Well, I was in the market to buy a new laptop. HP has a good deal, so I got myself a nice dv6 laptop. I was living in Australia at the time, and I knew I would be going out of the country with the laptop, so I asked the salesman specifically. "Does this have a global warranty?" He replied that it did. Happy with that, I bought it.
Fast forward to 3 months later and my laptop has huge problems. The computer, sitting on my desk at home suddenly shut down with a message that it stopped to prevent heat damage.
This seemed odd, as it was winter, the room itself was quite cool and it was sitting on a hard wooden desk with no obstruction. I look on the bottom and I see the fan vent had physically warped from the intense heat. The plastic has literally become deformed from the heat.
Well OK I though, this is annoying, but I tried to turn on the laptop later and it seemed to work, but soon after start-up the USB/eSATA/LAN ports refused to work. Also, the wifi connection kept dropping out randomly and it had to be reset to work again.
It was annoying, but I called HP support. After arguing with them that it was a hardware problem (Melted cases don't seem to qualify as hardware?) they said, ok, we can fix it. I just need to ship it to Australia. Using my own money. They asked if I know anyone in Australia that can help me with this?
I was taken aback. They said that my warranty was only valid in Australia. Again, I was shocked. I said, this cant be right, the salesperson in the store has said this was an international warranty. I asked what other options I had. They gave me the addresses of some local HP dealers so I could take it in to be repaired.
I thought, well that's still doable, I'll just do that. I went in to the shops they specifically mentioned. 3 different shops gave me the same response. They do ship HP computers back to HP to get it fixed, but ONLY if it was bought in that chain of stores.
Again, I was flabbergasted. Back on the phone with HP, I double checked my warranty status. They CONFIRMED with me that I had a GLOBAL warranty... But I still had to ship it to Australia to get it fixed.
My GLOBAL warranty, confirmed by HP was ONLY valid in Australia? Phone call after phone call to them and I was transferred to the "top level support" eventually. At the top, the official line I got was, sorry we can't fix your laptop here, because we don't have the parts to fix it. My favorite quote from the support person was "I am fully empowered to help you in any was possible", after which she claimed "no, we can't fix your computer."
This was just too much.
1. You have a GLOBAL warranty that is only valid in the country in which you bought the laptop?
2. You are incapable of obtaining the necessary parts to fix your computers
3. Computers in Australia and Canada are SO different that there is no chance that some of the parts might be the same or equivalent?
I called and called, wasted so much time and EVETUALLY I got to one guy that said, oh, you have a problem? We will send you a mail in box so you can send your computer to us to get it fixed. Again, shocking. After he told me this, he said "oh, can I call you back?" I agreed.
I did not receive any response until ONE WEEK LATER! Is this what they mean when they say "Call right back?"
Anyways, EVENTUALLY my box arrived (which was barely big enough for my laptop, I had to rip out some stuff to make room.) then was sent in repaired, and returned.
Now, guess what. 2 months later and now lucky me, I have the EXACT SAME PROBLEMS! The USB/eSATA ports stop working, wifi keeps dropping out and I am going on a long business trip where I will need my laptop.
Thanks HP, for truly inferior build quality and terrible customer service. I am never buying HP again, and as the local techie guy that everyone comes to for computer advice, I can recommend to everyone out there not to buy HP as well.
Dangoldstein68 -at - gmail.com
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