An open letter of dissatisfaction...

[UpsetCustomer12]

To whom it may concern,

      I am writing this letter to you to describe my recent experience with your service and support.  I have been using HP products all my life, my company uses HP products and my family uses HP products.  I recently had the monitor on my laptop fail and “whitewash”.  I spoke to a service representative who took me through some troubleshooting to verify that it wasn’t an intermittent problem.  After going through this routine it was determined that there was an issue with the motherboard.  I have to tell you that I was not surprised because I did my own research on it before calling and found out that this was a design issue with the model of laptop that I had purchased.  I was asked to send it in for repair under warranty and was told that it would take about a week to get the repairs done.  I received the box to ship it a few days later and packaged the laptop following the instructions provided with no visible damage.

      A few days later I received an email stating that your company needed to speak to me about the laptop. I call the following day and was told that there was damage to the monitor and that it would cost me about $380 to repair it.  This shocked me because I didn’t remember any damage to the LCD before I sent it out but thought that there may have been a small crack in it that I didn’t see.  I requested that they send me pictures of it so I could see what I had missed.  When I received the pictures I was horrified to find that it appeared that my laptop had been dropped and that the edge of it was smashed in.  I called back in to ask what had happened to it and they told me that’s the way they got it.  They stated that the box was not damaged and that no one would have dropped it at the service center and if they did drop it they would have said that they did.  I told them that I had some identifying stickers on it and that I would like a larger picture of it so I could verify that it was actually my laptop to begin with.  They told me that they had done their part in taking the limited pictures that they took and that they would not send me anymore.  Well I hope that you can see how this began a frustrating chain of events.    

  
     I called again because I couldn’t believe that this was actually happening.  The person that I spoke to said that he was a “manager”  in his department and that I could pay to have it repaired of they would ship it back in that condition.  I asked once again to have more pictures sent to me to verify that it was actually my laptop and was once again told that he could not do that.  I asked to speak to a manager above him and he told me that I could not talk to him.  He told me that I could not talk to the service center about the laptop either.  In fact, he told me that I could not talk to anyone but him and that there were no “bosses” above that department.  Essentially I was put in a loop to nowhere.  Frustrated with this department, I attempted to call outside of this section of your company.  I first called customer support and was transferred to tech support, then to someone in customer support again, then to someone named Debbie, then to someone named Robert, then to someone named Shahana, then to someone named Vijay and finally to someone who we will call Steve.  This process took 97 minutes out of my life.  It was refreshing to talk to Steve as it seemed that he was the final person to speak to.  My conversation with him was informative in many ways.

• He told me that my laptop had been shipped to California, but he could not tell me whether or not it had gone to an actual HP repair facility or a third party provider of repairs.
• He told me that the images that I received of my laptop and the damage were taken within 24 hours of receipt, there is no other timeline information and that this is within the limit of the policies and procedures.
• He told me that about 1% of all laptops that are received are mistakenly associated or shipped to the wrong customer.  This seems like an awfully high number for a facility that is supposed to have strict procedures and guidelines in place to prevent this.  I assume that these are the same procedures and guidelines in place to prevent the damaging of customer computers at these facilities.
• He told me that HP has taken a special interest in these types of customer complaints as they have seen a dramatic increase recently and that all such cases have to be reviewed by a higher level manager.  This would explain the more than a week delay that I am to expect in hearing any sort of resolution. 
• He told me that 99.9% of these cases are put back on the customer and that they end up bearing the cost on these repairs.
• He told me that they should have taken an image of the serial number on the bottom of the laptop to go with the other images, but as of yet I have not received a copy of such an image.

     While I can only speculate on what is really going on, I would highly suggest that you place these service centers under the looking glass to see if policies are being followed or if your company and customers are being taken advantage of.  I can understand why you would look at the customer critically in this situation and in these times, but would it not be a fair assessment that when nearly 100% of the time the customer is found at fault, the repair shop really has nothing to lose or fear by passing on these erroneous charges?  This would hold especially true with third party providers.
     I would love a response either by phone or email to this as I feel that regardless of the outcome the process should be discussed.  I have been a devoted HP user and hope to continue to be, but feel as though this current situation may affect my recommendations and choices in the future.  I thank you for reading this and hope that we can come to a resolution.
Sincerely,
Jason M.

[UpsetCustomer12]

These are the pictures that I was sent of my laptop.  This damage was not there prior to shipping.  I still cant even believe that this is mine.  Maybe once I get the images of the serial number as well as a pulled back shot I will be able to validate that its really mine.

[WendyM]

Thank you for visiting the HP Support Forums. This forum is to leave feedback and suggestions directly relating to these message boards. If you have feedback for HP about their products or services, please use the link below:

http://welcome.hp.com/country/us/en/wwcontact_us.html

This is a user-to-user community, and not a venue to receive direct help or feedback from HP. If you have any further questions or concerns, please feel free to send me a Private Message.

Thanks!

