I was visiting USA, and before departing back to my country, Argentina, I went into this shop in Miami with the intention of buying an ipad, but the salesman said that if I wanted it for work, it was more convenient for me to buy a laptop, as the others were mostly used for entertainment, and did not have enough capacity, which I believed because we did not have ipads at the moment in Argentina, and he was supposed to be the expert who would suggest the best option according to my needs. So he said my best option was to buy a mini hp 310 111, which he showed to me, and that it came with original window 7 Home Premier, and extra soft already preinstalled in the netbook. And as I doubted because of the price, (U$A 631.30) he said he would make the price in three installments, I said that was impossible as my credit cards were issued from Argentina, but he assured me that now they were allowed to do that, so I agreed. An assistant came with the box and he said it would be better for me to take it without it, as I was leaving the following day, and he gave me a netbook case as a present, where he put the netbook and gave me a bag with the papers, and I supposed the ticket and invoice were also valid as warranty, because I was buying a new product.
It seems he had changed the netbook, I went back to my hotel to pack, my children turned it on at the hotel and found out that it had many games and just did not look at it very much. I left the next day and arrived at my city 2 or 3 days after that, I started exploring my notebook. At that moment I realized there were many programs that did not work properly or which license had already expired, apart from that the key board did not work properly, whenever I wrote something the letters jumped to another part of the text, which was very annoying. Besides, the registry numbers for most of the soft was not valid, I installed another antivirus but I always had problems with the updating.
I thought it was a configuration problem, or something of the sort as it never occurred to me he had changed the netbooks and gave me a refurbished one instead. After a while I called a friend of mine who is a computer Engineer, because it was quite strange for me that a new machine had so many problems. As soon as he saw it he told me that I had been given a refurbished one, and explained to me that sometimes they are discarded because of some problem and they sell them at a lower price, but of course telling you first about it. And the price I paid was much more superior to even a new one, then he noticed that there were some numbers erased from the back, and the opening of the battery cells was kind of curved and the batteries did not last for more tha an hour And I finally realized why a new netbook was so full of problems, especially with the antivirus, which of course affected all the other machines at home. I am working in a project for my school in which I am trying to make a small library, with no resources at all, and in which most of the students (adults) have never seen a notebook and have no idea of the uses it can have for improving their lives.
As the problem could not be solved, my friend suggested to format the system, and for the first time in my life Hotmail cancelled my account, because a huge amount of spam and virus were sent from it. So the original antivirus software, Norton, appeared, and I received a message from Norton to get immediately in touch with them.
When I got into contact with a support member, I explained what had happened, and it seems to be that this trojan was in the original booting system of win 32, there was a mess with all the software and configuration that happened to be from he entered into the notebook and it took him more than three hours to solve the problem an reinstalled the programs. He was really kind and installed norton 2011 in the netbook, and from then on, it was the first time that many programs started to work properly. I have his name and I am very gratefull for his help, and I will send a note to Norton congratulating him on his good service.
AnywayI think I have the right to get the netbook for which I paid for, that is to say a new one, with lasting batteries and a warranty from the day I bought it, Which by the way I think is over, and I bought it on 01/29. I don't know who is the direct responsible for this scam, but any way you need to be aware of the honesty of the people who sell and represent your merchandise, and do not give the right to any dishonet store owner to represent your firm.
I have already sent a complaint through the channel, but did not get any answer at all. I can't attach the invoice and credit card ticket here, but I could send them to you to a mail address. And by the way when I was leaving he told me to wait, so he would give me another invoice with an inferior price, to avoid my having problems at customs, which sounded kind of strange to me. I have to admit that being from Argentina, so famous for its corruption, I gave it for granted that something like that could never happen in the land of the fair trade, and felt really dumb for being so confident.
I would be very grateful if you coul give me some advice on how to solve this problem.
Regards, Iris Esquenazi
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