Dead dial-up modem, HP tech support in India refuses to honor warranty [ Edited ]

[xanifred]

I heve never in my life encounterd such pathetically inept technical support.

I repair computers of a living. A customer asked me to troubleshoot his HP Pavilion vm220ua laptop, because the dial-up modem stopped connecting. I ran some diagnostics and confirmed that the modem is physically trashed and needs replacement. He asked me to call HP for him, and that's where the fun began.

I told them the modem was dead. I let them listen to the horrible static which is all the modem will produce instead of standard dialing sounds. I told them every single thing I had done to try to resolve the problem, which includes:

- querying the modem,

- testing the phone line,

- uninstalling and re-installing the modem driver,

- downloading and installing the latest friver from HP,

- completely wiping the primary partition and re-installing windows from the recovery partition.

And what did they say? "We will need to troubleshoot the promlem, sir. Will you please remove the hard drive?"

At this point I asked for a supervisor. I was told that it is impossible to speak to a supervisor.

This is not customer service. It is CYA from HP.

So.

[text removed]

[Huffer]

I don't think enough people even use a modem to allow for a class action about defective modems. Look, the Customer Service people have a job to do. I suggest you just let them do it. Why would you refuse to remove the hard drive? No matter what they ask you to do at the end of the day the modem is dead and they will honor the warranty. Just play along. What do you have to lose?

We do not work for HP, by the way.