Unacceptable Business Notebook Warranty/Customer Service

I have owned two HP business class notebooks (NX8220 and NC8430), and have received absolutely dispicable warranty and customer support for both products on numerous occasions. What are your experiences with warranty and customer service, strictly for HP business notebooks, and what is the best way to resolve the problem?

My HP business notebook nightmares are as follows:

I was very fond of the NX8220, which was the first generation of HP's current business line of notebooks; however, mine had systemboard issues which ultimately was its demise. In the time that I had it, I had to send it in twice for repair: the first was for an LCD/systemboard replacement, and was within the first 6 months of purchasing the notebook. The technician that assisted me on the phone spoke English fluently, and within ten minutes arrangements with Purolator had been made to pick up my notebook for repair. The notebook was picked up, repaired, and returned to me within 7 business days, which impressed me, despite the original warranty's claim of a 2 business day turnaround time. All in all, the process was quite painless.

The second time was much less pleasant; in fact, it was excruciatingly painful. The unit was sent in for a systemboard failure (i.e. system would not even power on), which occured just after 1 year of purchasing the notebook. The original one-year warranty had expired, but the hardware was still covered by the HP Carepack that was included with the purchase; however, there was no "2 business day turnaroud". This time, it took an entire week just for the notebook to be picked up for repair. When HP received the notebook, they informed me that the replacement part was not available, and that the ETA was two weeks. Two weeks passed, and the ETA was bumped to another two months. At this point, I was quite livid and despite contacting HP numerous times and making several internal complaints, not a thing was done on their end. After one month, they finally acknowledged that the ETA was unreasonable and "escalated" the case to "Mission Control", at which point I was contacted by a "Case Manager" who assured me that "the matter would be resolved in a timely manner". I was somewhat appeased by this, having gotten nowhere in a month of dealing with HP, despite the Case Manager's broken English. He provided me with his direct phone number, which seemed nice since up till this point, I had to wait half an hour on hold every time I called HP customer support. But by the time I left him a third voicemail in one week, with no reply to any of them, my frustration grew to a whole new level. It took nearly two weeks before he finally contacted me, at which point he offered to replace my notebook - only the replacement was a downgrade from my NX8220. I expressed my discontent with this offer in another voicemail, but did not receive a reply within the next week. By this point, I was severely suffering in my academics (I'm an engineering student, and rely heavily on my computer), and finally had it with this joke of customer support for a business class product. I filed a Better Business Bureau complaint, documenting the nightmare. To my relief, within two business days, I was contacted by someone from HP, who spoke English fluently, and was informed that my notebook would be replaced with a notebook of equivalent value (an NC8430). I had the replacement notebook within two weeks of the phone call.

I sent in my NC8430 for repair, as the latch did not close properly and the display had some internal bleeding. The technician that filed the support case informed me that it would be a 3-5 day turnaround, which seemed consistent with the 2 day turnaround stated in the warranty. One week later, I was informed that the part was unavailable and that the ETA is Feb. 1 - a very familiar and unpleasant tune. Since then, the case has been "escalated" to "Mission Control" and is currently in the hands of a "Case Manager", who conveniently has been unavailable all four times I have called. On top of that, the correspondents who have received my call have been extremely rude in dealing with me. I already filed a BBB complaint last week, but there hasn't been any action since then, unlike last time.

My academic status was greatly jeopardized last semester, and it's completely unacceptable that the money I spend on tuition is wasted because HP cannot back up their business products! Sure, most businesses would be able to afford to replace the notebook for their employee while it's being repaired, but I don't have that luxury. When I purchased my notebook, I justified spending twice the amount as I would have on one of their home class notebooks for the reliability and customer support of a business product. I doubt that big corporations that run HP have to put up with this garbage that they call warranty and customer service since they can pull the lawsuit card, but a lawsuit threat from me would only make HP laugh.

Any advice on how to resolve this issue ASAP would be greatly appreciated, as I would like to avoid the same disaster as last semester.

 

If I were you I would place persistent (but not incessant) calls to the highest managers in the HP business branch as soon as it looks like a repeat of your last semester. It's best to tackle their laziness with both hands. You could also lodge as many complaints as possible.

 

Also as a bluff maybe with the complaints say your on your colleges newspaper and your going print your ordel with hp poor custmer service to warn other college students not to buy from them. long shot but hp and other computer companys make killings off college students.

 

The problem is that the highest "manager" I have been able to speak to is a case manager. Both case managers that I have had to deal with have been impossible to contact - I always get their voicemail, or they are "on the phone". The one time that I was contacted by a case manager, he offered me a downgraded model. The only "manager" at HP that has treated me like a human being was the manager from their "TCE & Q" department, that resolved the case after I filed the BBB complaint.

