Manufacturer Warranties and Protection Plans

[net1tek]

About 3 months ago I spent almost $400 on a HP netbook at Best Buy. Last week the hard drive started failing. I ran the HP diagnostics on the netbook and contact HP chat. I jumped through all the tech's hoops for about half an hour online. Gave him Serial Numbers, Products numbers, pretty much everything but my dog's name. He finally came back and said it was under warranty  and the error code I gave him indicated a failing hard drive. I am a network engineer and I have never had a hard drive fail this quickly. And I handled this thing with kid gloves. I have a Micron Desktop I bought in 1995 with the original WD 1GB hard drive still functioning. 

Anyway, he said he'd send it over to another department and they'd get back to me. The next day I started receiving emails that reminded me of the old Gateway days. Recall that if you had an issue with a Gateway laptop they'd run you through the ringer for weeks try this try that and then you'd have to mail the laptop off for 2 weeks. Their hope was that eventually you'd get sick of the ping-pong effect and just go away. And you would; just like they did. Well HP came back and said send us a copy of the receipt. This was after I spent half an hour on chat with a tech providing him this, that and the other.

Well receipts went out years ago. When you buy a computer device the S/N and/or other codes on the device verifies the date of purchase. I have had to return Seagate hard drives that were 4 years old under a 5 year warranty. They never asked for a receipt. The numbers off the drive told them the date of manufacture and purchase. 

So its not bad enough that here I have dozens of applications installed on this netbook many of which were one day free giveaways and I can't re-install now they are starting to run me through the ringer asking for receipts. I never bought a HP computer before. They have all been IBM laptops and Dell. This has put a big sour taste in my mouth regarding HP.

And to add insult to injury I am expected to disassemble this netbook and try to figure out how to install drive if they were to send it to me. With these netbooks it is not unscrew a screw slide out the drive and slide in the new one. Its a complete disassembly. What's wrong with American businesses today and why can't they compete?  

I am not sure if you are aware but HP is getting out of the consumer market. They aren't making enough money on desktops and laptops. It seems dragging their feet when repair time comes is their way of avoiding replacing hardware that was probably cheap junk to begin with which is why it failed. That kind of behavior worked for Gateway computers. Eventually I got fed up with them and got an IBM laptop. Of course we all know what happened to Gateway don't we? (Note: An illegal alien stole my failing Gateway from my truck destroying the door in the process. At least I got the last laugh. He has a Gateway!!)

Lessons learned: 

1) Don't buy a HP netbook. There are plenty of other brands out there. No decent "portable computer" hard drive fails in the first few months unless it has been abused terribly. I have been working in industry over 10 years repairing these things. It just doesn't happen unless it's junk to begin with. 

2) If you have a HP computer don't assume that since it is new the hard drive has at least a year of operation before it goes south. Everytime you save a file on an HP portable computer run a image/backup on the thing. I know it is a lot of trouble but if you want to save your data you'd better do it. 

3) Yes you and I know that whether you buy an electronic product from Walmart or practically any other retailer that you don't need to do the old fashioned keep the paper receipts in a shoebox. We are supposed to be passed all that in the digital world at least until its time for "some companies" to honor the warranties on their junk. 

4) Ping Pong Warranty Honor - when this process starts don't waste your time and sanity. Go buy a good harddrive online and pray the motherboard does not go next. This HP netbook moves like mud even though I have put in the max amount of RAM and disabled every conceivable service on it. Just opening the smallest app Notepad is wait, wait and wait. Whatsmore updating the Windows OS it came with has been an ongoing process of trying to fix this error and that. When I bought the OS outright and installed it on my computers I never experienced these installs. I think it has to do with the OS install proprietary to HP. I have currently 10 certifications in IT. If I can't make it work believe me the average joe or jill won't have much luck either. 

[Mbrguy Trusted Contributor]

Personaly after working on computers for a long time, I'd still buy an HP any day of the week before I'd think of buying a Dell. But thats just me.

[Mbrguy Trusted Contributor]

Also, by the way, HP reversed it's decision to leave the consumer PC market back in October of last year.

