Disgusted with HP Laptop support

[joesxm3]

I bought a laptop from HP and the power button had problems off and on with not starting. I filed a repair claim and had to spend 30 minutes explaining the problem and sending pictures. They sent me a box and I had to spend another hour driving to and from FedEx to send it.

It finally came back and the button seemed to work now. As I was checking it out, I noticed that the corner was smashed as if it had been dropped quite harshly. There was no external damage to the shipping box, so it was clearly done while at HP.

I called support again and had to spend an hour on the phone with a woman in India who eventually agreed to open a repair ticket. I could hear her boss speaking in Hindi basically accusing me of dropping the laptop.

Another hour to drive the box to FedEx.

A few days ago I had a call saying that my laptop would be on its way back.

Today I got an email from HP saying that they decided that the damage was not covered under warantee and I could do the repair for $372, which was more than I paid for the laptop in the first place. I could also opt to skip the repair and have the laptop returned to me, which I did.

I probably should have just wrote off the smashed corner when I first discovered it, although I wondered if something inside may have been damaged.

To say that I am disgusted is putting it mildly.

I have bought several HP computers over the past few years and one had a hard drive that died after only a year or two that I replaced myself. Other than that they have been OK and the prices were pretty low. I probably will buy more in the future, but this incident certainly irks me.

 

[Jerry1]

One way to avoid this is to buy from Best Buy or similar store so that you can deal with them instead of HP directly. Especially for something like you experienced where the issue is discovered right out of the box or within the usual 30 day return period.

 

[easysurfer]

Sometimes, I purposely buy electronics from a place like Amazon because of their generous return policy just to avoid a possible headache situation like what you described.

 

[COcheesehead]

Costco is the same. 90 days back on electronics. Few if any questions asked.

 

[joesxm3]

Well. Lesson learned.

 

[Walt34]

I probably will buy more in the future, but this incident certainly irks me.

And the incentive that HP has to improve service is....?

 

[athena53]

I'm not sure if any of them care. I had an HP Envy fail to charge after less than 2 years. I took it to a repair place and they said that it was most likely the charging port and it might be integrated with the motherboard. They wouldn't know that unless they opened it up (for $85). I figured it was a good guess it was all integrated- cheaper to manufacture- and not worth replacing the entire motherboard. So, I bought another brand and ran home and downloaded all my mission-critical files before it died completely. (The repair people told me they'd be able to recover files from the hard drive even if it was out of power- for a price.)

But.. I'd sworn off Asus because I bought one in 2014 that had a design flaw- the on/off switch would slip inside the case. I sent it back. They "fixed" it but wiped the hard drive including MS Office, which had been pre-installed as part of the purchase price. I asked them to get me another license. Their response: "We don't sell software". So i had to buy another license.

DH figured out that it was easy to get the switch back into place by twisting the laptop gently or by inserting a fingernail in the side of the slot while turning it on to block it from disappearing. Ironically, that laptop has outlived the HP by a long shot- it's still operating.

 

[jimbee]

I got disgusted with HP's support on laptops with the first and last laptop I bought from them about 17 years ago. I'm sorry to learn things haven't changed.

 

[rk911]

...(The repair people told me they'd be able to recover files from the hard drive even if it was out of power- for a price.)...

just for future reference unless the old HP is weird you or anyone else can almost always recover files from dead laptops, desktops, etc. just remove the drive, place it in an external drive enclosure and connect that to the new PC via USB cable. the new PC will see the old drive enabling you to copy files to the new PC or just use the old drive as a second hard drive on the new PC.

 

[d.davis]

The other thing about older laptops is if the hard drive is a disk drive, upgrade the drive to an SSD and you'll see 5 to 10x performance improvement. This path instead of buying a new laptop.

Sent from my moto g power using Early Retirement Forum mobile app

 

[JoeWras]

One shout out to Dell for a positive experience.

Last year I bought DW a Dell laptop directly from Dell on sale. She loves it and used it all the time, carrying around.

Last summer (at about 6 months), the hinge came loose in a bad way and the laptop wasn't really usable. It was under a 1 year all inclusive warranty that came with the purchase, no extra charge.

DW contacted Dell and they sent someone to our home to fix it. I was incredulous. He did a great job too.

The only downside to it all is DW now treats the laptop with kid gloves and now rarely closes the laptop. So the good is a nice included 1 year warranty. The bad is the design/parts have issues.

 

[Sunset]

Costco is the same. 90 days back on electronics. Few if any questions asked.

I was surprised with Costco, I brought back an external 1 TB flash drive I had purchased on sale, it was ~45 days and I hadn't used it.