The problem with bluffing is that it leaves holes in your story in the event that you have to deal with the BBB. I would rather have solid facts when reporting to the BBB, than make empty threats to HP because the person on the phone couldn't care less about what some college newspaper writes about HP. He still gets paid by the end of the day...

 

This story closely mirrors my experience with my nc8430. I've sent it in for repairs to fix the same issue three times now. The problem is clearly the backlight -- even to the casual observer -- and I informed HP of this. {sarcasm start} Oddly enough, after replacing the system board, the CD/DVD drive, and the hard drive, the backlight is still not working properly. {sarcasm stop}

I purchased the laptop in late October and have received about 2 weeks of good use out of it. The last time I sent it in I was told that there would be a 3-5 business day turn-around on my system. After 8 business days I called to complain; after 10 business days I was able to get in contact with a case manager at "Mission Control" -- that is, she called and left her phone number. Over a couple of days, she never called back until I finally started to called and leave a message on her voice mail every 45-60 minutes; I think I ended up leaving a total of 8 on the day she finally called back. I was promised a replacement and was told I'd receive it by Wednesday or Thursday of last week. No joy. I purchased this unit from a reseller, so I'm not exactly sure how the issues would work themselves out -- but I'm about this -><- close to working with my credit card company to dispute the charge and get my money back.

I purchased this laptop as a consequence of reading the positive reviews on this website and hearing fair reviews of HP customer service. In my view, this whole experience has been a joke. I just went through a similar situation with Comcast HSI; the Virginia SCC and BBB were both very helpful, but to be honest I'm tired of dealing with this type of incompetence each way I turn.

 

Have a speak with their regional managers etc. We are the largest EVA customer in UK and yet we have poor services. After years of complaining the services got only slightly better. All our calls are on top priority and quite often they will repair our out of warranty stuff.

My company spend millions of pounds with HP each year and yet they still provide poor services. We have lost a great deal of downtime because on this. So I don't really think they will bother with few laptops or desktops.

I used to work for HP and I know how they treat their customers very well. Best thing to do is just keep calling them, and someone might be actually helpful. I use to help people who's warranty has expired and send them free replacement

 

When you said backlight problem, what was the problem exactly? I'm having a slight flickering issue with my screen (faint lines running across on light background as if the refresh rate is wrong). It's either the LCD or graphics card, but since the problem only appears after HP changed the screen for me (first one had dead pixels), I'm pretty sure it's an LCD problem.

 

No --I'm afraid that's not my issue. My backlight buzzes -- and loudly, very loudly. Almost sounds like an electric razor is being used ...

 

I, too, have had similar problems with HP business support. I chronicled my personal troubleshooting steps I took with my nc8430 here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=81908

The end result of my troubleshooting seemed to be that the culperit was somehow the bluetooth module. WHen I physically unplugged it and uninstalled the drivers the problems went away. I suspected this from very early on due to my problems getting my BT mouse to work reliably as well. Eventually I was done with my semester (I too, am an engineering student currently attending university. I bought my nc8430 to replace my Dell XPS that has increasily begun to fall apart) and I determined to a high degree of certainty that it was something to do with the bluetooth module/drivers. Since the problem didn't seem to be very common, I assumed there must be a hardware problem affecting a small group of nc8430 owners.
Just after Christmas I decided to send my nc8430 in for repairs. I was home and didn't need to rely upon my laptop every minute of every day.
I sent the formal request for a box to ship the laptop in on December 27th. It promptly arrived at my house and I packed the laptop (sans harddrive) into the box and sent it off. I recieved it back from the repair facility on the 8th of January (understandable considering the holiday weekend involved).

Let me make this clear: when I sent the laptop in it had a annoying bug, but it remained generally useable. It booted to windows, for example, and let me run word processing and various mathematical tools like Matlab and whatnot.

HP claims that they found an error on the system board and replaced it. I still (almost 3 weeks later) do not know if this fixed my original problem. I reinserted the harddrive and booted the laptop and upon reaching the HP spash screen (where the options to enter the BIOS setup or alter the boot order are normally available) I was informed that "a request was sent to the TPM, requesting that a user be able to take control of it" (or something very closely to that effect) and that I needed to insert a smart card. I have never activated the TPM, for the fear that something like this might happen; along with the lack of paranoia regarding my data "falling into the wrong hands." If it didn't detect a smart card within a minute or two it told me as such, but then hung as it tried to reboot.
I could access a list of available boot devices and it only listed the DVD-ROM and the NIC, and not the harddrive. (I have since plugged the harddrive into a desktop and was able to image it without incident) I immediately called HP (previously I had dealt with Tech support over E-mail). I demanded that they send me ( not sell me) a smart card so I could resolve this issue then and there. I was told the rep couldn't do that. I also inferred that he had no clue what was wrong or even what a TPM is (he repeatedly told me to go into the BIOS setup, even after I clearly explained where the computer stopped). He eventually implored me to "give us another chance, sir" and I did. Unfortunately, it was close enough to the end of break by this point that the laptop would need to be 'picked up' from my house and then sent to me at school after repairs. I carefully explained the sequence of events and repeatedly spelled out the addresses and the orders in which they should be used. They sent out a box the next day. I checked the tracking info and it was headed for my University's address. I call them back up and explain the problem and tell them they need to send out another box, again, explaining at least twice exactly what needed to be done. Again, another box, again it was sent to the wrong location. I call again. I demand to return (for a refund) the **** laptop, the rep says she can't do that. Eventually they talk me into letting them send out another box, and that she would make a special note in the file explaining the addresses (she claimed the error must be in Memphis at the repair facility and not with the outsouced tech support in Asia, somewhere). Long story short, I've received 4 boxes here at university, while my laptop remained at home, waiting for a box. Now classes have started and my XPS is too big and noisy with too short a battery life to bring to classes, as I had with my nc8430. And every day that goes by I don't get my nc8430 back is another day of data I'll have to reorganize and move from my Dell to my HP.

