Am I in the wrong here? re: HP ordering experience.

First i'd like to preface this by saying that I've owned multiple HP products including 2 ipaqs, a few printers, and a zd7360 and a zd8260. I've been generally happy with my last two laptops and off that good faith I was willing to purchase an HDX 20" laptop sight unseen.

I placed my order (along with the 20% off discount coupon discovered here!) and the very next day my credit card was billed, everything seemed smooth. Then 2 days later I check my online order status and it says the order has been rejected.

Ok.. I call into customer service and I get a representative who was certainly nice and polite enough and appologized for the problem but took a good 20 minutes reconfirming every part of the order. I told him I ordered this computer online for a reason and I didnt need to reconfirm it. I just wanted to put my order through as the payment was already processed by the bank. No go.

Then we get to the credit card information, and naturally I don't have my credit card info on me. He suggests that he will wait on hold while I go get my credit card (i'm at work... from home???). I told him no, I just don't have it, that is the situation. I don't see why he would need it anyways because HP has already charged me for the computer.

Things are at a standstill there, so I say "ok, just cancel the order and return my money". He politely agrees and then honestly sets me off by in the very same sentance suggests that I should get an HP credit card with some great rate.. What? I told him NO and stop trying to sell me stuff and please cancel my order.

The back and fourth continued for another 10-15 minutes where he basicly defended himself over and over and I kept saying "i dont care, please just refund my order".

Finally I just hung up after he agreed the order was cancelled.

Now my question is, do you guys think I am in the wrong here? I ordered a $3000+ piece of hardware and with that I do expect some level of customer service, i'm not a millionaire and that is a good chunk of change in my book. I've also owned several HP laptops and its not like i'm some credit card scammer or anything.

In the end, it sucks to say, but just because of this crappy experience I will go with the dell 20" laptop instead of the HDX that I actually really wanted to try out.

Whats everyones opinion, am I in the wrong here? am I crazy?

 

Glitches do tend to happen in the ordering process, although they are few and far between. The rep was doing his job offering you another avenue of order payment, I would not get unduly upset about it. If you ordered again, the order would likely go through (provided the cc is valid and the shipping address is an authorized one).

 

Agree with OP, disagree with the above. HP rep was not "offering...another avenue of order payment," he was scummily trying to get OP to open a new credit card rather than abjectly apologizing for huge mistake by HP. Let's look at the process here:

1. OP orders using his credit card
2. HP arbitrarilly cancels order after processing credit card charge
3. HP rep attempts to get OP to re-order using HP credit card

HP was totally in the wrong- order was cancelled but OP was still liable for credit card charges- and their response was to try to get OP to open a credit account with them to order the same product. Like I said, super scummy.

 

I have heard of this very same thing happening with a coworker who was trying to order a Dell. It took her 3 times and Dell kept cancelling the order claiming that there was something wrong with her bank and in the end it turned out to be something on Dell's end. Bottom line, these things do happen with large companies like this. If you really want great customer service and not have to worry about something like this I would go with a smaller company such as powernotebooks or something like that. Going with Dell might just cause you the same problem.

 

But the OP did not have his original payment info readily available, so no confirmation of anything could be made. Did they use sales tactics to attempt to fufill the order? Of course, as would any company. It is an unfortunate incident, but is does happen.

 

Your not alone mate,

My lass has put 2 orders through which have been rejected.

Weird thing is they have taken the money for 2 laptops now.

Problem being now i needed the laptop asap. Now she is reluctant to put another order through lol until they have refunded the 2 they have already taken the money for!!

Called up the cc company, no problems their end, they authorised it with no issues. But yet hp are saying they cannot tell us what the problem is.

