MrNotHappy: Re: Officejet 4500

[SedonaF]

http://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Scanning-faxing-and-copying/Officejet-4500/m-p/691003#M16430

Hello Fellow Computer Users, It has come to my attention that HP is a negligent company bent on destroying and/or eliminating their customer base. I have spent time on the phone with HP customer service to the tune of 1 hr and 45 min. Not only did they not fix my problem, in the interim they tried to sell me upgrades on my PC, my ram, my OS, and the product I was trying to get fixed. Lets get to the nitty-gritty, my computer is OLD, when I say old I mean a circa 2001 Dell Dimension 2400. It has 1gb of ram, 40g hd,2.39ghz Intel processor, and OS is XP. That is how old this thing is. Having said that it is one of 4 computers of the same type we run at our office, they run great. I run Quickbooks, Firefox, Winamp, and Divx with no issues. This is where I have a problem, we purchased an Officejet 4500 all in one (Fax/Scan/Print) in March of 2011. I brought it back to the office, hooked it up, got it working and scanned about 6 documents. Now 3 months later, go to do a scan and it reads, "No Scan Options...See Manual" (or some such). I opened the support center program for HP and went to settings, under settings no options for the scanner appeared, fax,email, and print settings were all available, but it was as if the scanner was not optional. I assumed it was a driver issue, so I jumped online went to the HP site and ran their diagnostics tool. The tool recommended I download a driver update, so I did so, installed it, restarted the computer..... It still didn't work, this time, it gave no warning back, just went to idle after about 1min after I requested it to scan. Still no Scan Options in the support center program. Did the usual steps after this, uninstalled/re-installed the factory drivers, reset scanner, restarted computer ect. At this point I have spent an hour or so scratching my head, so I decide to call HP support.... I was able to get someone on the line pretty quickly (>2min) and went over the issues, The tech on the phone (from India surprise, surprise) wants me to let him connect remotely after he collected a handful of info from me. I reluctantly allowed him to connect, he proceeds to look at the stats on the computer, and immediately tries to sell me an upgrade. I turn him down, and explain that our office cannot afford any upgrades at this time, and that I just want this scanner to work. We proceed to sit on the phone in silence while he works.... for tens of minutes. Let me clarify, I have worked CSR (Customer Support Representative) for 6 months for a major ".com" as well as 7 years + customer relations in sales ect. When I say this was a bad call, I mean, it was awful. The operator "Sam" (short for Samut) proceeds to tell me to upgrade this computer to windows 7.... At this point 45+ min into the call, he tries to tell me 7 would run without any issues on this computer. Yes, he knows my stats. I shut him down on that with logic, saying NO, windows 7 will not run in remotely functional fashion on this computer, it needs at least 2gigs of ram, and even then it would crawl. He suggests I upgrade the ram. At this point I ask flat out, will this HP scanner work with windows XP? He skirts the question and offers to try something else. I also let him know that if HP cannot get this fixed he would see my name in lights on every tech forum from here to Zimbabwe. Now it's bad enough we can barely communicate due to language gaps, and that his job should be done by fellow Americans for an American company. What happens next blew my mind, he proceeds to get back on the phone after about 20min of silence. (no exaggeration, I was told I would lose my job at the .com if I left a customer hanging for more than a minute.) He asks if it would be OK if I could run the scan from the computer rather than manually from the scanner, I replied why yes that would be wonderful. He opens the HP Support Center, finds the settings and low and behold the scanner options are still not there. He checks the ink under the printer settings, sits there for another 5min of silence cursor as still as the night air, and proceeds to tell me that it is not going to work. I ask for a supervisor, he lets me sit on open hold for another 20min. I eventually ask if he is still there, after a pause he asks if he can issue a call-back. I asked if a supervisor was available again, he said no, so I reluctantly agreed to the call back knowing that it was B.S. The call was ended and the issue was unresolved. This is not my first poor experience with HP, lets just say I will NEVER buy another HP product, and I will give horrible reviews to all HP products I stumble across online. The customer support is about as adept as a drunken monkey, and the bloatware from HP is so invasive and so prolific that it takes an hour just to UN-install it all. I also find it very creepy how easy it was for them to remotely access my desktop but that is just my paranoia kicking in. Conclusion, if you like computers and their friendly gadget friends, avoid purchasing from a company that has no interest in customers. - Mr.Not Happy

[SilviaHelp]

05/26/11 - Silvia reached out to customer.