Now that classes have started back up, I've had to ask my mother to take up some of this fight. She's called numerous times and e-mailed several addresses at HP, including the salesman we dealt with during the sale. At this point (~20 days after the original maintanence request) a box mightp be heading to the correct address, but to get it back to me afterwards she will have to call someone at customer service and have them switch my mailing address back to my university address after the laptop is sent back in for repairs.

This is unimaginably terrible customer service for any company, much less one with as supposedly solid business support as HP. I can not believe they treat their real business hardware customers (including many hospitals!) this poorly, or they'd have none left.

As far as I know, all these problems were caused by faulty hardware they sold me from the get-go, at which point I can find no excuse. If their "22 point" diagnostics caught a true fault on the motherboard after I sent it in, why couldn't such a thing be caught before being shipped out to a business user? Aren't we paying extra for the warranty and tech support?

With any luck it will be only a month from beginning to end for this whole process of getting it repaired.

 

I find being persistent works with HP support. This involves calling them up and escalating the case if it's not fixed within the stipulated time. From my experience, business products should be fixed in a minimum of 1 business day (allow 2 days for courier) and a maximum of 14 business days (if parts are not available and has to be ordered). In fact, if it has gone past 5 business days, it is time to call them up and escalate the case. HP seldom call you back even when they say they will.
Now, I need to cross my fingers that my LCD problem will be fixed once and for all, else I plan to move onto a different notebook. Life's too short to waste over poor quality materials.

 

I have neither the time nor patience to be persistent with HP support. Incessantly calling HP support to talk to people who have absolutely no sympathy or authority to resolve a hardware problem is too frustrating and time consuming. By the time I'm leaving a fifth voicemail in a week for the "case manager", I can hardly vocalize my frustration without using any expletives.

 

Let me report about my experience with HP business support:

I bought my NC8430 in the US, my best friend brought it to Germany (where i live) at christmas. That way i saved about 1300$ and got a 3 year warranty instead of the lousy 1 year warranty they offer here. Of course i was jittery if the notebook would work, what i could do if not etc. As i had feared, something was wrong: There was a blue, vertical line from about 2cm below the top to the bottom of the screen, it looked like about 1400 dead pixels in one line. I prepared for a support-chaos and already was hating myself for ordering something from outside the EU, but - thank god - i was proved wrong:

1/7/07: I started an "active chat session" with an HP representative. Immediatly after i explained the damage of the screen i was told that i would get a replacement. He then asked me if i would want to change the display myself or if he should send a technician. I chose the latter.

1/11/07: The technician arrived and changed the display. The new display was error-free. BUT: I noticed two flaws (...after the technician had left): The display clamps wouldn't close correctly and there was a 3cm long, deep scratch next to the touchpad. I wasn't very amused and, again, hated myself for not having seen the scratch earlier.

1/15/07: I started a second "active chat session" with an HP representative. I told him about the new display, its problems and the scratch. He was very helpful, again and sent me a technician with another display and a new top cover.

1/17/07: The technician (a different one!) changed the top cover and fixed the display. He did not have to switch the displays, he simply fixed a mistake the first technician made.

So, my experience with HP business service has been nothing but business-like. Despite of a technician who should think about changing his job, everything worked out the way it was supposed to. Maybe it is because i am in Germany and HP support is different here, maybe i was lucky. I just thought it would be nice for some of you to hear that there are positive experiences at all. Thank you for your time and please excuse my flabby english.

johannes140

 

Well, it looks like I may have to deal with HP's services now...my screen is damaged and so far I haven't been able to massage the stuck pixels into working again. I'll probably have to have my screen replaced.

 

My experience with HP is good. Better than lenovo's.

 

johannes140,

It seems as though your notebook came with on-site warranty service, or at least that is what HP offers in Germany. That is not the case with my notebook, in Canada.