With dell wait times, and now hp taking the money and saying no toy for you im getting fed up

Now have to wait and then go see if i can find a decent deal in the shops which is not really gonna happen

 

Wow. Thats completly horrible, my complaint is pretty minor compared to yours. I also called the bank and there is no problem on their end with the payment authorization, but its been 2 days now and the money is still not in my account. How long have you been waiting to get your money back? At this point i'm pretty much considering this as theft of my money I called again and they claim the bank actually has the money and it may take 3-4 days for them to restore the funds. I will take them at their word and wait the 3-4 days and see what happens. Funny, the 20% coupon I used just happens to expire in 3 days

lappyhappy: agreed, it seems the same might happen with Dell, but the field of 20" laptops is pretty much limited to HP and dell. Id rather have the HP, but they basicly gave me the finger, so I'm forced to try Dell. Who knows, I may become a dell lover or something, I do feel bad since i've had a great track record with HP products until now.

R4000: your points are very well taken, its true I did not have my payment info at hand which is probably my fault. But I was never made aware that the process to buy a laptop involved me calling with my payment info on hand to reconfirm it all (I have to assume a computer manufacturer makes much much larger sales then mine and doesn't go around confirming every one of these sales).

I also don't see how they can take a person's money without approving the sale in the first place. I do agree glitches in the system can happen and i'm very flexible to that, but a glitch can be fixed; they didn't seem to want to really fix this one, as I am out both a laptop and money.

Thanks again everyone for the replies, it has given me a better perspective of whats going on with HP, I do hope this issue gets resolved and that it doesn't happen to other people. I do especially feel bad for datamonkey! I think after thinking about what happened and reading about the other issues, HP has lost me for good. Its a shame because I still do think their actual products are excellent and I still use my zd8000 laptop on a daily basis

 

Hey darkus,

So far its been 2 days, so hoping it will be credited today,

Then gonna have to try once more, if it doesnt work im shafted, and will have to buy off the shelf. which is crazy.

The same DV9574ea for £910 is £1100 in the shops

£200 for the ease of collection is quite hard to swallow.

Hope you get your side of things sorted soon dude

 

Since he had no verification of the credit card used then he can't act upon it. They have guidelines to follow. How can the rep credit you if you can't confirm the credit card used? Did you print out the order and have the informations on that? You could've called when you got home and re-verify. Offering their credit card is probably just a suggestion and didn't have to apply. You can also call the credit card company, explain and dispute the charges but then you didn't have the card with you to (number in the back of the card).

Did you ask why it was rejected?

 

Well, I didn't need the credit card for the "refund". That money should never have been taken in the first place since the order was rejected on their end. He was asking for my credit card when I manually called in to try and get the original order to go through. I do understand that the rep has a protocol to follow and he couldn't put the order through without my credit card (even though the money was already charged to my card, so i've paid for a product already....). Thats why I never even argued once with him and agreed and simply asked for my money back.

Basic human logic should tell him that this was a unique situation and he should send it to a higher up who could fix the problem. If thats asking to much of another person, then I do believe that the HP system of doing things is a bit screwed up. Basicly they can take your money but at the same time not agree to give you a product necesarily. For someone like myself (broke), having that money tied up in the hands of HP for a few days does make a difference because I can't do anything to get a new computer until I get that money back.

Just an update: I called again today. No money in my account, bank says the money was processed and sent. HP says the money was "pre-authorized" only and that I should have it back in 3-4 days. The saga continues

 

But did you ask why the order was rejected? or the 20% was rejected? Oh well, funny how long it takes to credit you and how fast it was to deduct from your account.

 

I think this is just the nature of the beast when you deal with large companies (or any large organization for that matter). I'm not saying you don't have a legitimate gripe, though.

Hope it all works out for you.

 

Just an update, I finally got my money back today. So it took about a week to get back, probably that number is inflated because it edged into the weekend. Overall tho, I had a very poor customer service experience for a 3500$ piece of machinery, and i've never had this much trouble trying to throw money for hardware I just wanted to give the board an update that the money refund only takes a few days and probably does fall into the 3-5 days that HP said it would take. I did have to make 2 phone calls to edge the process along however and I personally will not be buying anymore HP products despite the fact that all the other HP hardware i've had has been great!

 

Glad you got your money back at least.

 

But the question is why your order was rejected in the first place!