Horrible HP Experience - HP wants me to pay $190 to fix their faulty product.

[Ish197]

Hello,

This thread is to show the terrible experience I have had with HP for the past several months. In February 2019 I purchased an HP Laptop. The laptop worked fine until about January 2020  when it started showing signs of problems - first a small popping sound when closing the laptop, (that I did not think much about) the right side of the laptop separating from the rest when being closed (did not seem that severe as it could be simply popped back it) and eventually breakage on the side, right arm/hinge being cracked and bulging of the laptop accompanied by a crunching noise (I haven't tried to close the laptop for several months for this reason) and severe wifi problems making the laptop basically unusable as it can barely connect to the Internet .

I did not do ANYTHING to cause these problems and it  is an obvious manufacturing defect. The problems did not seem severe enough to warrant contact HP at the time the warranty lapsed but they got progressively worse and now the laptop is basically unusable. This just so "happened" to occur right after the time where the 1 year warranty lapsed. At the end of March/Early April I contacted HP via phone and was not able to reach them due to the out of warranty department being closed down due to the COVID-19 pandemic. I made this thread below in early April as well as another a few days before:

https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-Hardware-and-Upgrade-Questions/Laptop-physically-breaking-sho...

After a couple weeks of messaging a representative I was told the out of warranty department was closed but was offered a $75 coupon as compensation that I have not used and will probably never use as I doubt I'll buy from HP again. Over the next couple of months I tried calling HP several times but never managed to get through to the out of warranty department due to the pandemic. Through all this time I was never even given a case number.

When I finally did reach the out of warranty department - perhaps early July - I was told that it would cost over $300 dollars  to fix my laptop. The representative also told me there were no "red flags" on the product meaning there were no known manufacturing problems. Considering HP laptops are known to have this problem with the hinge/arm breaking it simply amazing that I would be the first person to ever call about the problem on this particular model. A simple Google search shows that this is a common problem among other model of HP laptops. And obviously it's also problem with my model as well.

I filed a complaint on HP's website as well as with the BBB and was offered a 40% discount through the BBB by HP to fix my laptop. (I was told by an HP representative that she was NOT contacting me about the BBB complaint. A few days later, the same 40% discount offer says it was declined on the BBB website) HP says they "apologize" but wants me to charge me about $190 to fix THEIR manufacturing problem that they won't admit to because my laptop is out of warranty. I don't see how that is much of an apology.  Of course, this problem magically occurs at around the time the warranty expires so of course it would be out of warranty by the time you contact them. Funny how that works out.

So now I am stuck with a $400 laptop that doesn't work and HP wants me to pay another $190 to fix their manufacturing defect that they refuse to admit to. On top of that the customer service has been horrific - from the waiting to the inability to contact the right people to the fact I was told a call was in not in regards to a BBB complaint when it was.  I have contacted HP via phone, complaints and email as well as the BBB and have gotten virtually nowhere so I am posting this thread to share with the HP community now. I have tried to be patient, polite, and understanding over the past several months but I have had enough. This thread is to share my experience with HP for the last several months and to warn other people about how HP products "work" and how badly HP treats their loyal customers. We have purchased HP computers for over a decade and as it stands we will not be purchasing them again.

As a final point, another HP customer had a similar problem with an out of warranty laptop in 2015 that I will link below. Their laptop was fixed for free by HP but I am expected to pay $190 to fix mine. It goes to show how far HP has deteriorated both in quality and customer service in the past few years.

https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-Hardware-and-Upgrade-Questions/Left-Hinge-Broken-Corner-of-La...

Please share your thoughts below if you wish. 

Edit: Sorry I accidentally put the wrong link to the thread the other person made about their laptop being fixed for free. It's fixed now.

[Dragon-Fur]

@Ish197 

We cannot provide judgement - HP Support makes decisions for HP.

That said,

Request for an Assist

• I will submit a request that someone take a look at your question / concern.

Worth Noting

• Our Community is not HP Technical Support, nor are we HP Sales or HP Service.
• Our request for assistance on your behalf does not influence the outcome:  Our request is not a magic back door into HP Support.
• The time frame (how long it takes) for a response is not controlled by the Community.
• If / When there is a response, a Community moderator / agent will (should) post back on this thread before using other methods to contact you. 

Note to those reading:

• Do not contact random numbers posted in a public or private message by “new members”.  Vermin are looking for victims – don’t be next.

• Please do not post any personal or case information here - we cannot make use of the data. 
• Posting personal information at a public site increases your risk from rats and scammers.

Thank you for participating in our HP Community.