[UpsetCustomer12]

UPDATE:

I spoke to the person handling this case today around 4pm.  I got the following information:

• HP only has one facility for repairs located in Dallas.  Because my laptop went to CA it is a safe assumption that my laptop is at a third party repair facility.
• HP sent 2 requests for images of the serial number on the bottom of the laptop that they claim is mine.  They failed to respond with images.
• Due to this, HP has authorized the repair at their expense. ( Thank you for authorizing it HP but I still maintain that this is not the condition I sent the laptop in. )
• I requested that they salvage the "Linux Fish" emblem that I had on the cover as I had just bought it.  ( Trivial I know, but I shouldn't have had to worry about losing it when I sent in a laptop with no damage for a motherboard swap. ) My rep said that he would send in the request that they do that but could not guarantee they would save it.  I agreed with this as I just need my laptop back.
• I was assured by the rep that the laptop they were going to be sending me was actually mine.  This remains to be seen as I have still not seen any images of the laptop that identify it as mine.

I am hoping that this issue is coming to a close but fear that I am going to get someone else's laptop.  We shall see if that is the case.

[Geomacl]

I too have had an unfortunate experience with HP customer service which I find to be absolutely useless. They had my computer back for repair and it took a lot longer than expected - awaiting parts!!! But even when I got it back, it still was not working properly. That's when the problem really started.

I was shunted from one person to another and refused to have the laptop sent back for yet another indeterminate period of time awaiting parts. I suggested that HP order the parts and then effect a quick return - - this got a resounding NO! Email to the CEO (Hurd) was an exercise in futility and after a week another person from their Capetown complaints dept called to tell me that there was nothing they could do within HP process and procedures!! The only latitude they seemed to have was around a minor (2 day) extension of warranty!!! This was not required in my case as I have a 3 year warranty. Then they said the only thing they could do was to give me a complaint case number and recommended that I contact Trading Standards!!! You can imagine my reaction - there was NO means of escalating my issue.

Pathetic

[WendyM]

Thank you for visiting the HP Support Forums. This forum is to leave feedback and suggestions directly relating to these message boards. If you have feedback for HP about their products or services, please use the link below:

http://welcome.hp.com/country/us/en/wwcontact_us.html

This is a user-to-user community, and not a venue to receive direct help or feedback from HP. If you have any further questions or concerns, please feel free to send me a Private Message.

Thanks!

[UpsetCustomer12 · Accepted solution]

Well, I must create a new post because my original post was locked down by the admins.  If you would like to see the original just look for ---  

An open letter of dissatisfaction...   Anyway, I feel that I must follow up to my original post.  I finally received my laptop back a few weeks ago and can say that what I got back was my laptop.  The hard drives were mine (trust me, they were marked and I checked some of the remaining "deleted" data on them).  They even managed to put the Linux fish emblem in the box.  I was quite happy about this.  Now to the fact of whether or not the images of the broken laptop were truly pics of my laptop.  I still have trouble believing that those images were really of my laptop.  I firmly hold to my original statement that the laptop was at least physically fine on the exterior when I sent it in.  This leaves a few possibilities as to what happened:

1. They dropped it at the repair facility and were just trying to pass the blame to prevent the cost of replacing it
2. They dropped it at the repair facility and the person who did it was trying to cover it up for fear of losing his/her job.
3. FedEx dropped it and repackaged it.
4. This one is a bit on the conspiracy theory side, but a possibility nonetheless-- This third party company is starting to feel the squeeze of the economy and has taken it upon themselves to get stock photos of damaged laptops and send them out to customers and try to get money from them.  Seeing as the blame is thrown on the customer, even by HP, on most occasions, it would seem that they stand nothing to loose.  I would hope that if anyone else has received images similar to the ones that I posted that they would speak up.

Regardless of what transpired, I can finally say that I am pleased with the outcome of this.  I have my laptop back and it is in good working order. While I don't really know if they ever actually believed me, I am glad that HP took the lack of response by the repair facility as a failure on their part of the service.  This experience has taught me some valuable lessons about what to do in the future regardless of the manufacturer of the computer.  I will share these lessons with you now:

1. If possible, get a digital video recorder.  Begin filming.  Package the computer in the box provided and seal it all while having someone else film this process.  Be sure to get multiple angles of the computer before and during the packaging.  Do not stop filming.  Keep filming the box as you take it in to a drop off facility and hand it to a rep.  There can be no debating the condition of the computer if you do this.  I feel that this is an unfortunate but necessary thing to do now to protect yourself from being falsely accused of sending in a broken laptop. (make sure you get a close up of the serial number and shipping label)
2. If you do run in to an issue that doesnt seem to get a response, call their corporate offices and ask to speak to the president of the company.  I know this seems counter intuitive to most people as this is what "customer service" is for.  But guess what people, "customer service" is most definitely not what is is is called.  "customer service" is really an executive B.S. filter.  By calling to the offices you show that you are serious.  Now don't go flying of the handle and yelling or being irrational.  Don't lie to them.  Get your facts straight and write them down to ensure that you get your message across clearly.  You most certainly will not get through to the president, but you will get a chance to speak to an ECA (Executive Customer Advocate).  These are generally well spoken, intelligent and understanding people. While they deal with plenty of BS on a daily basis they seem to keep level heads and are more than willing to talk to a sane person with a valid concern.  This is probably the only person who can make a real difference. Don't go calling them with technical questions, as that is not there job. 

I hope that this will help some of you with questions or who are about to send their computer to far away lands.  Thanks again HP for taking care of this. Jason