NETGEAR Nighthawk Multi-Gig Speed Cable Modem

Ordered this modem to upgrade my cable internet speed to gigabit service. When I attempted to activate it, I was unable to using the automated service for my ISP, so I called them, and after an excruciating hour and a half I was told that my modem has the same MAC Address as another modem already in service with them. I checked the actual MAC address by logging into the device to verify that it was indeed the same as the sticker on the outside of the device. Then I called Netgear Support, as was suggested by the scant literature in the box. Let me tell you about the garbage that is Netgear customer service. It is every bad customer service stereotype and meme all rolled up into one big dumpster fire. I am far beyond what you would call an average ability tech user. I have no problems operating from command line, deploying server environments, operating in any OS, troubleshooting my own issues. The first thing Netgear tried to do was to pass the responsibility back to the retailer, because apparently, issuing multiple modems, with the same MAC address is their fault. They wanted me to return it to the retailer so some other poor schmuck could get stuck with the same problem as me when it gets resold. I told the customer service rep this was unacceptable, for the aforementioned reasons, and that it was on Netgear to fix this. This was very difficult to impress upon her, her English comprehension was, to put it extremely generously, mediocre. She was also extremely difficult to understand. After finally getting them to agree to replace it, she wants to get an image of the receipt from me. This is no problem for me. As she is trying get me to upload the image of the receipt, she insists on me logging into their support portal on their site. Ok, this is also no problem. In creating the account she instructs me to put my email as username, and use my email password. Not ok Netgear. You shouldn't be phishing people's email passwords. You can't even understand the concept of a MAC address needing to be unique, I definitely don't trust you with my email password. Someone less knowledgeable would follow those instructions and inevitably be compromised when your username/pw database gets leaked. After finally setting up the account, apparently when she created the ticket she misspelled my email, even though i had spelled it for her multiple times, so she put me on hold for the 5th or 6th time while she had to go run to her supervisor AGAIN to figure out how to change that, except she must have annoyed him too much. so instead of coming back and letting me know they would call back when they had it sorted, she just hung up on me after waiting on hold for an hour. When I called back after giving her a 15 minutes to call, I reached some call center in a dark corner of India where I could barely understand the broken english of the operator through the static on the line. I was put on hold again for another hour, I hung up this time because it seemed like no one was going to answer and a hour on hold again reached the limits of my patience. Then some dude, again somewhere in India thought it was a good idea to call ME at 9:30 PM. Really? I was already in bed to get ready for the 3:00AM start to my work day. But no, by all means person I can barely understand and will probably be too incompetent to help me, please waste my time now. NEVER EVER EVER BUY ANYTHING FROM NETGEAR. It will break, It's cheap garbage, and their support is one of the deeper levels of hell. No even really speaks English there, let alone has a clue what they are doing.