terrible customer service

[militarymom]

Our military son purchased a HP laptop prior to being sent overseas.  As soon as he got there, some water spillage occurred with the laptop.  HP told him to send back to states and we were send it in.  Followed their guidelines, and sent computer to HP along with credit card number to cover repairs.  Received laptop back 1 1/2 weeks later not repaired.  Form in box said that we refused to cover costs.  Talked to case manager who said he would take care of everything, promised it would be free and repaired quickly.  Sent it back in.  It is now 3 months that HP has had the computer and now say it is not economical to repair.  They won't replace it or repair it.  They told us to buy another one.  Our son is still paying for the laptop as it was over $3000.00.  He wanted a webcam so he could see the family.  HP made promises and now refuse to honor those promises.  Think long and hard before purchasing anything from this company.

[Pizza-the-Hutt]

I bought an extended warranty a few days before the original warranty expired. A month later, the computer started to not work properly and need repair. I called HP, and it took me literally 15 phonecalls and about 4 hours to connect with someone who could help. Once I connected, they said I had no warranty. I told them the agreement number and they said they'd fix the fact that their computer said I had no warranty, and it'll take 6 hours to fix. I called back after a few days, and it wasn't fixed. So this person said they'd fix that discrepancy, and it'll take a few hours to fix. I called back a few days later and this person said I had no warranty. The fourth person elevated the problem to a case manager and then we were actually able to discuss my tech problems. I had to do a complete restore, so goodbye baby pictures . I asked that I be refunded for the extended warranty that I was unable to use. The terse case manager said that that wasn't going to happen, because it has been more that 15 days. But I didn't know I had a warranty issue until a month or so after this period had expired. So now I have a 2 year warranty (maybe) that ensures that for the next 2 years, I'll have a occasional but steady source of frustration, from an inept tech support system, for a computer that I don't really want to use anymore, after what I've lost because of it (irreplaceable baby pictures). I was hopeful that the case being elevated to a case manager would be a good thing. It was the worst part of my experience, because of how authoritative and rude they were. At HP, this customer is always wrong, frustrated and unhappy, with a strong sense of buyers remorse.

[adam_carlson]

I hate to be the one to have to say it, but outsourceing it's whole customer service/tech support dept. to a foreign country was a bad move for hp's customer service.(at least for all i can tell, over 15hrs. total on phone w tech n cust. support, all w/ the same heavy accented english that i found it difficult, if not immpossible to understand).  that plus the fact that the "helpful" csr is speaking from somewhere in india, while the item thats service order you are inquiring about is in a repair facility in california.  obvious problem there.  BTW. had a very similar issue to original poster.  after three hours asking say that again please on the phone with tech support, it was determined that my laptop needed to be sent in for repairs.  I was told warranty covers all of it, at first i was impressed, they even sent empty pre-paid shipping materials to my home.  when it finally got the rapair shop and was examined and logged into their system, I tracked it online only to see a $430 price tag at the bottom of my service order file.  tried deciphering the summary page but it was just way too vague, almost purposly so!  called customer support and again after many many repeats, i finally figured out the lady was just telling me the same vague stuff from the online summary!    that was earlier thismorning.  I've sent a detailed e-mail to the HP customer support center kindly requesting an itemized list of all components in need of replacement or repair, both those still covered underthe warranty and those that "appearently" have aged faster.  I said i'm sorry but there is no way i'm gonna just approve the work and pay that kinda cash without being given a clear enough picture of the damage and an explaination of why certain components are "out of warranty" so i can tell if i'm getting a decent deal or being screwed!  thats just rediculous!!

[adam_carlson]

update, after recieving a response to my original e-mail inquiry stating that the issue was being moved up to corperate case management i figured, "time to get my ducks in a row."  and I set the following response with instuctions to forward this response with the rest of the entire string to CCM along with my case information:

