Care Pack Nightmare

I was just wondering if anyone else had gone through this with HP, and if you actually managed to work something out.

First let me start by saying that I'm a somewhat new HP customer. I first bought a dv4000 from HP in '05 for college, and I absolutely loved it. A year later (August '06) I had some extra money and for some stupid reason I bought a dv2000t, partly because it was on sale, and partly because it looked SWEET. I sold my dv4000 thinking the dv2000t would be just as nice, if not better.

So for the first 6 months I was pretty happy (in fact, I couldn't complain about anything). After that things went downhill. One day I opened my notebook's cover, powered it up and... nothing. Blank screen. I heard it booting, and after hooking it up to an external monitor I realized it was the LCD that was the problem. So I chatted with HP tech support and had it sent in the next day (that's quite fast). The next day they called me and told me something was spilled on it, and that I'd have to pay $600 for a new cover/LCD. Obviously, this thing was/is my baby. I don't eat or drink near it, and the thing sleeps on the table next to my bed...

I had them send it back, and sure enough, it was squeaky clean when it arrived (aside from lots of oily fingerprints and some new scratches, evidently from the tech who handled it). So I emailed them and told refuted that anything was spilled on it. After going back and forth for awhile I got a hold of the case manager. He sent a new box, I sent it out ASAP (because my work is on there, and I needed it back!), and he confirmed that it wasn't a spill, but a bad connector on the LCD. At this point, I'd been without my notebook for 3 weeks, so I was happy to get it back.

The LCD was fine for about 3 months, and then suddenly began to flicker. It wasn't dead (thankfully), and wiggling the cover a bit would normally fix it. I purchased an extended warranty that October ('07) and activated it just as it says on the care pack. I was told that it would take 30 days to "update", so I figured I could wait it out. Then suddenly the LCD stops flickering until just this week. I couldn't believe it!

So I contacted HP via chat and I told them the problem. They agreed that it was a hardware issue and would send a box for pickup. BUT, my extended warranty had expired? I told them that it was incorrect, that I had bought the extended one in October 2007, and they told me to send them a copy of the care pack via email. I did, and received a message telling me to send a copy of the receipt for my now-two-year-old laptop (which I don't have). The odd thing is that the pack number listed in the "HP Care Pack services" page is correct, but it states that it expired two months before I bought it (as reflected on the receipt, which I DO have).

What I don't understand is why it wasn't updated last year?? I registered the care pack just as it said, and I even have the printed confirmation email here saying that it's registered to my notebook!

I have no idea what to do now, as I'm left with a flickering notebook screen that's bound to die any time now.

 

Wow, now I'm scared. I planned to buy the 2 years HP pickup warranty extension since the original one year is about to end next month.

 

I actually managed to find my receipt this morning in my old gmail account (well, the "Order accepted" email everyone gets when purchasing something from HP), printed it, scanned it and sent it to them. But now I'm back at square 1: the expiration date is the same as before, which is the date that my notebook's original warranty expired.

It seems to me like the new warranty was registered, but the date was never updated in their system... would calling HP make a difference?

 

Call the case managers directly. The number & extensions are on this forum, or search Consumerist for "HP laptop."

I bought my Care Pack with my DV 9000 CTO on the same invoice; it arrived before the laptop did, and I registered it immediately. When I needed it, they had not registered it. I had to Email in the receipt and other info before they could update my information; that added a week to the downtime.

Next time the system board failed (last month), I sent the .PDF of the receipt and care pack with my initial request for service... they said they needed to update the info again! I called the case managers, and had a box the next day.

 

Unfortunately, you must realize that this is NORMAL for HP repair. They routinely accuse customers of damaging the laptop and tell them they must pay $$$ to repair it, even though it is a total lie. Sadly, many people trust them and pay. Or they tell you your warranty has expired. Many times when you call in the first words out of the support tech's mouth are: " I show that it is out of warranty," when it is not. Sadly, many people also accept that, and that is exactly what HP is counting on. Don't believe for a second it is an accident that they do not update their warranty records.

But this forum is a great place to expose their practices. If they get enough complaints, and if enough people decide to buy elsewhere, they might decide to provide adequate warranty service and stop the deception, lies and intimidation. ALSO, don't accept the damage (scratches, etc.) they did to your laptop. Make them fix it.

 

Sorry for the bump, but I wanted to post an update of the situation here...

I talked to HP customer support (in the warranty dept) last month (on the 16th or 17th) and told them the entire story - how I bought the notebook in August 2006 with the standard warranty, and then purchased a care pack in October 2007. They told me that they can't verify it (even though I have the packing list sheet and the "H number" I got when ordering the warranty), so I would need to call HP Shopping (where I bought the warranty) to have it verified. I called them and they verified that I actually placed/received the order as I said, but they said they couldn't help with my warranty issue.