[AaronE]

It's always frustrating when technology breaks but I'd like to take a minute to expand and counterpoint some of your points.

1) HP doesn't manufacturer HDDs. They use HDDs provided by manufacturers like toshiba, western digital, seagate, etc. 

1 & 2) HDDs actually have a higher failure rate in the first 6 months of operation than in the following 2 years. This increased inital failure rate is due to manufacturing defect mainly but as stated above HP didn't make the HDD.

2) Yes always back up your data. Please. It makes my life and your life easier.

3) You could have elected to bring it to a local Best Buy and it could have been sent out for repair. This might take longer than HP just shipping you a HDD but you wouldn't have to worry about installing it yourself and taking apart the machine. Often you wouldn't need to hunt for the receipt either because if you used a credit card, tied reward zone to the transaction or purchased Black Tie Protection we can typically find the receipt for you easily if needed.

[net1tek]

HMM.

I thought once I bought it the store wiped their hands of it.

And you're exactly right.

Who keeps paper receipts in the age of the computer? 

And I am probably not going to start running to stores looking for receipts. 

[AaronE]

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net1tek wrote:

I thought once I bought it the store wiped their hands of it.

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Nope we can service it under the terms of the manufacturer warranty at our service center. 

[Ryan-BBY Community Connector]

Hello net1tek -

Aaron from our Social Media team, will be reaching out to you regarding your concern. Thank you for your continued patience!

[Aaron-GS Community Connector]

Hello net1tek,

I can imagine why you’d be upset!  Like you, I’d expect obtaining support from a product’s manufacturer to be a quick, easy and painless process, not a trying experience like you described.  I’d be frustrated too if I found myself in a similar situation, especially if purchase details weren’t requested until after a technician had walked me through several troubleshooting steps.

Like AaronE mentioned, Best Buy is an authorized service provider for most brands we carry.  We’re also able to provide warranty support for many products purchased from other retailers.  Although we do not capture serial numbers for most products until they’re brought in for service, our in-store associates are still generally able to locate individual transactions even if a physical copy of the original receipt isn’t available.

That being said, I’d encourage you to bring your netbook to the repair counter at your local Best Buy store if you’re still experiencing difficulties working with HP and haven’t already done so.  Once there, I’d invite you to send me a private message with the service order number provided by the store – I’d be glad to monitor any necessary repairs on your behalf and provide you updates as they become available.  You can send me a private message by signing into the forum and then clicking on either my signature below or the letter icon in the upper right-hand corner of the page.

[SoMeAm]

Hello,

Ken (net1tek  ) we thank you for purchasing HP and do apologize for your challenges.  If the system is still showing that the notebook is under warranty and the diagnosis point to a malfunctioning hard drive, normally HP will ship a replacement hard drive.  If this is a discrepancy in the warranty information, then the agent will require a receipt or other proof of purchase.  I see that our partner Aaron has reached out to you.  If the unit is still under the manufacturer's warranty, this is an issue that we can also easily resolve.

We also want to thank the members' for their responses, especially for updating the customer on the status of HP's consumer business.

Regards,

[net1tek]

Keep going around in circles. One of the techs at Best Buy said if HP wasn't getting the job done bring it back to Best Buy and we'll fix you up. 

So I take it to Best Buy yesterday and guess what? They can't even find me in their system. I give them the same debit/credit card number I've used for everything for 5 years and they can't find me. 

And then I fiind out if they can find me the netbook will be shipped off for 2-3 weeks. 

And on top of that I have to BACK to HP and try to get an OS CD out of them. 

This is a very poor business model.  A dollar may be saved on the OS CD but how many customers does it cost you? 

When I contact anyone else with the S/N and product codes they know immediately the date of purchase. 

I sit online with a HP tech over half an hour and he confirms its under warranty and the code I give him shows a bad drive. 

But then I have your hardware department shuffling their feet asking for this and that. Gateway used that type of ploy. 

I think HP started going downhill when Carly started and it has never recovered. 

Ken