Friday, August 2, 2013

HP's Customer Service- "We'll get it back to you fast, but we won't fix everything"

My HP Pavillion DV-6t had recently succumbed to a lot of issues such as a poor heat sink, USB ports not working, the letter ‘a’ on the keyboard not working, as well as the latch for the battery getting jammed and my hard drive crashing. I was pretty bummed about this, especially since the Steam Summer Sale had just ended and I was getting ready to play a bunch of games, as well as record music with my friend.  The laptop would become extremely hot, even upon booting it up and only using 1.95 GB of RAM. I contacted Costco Concierge Services since that is where I bought my laptop from, and they made matters worse due to a recommendation to restore my system image, which ultimately lead to my hard drive crashing. They linked me to HP Hardware Tech Support who also attempted to help me and assess my situation While we discussed my laptop, I mentioned every single issue I had with my laptop up until that point and I even asked him to repeat the list back to me so I could make sure he got everything. He claimed he did, and said a box would be at my doorstep tomorrow morning so that I could ship my laptop to them. It should also be noted that I asked him if all my issues fell under my available hardware warranty and he said yes.

As promised, the box was there the next day. They were fast, but this will prove to be their downfall. To rehash, I had the following issues with my laptop

  1. Letter 'a' was not working
  2. USB ports did not work consistently/ at all
  3. Heating issues (Heat sink)
  4. Hard drive crashed 
  5. Battery latch stuck (also forcing the HP Smart Guard case to come off and not go back into place, this could be considered a sixth issue...)
They were kind enough to keep me updated on the progress of my laptop via email and they said I would have my laptop back by August 2nd, which is technically today (I'm writing this at 5 a.m.). I instead got my laptop back three days later, thinking "Boy do they work fast!" I was elated to have my laptop back, and I quickly inspected the laptop upon removing it from the clear plastic it was wrapped in. My first problem arose, the HP Smart Guard case came off. Upon further inspection, I found out that the tabs on the thin plastic case broke off upon arrival. This got me annoyed, but I decided to turn the laptop on and try it out for a little bit before I made a final judgement. After running the initial setup and getting my user profile up and running, I noted they replaced my keyboard. I expected them to do this, and I tested out every key to make sure it was all in working order, it was. My laptop was also silent, except for what I can assume was the fan running within the laptop. The hard drive was also fixed obviously because the laptop was running fine so that's essentially three out of my five issues solved. 

I plugged in my laptop to the AC Adapter because I figured that it might not be fully charged upon arrival. This is when my second issue came up. My battery icon was blinking on the bottom right with an error symbol imposed on top of it. Uh-Oh, this can't be good! I placed my mouse on top of the icon to read the following "Battery is at 99%, please replace the battery." Replace the battery, why should I even have this error. I did not tell HP to tamper with my battery, or anything of the sort. I did say fix the battery LATCH that was jammed, which is also apparently a common issue that they can't offer a fix for. HP supplied with a number to call if I had any issues with my newly 'fixed' laptop inside the box I got my laptop back in, so I called HP back and told them of my new issues. I was completely and utterly furious. 

Did they even bother to inspect the laptop once they 'fixed' it? I was hoping they would have at least checked to see if everything was up and running and physically working. I should have to contact them a SECOND time to tell them of new issues within a mere ten minute use of my laptop. I would rather wait until August 2nd and have a FULLY working laptop that I can use, as opposed to receiving some half fixed piece of crap from HP. I don't want the laptop back as fast as possible with only have the issues solved. What irks me the most is that they provided me with a window of time in which I wouldn't have my laptop. Most companies would fix the issues and make sure that the things they fixed actually work, and then ship it back, but not HP. No, HP will 'fix' the product, and ship it back so fast, the glue they used to fix it would still be drying! HP's customer service is utterly terrible and they rely more on speed than actually solving the issues at hand, and that is why I will never buy an HP laptop or computer again. 


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