[BC] Poor customer support

[Steve Lewis]

I've bought HP exlusively since early 2000's.  My first was a floor demo
from CompUSA.  Works just fine even after all the surgeries.

My second one also perfect.

I bought a refurb mini desktop machine from Costco - also a wise choice.

Then I picked up a laptop (a former floor demo).  It had been on the floor
for several months.  I registered it when I bought it but the 'foreiners' in
customer support would not recognize MY purchase date.  A couple of months
in, the keyboard quit working.  I walked around with an external keyboard to
overcome this problem and the 'foreigners' had me try all sorts of
ridiculous things to get it to work.  None did.  Since it came with Vista I
eventually got around to installing XP.  When Vista's first service pack
came ut, I needed Vista on the machine but the recovery partition was no
longer available, so I had to buy a new OS disk from HP.

Long story short:  I won't ever buy another HP laptop again and I may go
back to building my own desktop systems.  If you look on the motherboard of
an HP laptop, you'll find that it is nothing more than a board you can buy
mailorder.

-----O'rig Msg-----

I had a DOG of a Compaq laptop-paid over $1000.00 for it-in advance (a
custom
build from Office Depot)-and it went back three times.  First time the
keyboard failed. They had it three weeks. Then the motherboard failed. Back
again for two more weeks. Then colored lines started appearing on the
display.

They tried to get out of this one, claiming that the warranty had expired a
week
before. I SCREAMED at a supervisor, because I felt that the 5 weeks it was
at
HP being fixed before should NOT count against the warranty. She relented.
It
was gone for four more weeks. A month after it was back, the lines appeared 
on the display again. They refused to do ANYTHING-(except offer to sell me a

new display for 400 bucks) so disgusted I decided to use it as is. Three
weeks

later it froze up-and when I powered it down it would not reboot-the
REPLACEMENT 
motherboard had died!

I called HP and was told: "Too bad"! Angry, I registered the domain
CompaqHPsucks.com-and then called my friend who did a network computer show.
He agreed to air my story if I couldn't get HP to do anything. It turns out
the only way you can email anyone from the corporate HP web site is to their
media department. I emailed them telling them my story and then telling them
I
was making my web site, and planned to go on my friend's show to tell the
world how poorly HP/Compaq had treated me. I also reminded then this was the
beginning of November and many would be listening to my friend's show to
assist them with their holiday buying.

ONE HOUR LATER, HP called me back! After hearing my story, the VP
IMMEDIATELY
told me that I would be getting a brand new laptop. His direct quote:
"Though
our phone reps. are instructed to not give away the candy store-they should
have seen your computer for the dog it was and replaced it".

The laptop they sent me was FAR better then the one I had, and still works
great four years later. I use it almost every day. All I've ever had to do
with it is replace the keyboard (and that was within the past 2 months-the
old
one wore out). I bought one on ebay for 20 dollars shipped.

So how would you rate the service I got from them? Ultimately it was
great-but
I would also consider the tooth pulling I did is a hassle-and also I'm sure
the general public doesn't know any computer network radio hosts!

By the way, I still own the domain-and will entertain offers for purchase
(lol).