(it's long and wordy I know, but if you have had similar issues w broken promises of free repair from hp please rd. n repost)

thank you for such a speedy response to my inquiry, I was worried it might be misread or misunderstood since i had to fill the three different text fields in in continuous order like that.
it seems you have grasped the root of the problem, that iwas told the ENTIRE cost of repair down to the shipping was covered under warranty before I sent my dv4-2145dx notebook to your repair facility. as a matter of fact, unless I am terribly mistaken(and i'm sure someone at hp can check into this if they wanted/needed to what with quality control recording and all that), the tech who initially tried to walk me through all the troobleshooting before deciding repairs were in order, he definately repeted the claim that it was ALL covered at a cost of $0 to me many times. but then he told me that he was gonna transfer me to his supervisor to get all my information and THEY also told me the same thing.
when the pre-paid shipping materials arrived, and in a very timely fashion, I was still impressed, especially when i discovered that the cost of fedex pickup was included. Imagine my suprise this morning when i logged on to track my service order and found a rather large price tag attached to it, along with a summary so vague it almost seemed purposly so.This notion was supported by the fact that when i called customer support to inquire about the charges the csr, although I could tell she was trying to be as helpfull as possible, seemed only capable of telling me the same sketchy information i'd alreadyread on the online tracking page. (honestly, i could only understand her at great difficulty and after many awkward requests for her to please repete herself. this isn't her fault at all, it's just an unavoidable occurance when callcenters are outsourced across the globe from the inquiring demographic. I think hp's tech support has some of the most talented and dedicated technical assistants I have ever worked with, but they too are quite hard to understand witout much repitition.)
thats when i decided to send my original e-mail, just to get some clarification on what, exactly is going on. IF the entire cost of repairs won't be covered by hp, then I would appreciate an itemized list of all the faulty components that need repairs or replacement including information about which ones are covered under warranty and which are not, furthermore i would appreciate it greatly if notes would be attached explaining in at least short detail, why the uncovered components fall out of warrnty. I'm sure you can understand that it would simply be rediculous for me to just say, ok, i agree to pay for that without knowing what i'm paying for or why. I'm just as sure that you can see why i could be a little upset to find out that i have to pay anything at all.afterall, i was told prior to sending the unit out that there would be no cost to me. had i known i'd be footing the bill (and i'm still not clear on wether i am expected to pay all or just a portion of repair costs) i might have wanted to excercise my option to have it repaired locally.
All that aside though, since this morning I have dug out and read through the warranty information i recieved with the purchase of this notebook and i undertand hp's side of this and their concerns, legally speaking. It is not an all-inclusive, no questions asked policy. I get it, most basic warranties have provisions written in to prevent the warranting company from having to pay for more than defects in their own equipment. (i only assume that's the case heresince like i said, the only clear thing is that as of now i'm expected to pay $430) however, if your company has people working in customer or tech support who are trained to tell the customer that their warranty covers all the costs of repairs and shipping, when in reality hp re-examines the product after it has already been shipped across the country under the belief that no cost will be incured by the customer then there is a BIG problem there!! I spent a brief amount of time perusing the message boards on hp's customer support page to find out that this isn't an uncommon occurance. If customer support leads the customer to believe that under warranty their repairs are going to be free by shipping out the product, and the customer has not been notified otherwise until after the product has been shipped out by them, then I feel it's the responsible thing for the company to do to honor the promise made that customer. that, and maybe look into a little call center training on not issuing pomises that the company doesn't know it should be making good on. I can only assume the problem here is a case of one hand not knowing what the other is doing, so to speak, because otherwise I've always been very pleased with hp's products, technical support, and other than the issue of understandability, their customer support also.
again, thank you for taking the time to listen to my concerns and requests, and please forward this e-mail response along with the original to Corperate Case Management.

again, thank you for taking the initiative to forwad this issue and these coorespondance to an appropriate branch of your fine company, I'm sure once someone who is authorized to fully look into this is made aware of the problem steps will be taken to sort itout. If not in my particular case then at least in the future.

sincerely,
adam m. carlson

[adam_carlson]

PIZZA THE HUT! FIRST OFF, LOVE THE HANDLE.

NOW, I HAVE COPIED TWO LINES FROM YOUR POST, THE ONE I AM REPLYING ON, TO USE IN ONE OF THE MANY LETTERS AND/OR E-MAILS I SEND TO HP'S VARIOUS CORPERATE BRANCHES AND MANAGERS. THIS IS PART OF MY CAMPAIGN TO MAKE THE TERRBLE, TERRIBLE PROBLEMS WITH CUSTOMER SERVICE AND WARRANTY HONORING UNIGNORABLE TO UPPER CORPERATE HP OFFICIALS.

I WOULD LIKE YOUR PERMISSION B4 USING, YOU WILL BE CITED AS THE AUTHOR OF THOSE LINES (BY MSG BOARD HANDLE OF COURSE ) UNLESS YOU WOULD PREFER DIFFERENT.

THANK YOU

~ADAM_CARLSON