So, finally got through to my case manager, asked him the status, and no progress had been made, unsurprisingly. He told me that the receipt I had e-mailed in was the wrong kind of receipt. (Something I didn't mention in the last post; I couldn't find the receipt, which was weird because that's one thing I'm usually pretty organized about. So I called Fry's and got another one printed up. But apparently it wasn't good enough.) Fortunately, since the previous call, I had found the old receipt. This time I decided to fax instead of e-mailing; apparently turnaround times on their faxes are much better than e-mails. Go figure.
But I couldn't get my "fax machine" (which is actually a scanner+account with trustfax) to work! Some days I think I'm cursed. Running out of time before the day was out, I went down to Kinko's to fax the six-page Fry's invoice from there. Take that, HP. I fully intended to call to make sure that they got it but something came up and before I knew it, the day was over. And I couldn't call the next day because I was out of town on business and busy the whole day. I was certain that nothing was happening.
Here's where it gets kind of anticlimactic - even though I didn't pester them, the FedEx label showed up Monday morning, a mere two business days later - that was fast. And they had made arrangements for FedEx to pick up the machine for me, which went very smoothly. (The first time I sent it in, they forced me to make the trek down to Kinko's/FedEx, even though they said I wouldn't have to, one of many promises broken.) And, most stunning of all: THE VERY NEXT MORNING MY WIFE'S NEW MACHINE ARRIVED, sent overnight delivery. Which means they didn't even wait to get my old machine back - they just waited for the tracking # to confirm it was on its way, and then immediately overnighted the new machine. For the first time in the saga, they actually trusted me - I could have sent them a box full of rocks. Or at least stolen one of the RAM chips. Not to mention, the new machine was an upgrade, with more hard-drive space and faster processors. And...it worked! I had gotten really good at reproducing lockups on the previous machine (trying to play three movies at the same time usually did it) - but this machine sailed on as if nothing was amiss...the movies didn't even skip.
In other words, in the last couple days, the company formerly known as Hewlett-Packard finally pulled its head out.
But it did take a while:
Date we first tried to use the computer: 12/25/06.
Date we first called support: 12/26/06.
Date we were finally able to use our computer: 1/30/07.
So...I suppose I'll relax my boycott. I may even continue to buy printer ink from them...and that's where they make their money. I won't risk buying another computer from them, because having to wait a month to use our PC sucks. And there it is.
I had an almost opposite experience with Nintendo.
My brother works in retail and was able to procure us a Wii for Christmas. We opened it and played it for about 6 hours, when it just died in the evening. The next morning, I called Nintendo, and the guy on the line was friendly and started the entire process of sending out a label for us to send our machine in and get a replacement sent out. When I told him my address, he said "Hey, that's pretty close to our HQ in Redmond. You can go and pick a new one up there."
So, that's what we did. We went to Redmond and picked up a brand spanking new Wii, as well as an additional controller and they even threw in some styluses (styli?) for my son's older DS that they don't manufacture any more.
Posted by: Jay Kint | February 17, 2007 at 04:31 PM
Boy do I hear you! Here's my own HP story:
I had a similar problem with HP and my printer. It goes like this - I buy an all in one printer online from HP. It arrives and I hook it up and it begins and stays in a permant jam. I use online HP support, (somewhat good english - I think he was in Malaysia) after I jump through a bunch of hoops, (he wasn’t allowed to skip one even if they didn’t aply) and I had to do things I had aleady done before he would send me a new printer. Someone then calls at 10 pm (he got the wrong time zone!) for my credit card which aparently he needs in case I decide to keep the broken printer. Annoyed at the lateness of the call, I tell him no. So the next day, I call back and get a lady in the Phillipines who was nice but I couldn’t understand real well. After fighting with her for awhile (and she finally checks with a supervisor) she says I can mail in the printer (at my cost) and then they will send me another one. Tired and I just want my printer, I agree. So I mail it in and after a few weeks get another printer, with the scanner glass shattered. I cried and then I was online with support again. After even more hoops (but not as much as the last one and I gave them my *&*^Y&^* credit card) I got another printer and they paid to mail the other one back. End of story? Not at all - this printer is not even new - its remanufactured. Plus I had sent all the cords, CD-ROMs and manuals back with the first one. So back I was again. They finally got those sent to me though I’m still waiting on the cords. Last September I bought a new printer from HP and now I ended up with a remanufactured one I can’t even use it yet because I don’t have the cord!!!!!!
Posted by: Rebecca | March 07, 2007 at 02:05 PM