from reading their Help Pages. Their final solution was to allow them access to my home network so they could "look" at the device. I was unwilling to do that for obvious reasons. I am not granting access to a third party company especially to a network where I have sensitive materials stored - absolutely not going to happen. I had my brother in law who is an IT VP for Yahoo look at the device and attempt to troubleshoot it as well - he though that the unit either severely underperforms and not designed to handle a smart home network or something "went bad" with it as it was performing fine for almost 2 months. I asked Firewalla to return the unit for a refund as I no longer had faith in this product and they refused. They didn't even offer to cover the unit under warranty and replace it which they should because the unit does have a 1-year's manufacturer warranty but the fact that they have no phone support means to me that they are hiding and don't want to deal with unhappy customers or customers that experience issues. All I want is to return the unit for a refund - it just doesn't work the way it's supposed to and is definitely not working the way that it did before.

  Business Response

  Date: 12/12/2022

  ***Document Attached***
  Hi
  
  I have found the customer's case in our system. What I know is, the customer bought the product 9/26/2022 and started interactions with our support team in early December. We generally do not allow returns after 60 days of purchase.
  
  I've attached the customer's case log. Which we offered to look at the unit and also to have him send the unit in for repairs if he doesn't allow us to look at it remotely. (We did offer otherways to get to the unit as well)
  
  
  See Attachment/File: *****.pdf

  Business Response

  Date: 12/12/2022

  Contact Name and Title: Firewalla support
  Contact Email: *******************************
  Sorry about the problem. Usually we will ask our customers for "support" access to decide if the issue is with hardware, or related to the configuration of the network where a firewalla product is deployed in. This step is before we get the unit back for warranty services, and the reason we are doing this is to avoid unnecessary down time to the customer's network (by doing remote diagnostics). If the customer decided not to allow the "remote access" (diagnostics), we usually will ask the customer to send the unit back (unless we determined it is a configuration issue by the customer, then we will ask the customer to try a new configuration). All of our units have a 1 year warranty period. The best way to resolve this is to send ******************************* an email. If the case is not resolved, please ask the support engineer to esclate the case.

  Customer Answer

  Date: 12/12/2022

  (The consumer indicated he/she DID NOT accept the response from the business.)
  I have already been going back and forth with your support team for well over a week. I am not interested anymore. I want to send the unit back and receive a refund. The unit worked and now does not work. I have a very firm understanding in IT and have configured plenty of networks in my lifetime. I have also had my brother in law who is a VP in IT at Yahoo take a look at this. The unit functioned well for less than 2 months and now does not function properly and degrades wifi by close to 90%. All I want is an RMA and to receive a refund for this unit - that's it. If you can honor that then great - please provide an RMA with return shipping instructions and guarantee that I will receive a full refund once the item is returned to you - super simple!

  Customer Answer

  Date: 12/19/2022

  I have received a full refund from Firewalla and as far as I am concerned this matter is now resolved