We are a world community of volunteers dedicated to supporting HP technology

[Ish197]

Thank you for your reply Dragon-Fur.  I do not expect that anyone will be able to resolve this really as I have already been trying to for several months. Talking to support and the BBB has gotten me nowhere so I feel it is important to let other customers know how badly I have been ripped off in this case.

[TEJ1602]

@Ish197, Welcome to HP Support Community!

I have brought your issue to the attention of an appropriate team within HP. They will likely request information from you in order to look up your case details or product serial number. Please look for a private message from an identified HP contact. Additionally, keep in mind not to publicly post personal information (serial numbers and case details). 

If you are unfamiliar with how the Forum's private message capability works, you can learn about that here.

Thank you for visiting the HP Support Community.

[Ish197]

Thank you for your reply and welcome message TEJ1602. I'm not sure why it said before I was a new member (is there a certain number of posts to rank up perhaps?..) as I posted in April about this issue. I look forward  to speaking to a representative but I expect I will be told the same things as I have been all along with regards to the warranty. Hopefully will be able to get somewhere this time.

[Ish197]

@Dragon-Fur

To clarify about earlier - I wasn't sure where to make this post exactly. I made it here because all other options have not gone well. Thank you for submitting the problem. Just wanted to note that I'm not sure why it said "new member" earlier as I posted back in April. Is there a number of posts I had to make before changes or something? 

P.S. I made a mistake earlier in my original post. I accidentally posted a link to my old thread and not to the thread where the person got their laptop fixed for free. The link is fixed now. Sorry about the confusion.

[Thomas19771]

Hi I am sorry that you had a bad experience with HP. I am not defending anything in this case but in general HP has been a pretty good company. I have had several HP products in my life time including my laptop that I have now and my desktop both have been pretty flawless since I have had them. In general I get a good 5 or or 6 years out of a product before I get a new one.  I wish you better luck as time goes on. Also for your information most issues are user fault.   

[Ish197]

Thomas, I have been a loyal HP customer for a over a decade. I have generally had good luck with HP until now. The worst thing I had happen was once about nine years ago I had a laptop that simply died about 9 days after I bought it. Turned out to be a great laptop when and probably the best I ever owned once I got the replacement. I wouldn't be wasting my time or anyone else's if HP hadn't royally ripped me off in the case of this last laptop.The fact that my laptop is clearly a manufacturing defect that happened at around the time the warranty lapsed, the fact that I wasn't able to get in contact with the right people or given a case number for months, the fact that I've been lied to by HP throughout this process ridiculous. So please do not come to this thread and blame me for HP's failings in this matter. Maybe most of the time users are to blame. I don't know. But that's not the case in this situation. 

[Thomas19771]

Ish197, I am not blaming you I understand what you are going through but In general HP is usally a high quality company I would not give up on them just yet. It took several trys for me to get a lemon of a desktop replaced but I did and have had no issues sense then. as for the fee once you go out of warrenty there will be a charge that is just a common practice.

[Ish197]

Thomas, I agree with you that HP is usually a high quality but they have not been in this case. The only other real problem I have had over the years (other than the 9 day dud I mentioned earlier) was my fault -  I accidentally dropped a laptop and broke the screen. The reason I am upset is because this laptop started having this manufacturing problem around the time the warranty lapsed as well as the customer service and HP refuses to acknowledge it as well as horrendous customer service. (Simply opening and closing a laptop should not have caused the problems it has) It's extremely dishonest and suspicious by HP that their laptops would have this problem around the time the warranty lapses.  At best this is a clear product quality problem that HP allows to continue and chooses to ignore. At worse they purposefully design their laptops to break in this way after about a year so customers are expected to HP again for their own product. The person in my original post got their out of warranty laptop fixed for free - but HP does not wish to set the record straight in my case and has lied to me multiple times. Below I am listing some other threads customers have made about similar topics about the common hinge/arm problem. There's plenty of more examples that I see but I'll stick to 5:

https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-Hardware-and-Upgrade-Questions/HP-Notebook-broken-hinge-is-it...

https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-Hardware-and-Upgrade-Questions/Left-Hinge-Broken-Corner-of-La...

https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-Hardware-and-Upgrade-Questions/17-quot-HP-Envy-Coming-apart-a...

https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-Hardware-and-Upgrade-Questions/HP-Envy-Broken-Hinges-Absurd-A...

https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-Hardware-and-Upgrade-Questions/Right-Arm-Hinge-Broken-Laptop-...

P.S. I did not intend to come off as rude earlier to you or the mods/staff on this thread. Several months of having this problem and HP treating me like they have has is grating on my nerves I guess. My anger and frustration is directed to HP in general not to anyone on this thread.