I had an old HP laptop that still works but ran out of hard drive space (18 GB) because applications had gotten larger and larger. What a great work horse the machine had been. Never missed a beat.
I bought a HP Pavilion dv5000z with all the bells and whistles and thought it was the coolest machine! The machine is primarily used for work; I am a researcher and lecturer that depends on both simple word processing and complex graphics, which are quite stunning on this machine. I enjoyed the laptop tremendously for about 6 months despite some minor keyboard issues. Then all three USB ports failed and the machine wouldn't start up again. I sent it for repair to the HP Total Customer Care and again was very happy and surprised to see the laptop returned to me repaired within less than the suggested 5 business days.
Imagine my surprise though when I unpacked the box and found not only were two of the three USB ports still not operational but the screen now had a crack in it. I called customer support and I was told to ship the machine back. I debated back and forth, as I really need this laptop for my work, but then decided that I had paid for the machine and I deserve a properly repaired machine. Can you imagine standing in front of an audience of several hundred people and the machine failing in the middle of a presentation? How embarrassing! So I sent it back. After much back and forth with the people in India, who know as little as I did about my machine, with no updates on either the status or whereabouts of my laptop, I finally gave up and asked for the laptop back in its unrepaired state, because I needed to get my work done.
The last support representative to whom I spoke (who was truly delightful and without whom I probably would have never gotten the laptop back) assured me that I would get my machine back in the condition I had sent it in.
Finally, the laptop arrived and I was horrified to find that the machine I had kept in pristine condition came back looking like it had been through a frat house party. Its screen had been replaced (clearly with someone else's), was full of fingerprints and grease spots and the casing was scratched and had oil spots on it. Worse yet, the screen had a big red dot pasted to it that could not be removed and it was dead as a doornail and did not work at all. So essentially, I had sent in a working but cracked LCD panel and it was replaced with a non-functional one.
I had been a loyal HP customer for many years but I am appalled and shocked over the treatment my machine has received. I paid lots of money out of my own pocket to receive a laptop for which I did not receive proper customer care. While the customer service representatives tried to be helpful and friendly, despite their language difficulties, the repair folks apparently do not care about customer service.
I am truly disappointed that I am now stuck with a non-working machine. I am not sure how HP Total Customer Care received the JD Powers Customer Satisfaction Award. All I can say is, I lost weeks worth of time arguing with the people in India who have no idea what is really going on and get all the complaints from us, the dissatisfied customers, even though it is really not their fault, and I lost valuable time not being able to work at home and having to borrow other laptops for my lectures.
Ultimately, I am not sure if I should even bother sending the machine back a third time. What is going to happen this time?
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