So I gave up for a little while. I was reading on these forums about the dv2000 lid switch and how it can cause a similar if not exact same issue as the flickering LCD I've been having. I was going to try disconnecting it, but just couldn't convince myself that voiding the [expired] warranty permanently would be such a good idea. I guess it's a good thing that I didn't go through with it though.

This past Tuesday my laptop took a turn for the worst. I put it into standby for maybe 20 minutes, and when I came back I opened the cover and... NOTHING. Well, the blue lights came on, but there was no video, no fans, nothing. I hooked up an external monitor: nothing there either. I had to shut it down manually, and after waiting 30 seconds I powered it up. The lights came on, but then I heard three beeps: one long and two short, and then nothing on the screen. It was dead. After searching around google on my old spare desktop pc, I found that that particular series of beeps means that the graphics card is fried/malfunctioning - GRAND.

So the next day I called HP up. I talked to someone in the warranty department who listened to the story and was actually somewhat helpful. She told me that there are different kinds of warranties.

There are "care packs" which are in-warranty warranties, whose expiration dates depend on the purchase date of the computer - so I bought a 1-year pack in October 2007, but because it was a 1-year pack, it expired a month and a half before I even bought it (one year from the purchase of my laptop).

Then there are out of warranty warranties, and general warranties. Okay, but why didn't the person who recommended me to get this warranty last year not tell me about this? She told me that only a case manager could help me, and transferred me to a tech support person. He told me that he could help me, and that a case manager wasn't needed. He filed (or so he said he did) a request for a warranty extension, which should be approved within 48 hours. He also updated my ticket with the new problem and then transferred me to another warranty support person who finalized the request and told me to call back the next day.

So I called back, and the warranty person I talked to sounded very annoyed when I talked to her. All I wanted to know was whether the request had gone through! She told me that I needed to talk to customer support for this... well how should I have known? The last person I spoke to the day before was in the warranty dept.

So anyways, I talked to a woman named Mary who was *extremely* helpful and understanding of the situation. After explaining the situation she decided to look into the warranty request. She saw that an activation request was started, but that it wouldn't help anyways because it displayed the same date as it does now. She went through my past tickets and emails related to the warranty and saw enough to realize that it was a mixup, and that I wasn't knowingly/purposely scamming them. She talked to a senior tech, who talked to me and needed the authorization of a case manager to do anything about this.

So after being on hold for 20 minutes, I finally got to talk to a case manager who agreed (well, somewhat) that a mistake had been made. She said that I could send the laptop in for immediate *free* repair, and then something could be worked out with the warranty afterwards. So I agreed, although I doubt that anything can be "worked out" with the warranty.

I'll post an update on this when more news come in.

 

Another update: initially, the replacement motherboard was supposed to ship by August 14, but it got pushed back to the 28th a few days before that. Then it got pushed back well into September, and my case manager offered me a new dv4t to replace my notebook, because she had no idea when (or if ) the new motherboard would even ship... nevermind have it installed and shipped back to me afterwards. It's supposed to be ready to ship by the 8th of September, so I'm definitely excited.

 

cool i am interested in hearing the outcome and how your dv4t is when you get it.

 

good for you.
congratz!

just be patient and we will get a good answer from hp

btw, i bought 3 years ADP after I purchased my laptop from hp
the next day i received my ADP plan, i registered right away.
any 1 know how will hp count the 3 years ADP plan?
will it count as full 3 year plan(12X3=36 months)

 

yeah from what i know it just means that hp will add 2 years to the existing factory warranty

 

thx kevin
good to hear the answer..

 

for those who might be wondering about their warranties
http://www11.itrc.hp.com/service/ewarranty/warrantyInput.do
and
http://h30125.www3.hp.com/csn/sales...sical_intro.asp?code=ELER::-USA&Source=lookup

not to sure if it works for consumer laptops, but it definitely works for business laptops

 

the first link (warranty check) works for consumer laptops too. i just checked it for my tx1000, and it shows the correct information, but only for the original warranty. i have purchased an extended service plan for another extra year for this laptop, but it doesn't show up...

btw, do i need to register the Extended Service Plan warranty i have purchased last week? there's no mention of such a thing in the "HP Extended Service Plan Registration Confirmation" that i have received after paying for it. if so, where should i go?

thanks

PS1: there is a 10% discount for HP Total Care here: http://h71036.www7.hp.com/hho/cache/590074-0-0-225-121.html
PS2: to the OP: sorry for hijacking your post!