An HP Support Nightmare and Customer Recourse

Today's gripe is a tale about HP and the grueling support gantlet a reader and her son were forced to run to get a broken computer fixed. But I want to emphasize that it could just be easily about Dell, because we've certainly had similar stories about them. Or Gateway ... except if it were Gateway, we probably would not have as happy an ending as we can relate here.

At the end of March the reader beg

Today's gripe is a tale about HP and the grueling support gantlet a reader and her son were forced to run to get a broken computer fixed. But I want to emphasize that it could just be easily about Dell, because we've certainly had similar stories about them. Or Gateway ... except if it were Gateway, we probably would not have as happy an ending as we can relate here.

At the end of March the reader began copying me on e-mail she was exchanging with HP support concerning an HP Pavilion 6000 notebook her son had ordered in December. "My son saved his money for a year and a half to buy a computer," the reader wrote. "He waited by the door for it to arrive for two weeks. But there was something wrong with it. It flashed on and off and had green lines running across the screen. We tried and tried to fix it, were on the phone for hours trying to follow directions and do everything the folks said. Finally, after days and days of trying, they said it was defective and we needed to send it back for service. We tried to return it, but it was a few days after the so very generous 21-day return period given by HP to 'guarantee' the quality of their products."

Three months after they'd purchased it, the computer had been back and forth to HP support and was only the worse for the experience. "We have sent it for repairs and it was returned with the same problem. Not only was it not fixed, they sent it back to us without a battery or cord. To top it off, the computer was beat up while it was gone and is now scratched. Now, I am up to 25 hours on the phone with HP over the last few weeks, trying to get help to actually get the new quality computer we thought we were buying. My son is sick and distraught that he saved for so long for this scratched-up, not-usable computer. What can we do? Nobody will help."

By this time HP's "Total Care" had supposedly escalated the reader's case to the corporate level, but it didn't seem to be making much of a difference. "When we called again, we were told that they hadn't actually changed the LCD screen as their letter to us had stated, so we were going to have to send it in again. More time waiting for another special box to arrive, more time calling HP to see where it is. And again the computer was sent back worse. They couldn't have even turned on the computer without seeing the obvious problems! And again we received a letter, same as the first, claiming that all this stuff had been done. For real this time? I think not."