So I brought it back, opened but unused hoping they would refund it. They DID without any questions.. !

I'm amazed, and reminded myself not to buy stuff on a whim, and to seriously consider my next computer from Costco due to the return policy.

 

[Lsbcal]

I think all this just depends on some luck. There will always be some manufacturing defects.

I bought an HP chromebook on Amazon and no issues at all after over a year.

I bought an HP all-in-one desktop from HP and it worked fine until the Intel memory failed after the warranty ran out. Had it removed by a repair guy here but as a result lost the use of the 1TB hard drive. But the SSD memory was large enough to work for me. Still doing work on it ... like just now.

I also bought an HP all-in-one for DW. Hers has worked flawlessly.

 

[jollystomper]

Sometimes, I purposely buy electronics from a place like Amazon because of their generous return policy just to avoid a possible headache situation like what you described.

+1

I bought a HP laptop on Amazon. A couple of months later one of the SODIMMs had problems. I contacted the seller, they promptly sent me a new SODIMM, with a mailer to return the bad SODIMM for free. I have not had any problems since then.

 

[EarlyandLate]

This is amazingly deja vu for me! . A year ago I bought a Lenovo laptop. After a month or so, one of the hinges broke when I was simply closing the lid. When I googled the problem, it was all over the internet that this was a known problem with some Lenovos. I had to argue with the Lenovo service department for quite a while because they claimed that it was due to "owner abuse". After I told them I would file a complaint with BBB (there were already some), they agreed to fix it. Same story as OP with the boxes and shipping. When I got it back, the hinge was fixed, but the front right corner was dented in as though it had been dropped! Before they agreed to fix it, they had me send pictures, so I had the picture to prove that it was not dented before I sent it. However, I decided that I did not have the energy to go through the whole ordeal again.
In my cynical mind, I figured that they purposely damaged it so that if their fix failed, they could easily blame it on me!

 

[Ncc1701]

I bought a $500 HP color Laserjet Printer a year ago. The HP Smart software is absolutely horrible, I can never scan anything to my PC directly and I didn't realize the toner cartridges cost $80 each.

I'm cutting my losses and getting an Epson EcoTank.

 

[ncbill]

My advice: buy a used Mac laptop, install virtualization software, & run Windows in a VM.

 

[joesxm3]

HP has shipped the laptop back. I hope it comes back as I sent it, working with a smashed corner. I started to worry that it might come back with the case split open. Just my luck. Fingers crossed.

 

[joesxm3]

Well the laptop arrived today.

The good news is that it still seems to work.

The bad news is that the screen is showing damage. In the upper left corner where the case was smashed there seems to be an internal crack, since I can't feel the crack with my finger. A .75x1.5 inch area has some strange pixels stuck there. I suppose this will not affect what I plan to use this for.

I did not notice the screen damage before I sent it back. Not sure if it was me or if they may have tried to take it apart and damaged it further before they decided that they were not willing to repair it.

In the grand scheme of things this is not even a rounding error for me or for them. I would have thought that they would have just given me a replacement laptop and be done with it.

I will put this incident behind me. I just hope that the entire screen does not crap out.

 

[W2R]

Sometimes, I purposely buy electronics from a place like Amazon because of their generous return policy just to avoid a possible headache situation like what you described.

I only just now saw this thread - - sorry if I'm late in adding my 2 cents worth!

Anyway, I always buy my laptops from Amazon, mainly because I'm kind of an Amazon addict (I know, you'd never guess, right? ). I buy a new one every year or two because that is a use for my money that brings smiles to my face and happiness to my heart. YMMV

I usually buy a Dell high end model, and I've never had to return one for any reason.

 

[joesxm3]

I buy almost everything from amazon, but when I look for computers all I seem to see is reconditioned ones from third party resellers.

I worry about malware so try to only buy direct. I used to buy Dell, but switched to nice cheap HP ones a while ago. I bought 4 desktop and 3 laptop and aside from this have only had hard drives fail both on Dell and on HP. Those I swapped myself.

I also worry about malware from repair, so will probably reload OS on this one.

 

[W2R]

I buy almost everything from amazon, but when I look for computers all I seem to see is reconditioned ones from third party resellers.

Well, then don't buy those? You can limit your search to new computers from Amazon if you want to. You are going to have to pay more, but you may find that you get what you pay for.

 

[brett]

I have only had one experience with Hp warranty service. It was very good.

Like others, we typically only buy computer products from a retail store. Costco, Best Buy, Staples. Somewhere where I know I can return with ease.

Costco is my preference but they do not stock very much.