Fortunately, I still had the contact for the HP representative who helped me resolve the case in the first warranty nightmare. I sent him an e-mail informing him of the situation, and he contacted me within 24 hours, informing that my unit will be replaced, with an upgraded unit, no less. Hopefully the unit will be arriving within the next week.

Unfortunately, most people who have to deal with customer support probably don't have a contact like this and have to be dragged through the mud, like I was.

 

You should know that voicemails almost never work. If there is a HP centre close to where you live, it's best to drop it in as you can then speak to a "real" person rather than someone 10,000km away. I know this will be difficult if you live in a remote area as most HP service locations are in major cities around the world.

I'm always envious of the fact that most people here, especially the reviewers, seem to have perfect notebooks, while I've gone through 3 new nc8430 units from HP, all of them with faults of their own upon delivery.

 

I never considered visiting a nearby HP service center, perhaps because it has never been suggested to me whenever I have called HP with a hardware problem. They always tell me that Purolator can pick it up the next day and that I will have my notebook repaired and returned to me within a week, and for some reason, I actually believe them. Perhaps I will pursue this avenue the next time I need hardware support, in the unfortunate event that I do.

My NX8220 was pretty close to perfect, when it was returned after the first systemboard replacement. It worked great for 8 months, but then out of nowhere, the systemboard died. I'm hoping that the next NC8430 that I get will not be plagued with any problems, out of the box, or in its lifetime.

 

Hi guys,

I've recently been looking at the nx8420 as a purchase (online or over the phone) through HP here in Malaysia. But after reading some of the stories in this thread i'm afraid to spend a few grand on a product that might have problems.

My other options of laptops are from asus, the A8J line, and to my knowledge their customer service is alright, but the build quality of that line is inferior to HP's business laptops. However they do come with a 2yr international warranty standard, and they have a zero-dead pixel policy. If I could afford a MacBook Pro I would get it in an instant, as I've heard there customer support is one of the best.

Are problems with HP's business laptops (or laptops in general) very common?? I need to get a laptop preferably within the next 2-3 weeks, and hearing about bad customer service is making my decisions very difficult, as I was almost set on getting the nx8420.

 

Well, here's a little update:

After speaking with HP Tech, they referred me to a document about their pixel policy. They asked me to read it, verify that my LCD was indeed damaged as per that policy, and get back to them.

Two days later (I had classes) I logged back into the chat room, a new tech came on, and within 20 minutes we had it set up for my notebook's new screen to be sent to me. I had to remind them that I had the on-site warranty, but they didn't argue once I gave them the serial number to my care package for the notebook.

I got a message on my cell phone from HP's On-Site team stating that I should hear from a tech by Tuesday regarding an appointment. I originally set up the replacement on the weekend, so Tuesday isn't a surprise since the next working day (in which they can set up the repair) is Monday...so it does appear they are indeed trying to fulfill the 'next-day' part of the warranty as much as possible.

To be continued...

EDIT: To raimZ:
It is a fact that people love to complain...you usually won't hear about as many of the good stories. Most of these threads are created either because people have questions about notebooks or need help in solving a problem. Rarely do I read a thread about 'my notebook hasn't broken in 5 years' or 'their service was really really good.'

It's human nature to crab...

But, I do visit the support forums on HP's site once and a while, and it does appear that they really do try to get things done for the customer. But when a company has to deal with literally millions of customers and laptops, sell 100k+ PCs a day, and still manage to well...actually do their job given the scope of what is needed to be done...

Let's just leave it at no one is perfect...and that's why NBR is here - to help out those who fell through the proverbial cracks.

 

lol night_2004,
too true, I know i complain alot. It's just that when I want to spend a few grand on something, I need to make sure that it will last.

However after reading, and getting replies from some other threads, I feel that HP's customer service is not as horrible as some make it out to be. So the care package is a definite recommendation?

Yep this forum is pretty amazing. Before I found this place, I hadn't a clue about notebooks, what to look for, what to expect, quality, brands blah blah.

 

Don't worry about it...I'm pretty sure just about everyone feels that way .

Yup...I'd say get the on site care pack if you don't want your notebook damaged in shipping or gone for weeks at a time if you have a problem. Just keep the serial number of that care pack on hand just in case you have to call it in.

Most of the time, as long as you get a decent tech on the other side of the line...as long as you are nice you can get just about everything you need to get your notebook working properly. Once people blow up usually the techs will just want you to go away after that and they won't help you.

Also, I've found the online chat rooms with companies much more useful. That way you even have a record of what was said in the event it comes down to a he said/she said argument.

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=81908&page=5

Long story short, the laptop has just died, as far as I can tell, and I want my money back.

And of course I'm going to have to fight them tooth an nail even though they're the ones who keep giving me defective hardware.