HP, you are on the "S" list now

 

Meet the Chief Executive, Meg Whitman of HP! She looks about as happy as I'm feeling about her HP company today. Now let me just remind folks, I do tell it like it is, and I will begin by thanking HP for their mini notebook as I did write Healing Heartaches on it... it blew up shortly afterwards though as I pounded the keys and just wore it out I do believe. But as a loyal customer I went out and purchased one for my best friend and another for me, so impressed I was at its little self and its abilities. Now down to only this one as hers also bit the dust.  I am also quite impressed as HP in honoring my warranty on my Pavilion laptop when I had a "hard drive" fail on me; and after literally HOURS on the phone with someone or two someones that I could barely understand by phone, I was told that 1. they would not send a service technician *covered under my warranty to my home to replace, 2. they would send the hard drive for ME to install, 3. they would assist me as they always have!

Imagine, ME installing a hard drive on a computer? Really?  Now as I tried and tried to inform this person; there is something wrong with this laptop as I have sent it in to you 3 times for repairs, have had a technician in my home to repair it, have spent countless hours on the phone with India about this computer, and truly don't they think it would be better to just replace this computer and have a happy customer on their hands...  The conversation soon shifted to the fact that my warranty was to expire in 36 days and it was time for renewal and the importance as I could understand to keep the warranty up to date. Well yes, I understand fully that this piece of crap will need much and often contact with HP as history has proven. I do after all have my own case manager my file is so thick, however none of them would give me her name so that I could speak directly with her! Wonder what ole' Meg would think of this computer and customer service? After all wouldn't she rather they replace the thing instead of possibly reading about customer service here? And the possibility of someone choosing Dell rather than HP, or even worse an APPLE PRODUCT?

Poor Meg, she certainly doesn't look too happy herself in that photo by her precious HP does she? Imagine if she had to speak to those technicians and here them put her on hold for hours and tell her "I understand and I am here to help you" a dozen times and still no resolve?

Nope, the answer was to send a hard drive and me to install it and to expect it in a few days. A few days? NO, I expect it overnight.  It was hard to understand the final answer as I was too busy checking my blood pressure and cursing the day that HP Pavilion came into my home and the lessons I was to be learning from this whole experience.

Yet, the next day those little 4 leggeds let me know that Fed Ex had arrived and a tiny box that had required my credit card to guarantee that I would in fact return the bad hard drive back in the same box had arrived. Now as I stalked the box, found a phillips head screwdriver the task at hand began. I could do this was my mantra and mission. Oh my, I had to take little bitty screws off the back of the computer and then even smaller ones to get the Hard Drive out and then... it was ON.  Of course, you had to unhook the bracket, unplug this, adjust that, keep up with screws.. Damn I'm good, just like that it was done! And to think all these years, all this time, I've thought I was so limited in my abilities.

  Then to put it all back together... those itty bitty screws, all in the right places, cover on, screw it down, battery in, power source... turn it over, cover up, push on... Insert disc 1, 2, 3, supplemental disc.... hours and hours and hours.  it DID NOT WORK... it got caught in a loop at the end, and it caught caught in a loop at the end. I had to call HP support, AGAIN...

And it began again and it is memorized from the menu options right through to the "we can help you with this".

Start over do not use the last disc.. and it went on and on and on, and the temptation to throw the thing in the pool was stronger and stronger, and to strangle whoever was trying to talk to me on the other end of the phone was remarkable.

And then we tried some more.  The last person was a woman on the phone, who started with my needing help and the possibility of a technician over a hard drive issue!!! OMG

Really? Seriously? YOU HAVE THE FILE, read the file. And then I just snapped.

It was in that moment I needed a black heavy old timey phone so that the impact of my hanging up on her could be heard and echo in her brain. I settled with telling her she was useless and laid the phone down and just walked away... 

Later I found the way to begin all over again, disc 1, 2, 3.. and it ran all night bringing us to this morning where windows opened and welcomed me! Success was sweet, and it was short, much too short, until the blue screen indicated errors and a "dump file" message leading me to once again call 800-474-6836 a number now etched in my brain... and now i am ahead of all the prompts, maybe I will knock out their system with my quickness. Lo and behold I received an English speaking woman, I almost fainted.

I quickly brought her up to speed, she was nice, she seemed to be quick to realize I was in no mood for the HP script. And she furthered my computer technology by having me to use my Phillip Head Screwdriver once more as I unplugged, unhooked the battery, unscrewed the back, and this time found the memory chips and removed them, replaced them once again. Re-hooked, reassembled re screwed and turned on, only to once again have the blue screen and all the words basically saying something is very wrong.   

HP you are on the "S" list, and it isn't all bad I guess as I have learned a lot.

I explained to this lovely English speaking woman that if she looks at the files she will find I have a case manager, that this laptop is a "Lemon" and should be replaced.

She will have that person call, but after kindly placing me on hold, the verdict is in now.

She is over-nighting  an empty box to me... for me to place the laptop in as they now have determined from my apt computer skills with her instruction that THE MOTHERBOARD is bad and must be shipped to them for replacement.  "This is a true story" and the 4th time this laptop will be sent out to HP.

Now I have to tell you; I have talked to folks all over the place, seen computers, laptops and tablets, and I do believe that this one is just bad bad bad, and that if they want to keep a customer they should have replaced it a long time ago... customer service is what keeps customers happy thus keeps them buying their brands in a world where there are choices. Perhaps Meg would be smiling if she would take into consideration that it is always best to do the best thing for folks rather than to get their blood pressure up and keep them hot. For now, I think I'll be checking into a new brand once the warranty runs out, and once this little mini dies a natural death, it's off for a new brand on this one as well.

Oh well, I guess some lessons just take longer to learn...

Now then, what kind of computer is everyone out there using and how is your customer service going?  If you need a new hard drive just holler, I do know how to replace those now!

HP you have much to learn... perhaps that is the lesson.

            

And that is how it's been; so how's it for YOU?

Walk in beauty,

DRSES

just keepin it real