Where can I contact HP Customer Service where they actually know what is going on?

So I've had a week of "torture" no thanks to the HP Customer Service agents over the phone & online chat & so now I'm looking for a way to contact a slightly more superior person working in the Customer Service area so that have my notebook repaired & shipped back to me before I leave the country.

How has my week been? This is how it happened..

My notebook stopped working, it was no longer booting up & basically the system stopped functioning so I called in technical support to try & get it diagnosed over the phone & then create a repair order so that my notebook could be repaired ASAP. I have a dv6402ca notebook btw & I had purchased the 2 year pick up & return with accidental damage protection service plan back in July or August of 2007 which is valid till the end of August of 2009.

I spent about 30 minutes on the phone working very patiently with the agent trying to diagnose if the RAM modules were causing the problem or whether the notebook needed to be sent in to be repaired at the repair centre. Finally, after about 30 - 45 minutes I was told we will create a repair order so that I could get my notebook repaired. I even made sure the agent knew I was leaving the country on the 15th of August & that I NEED my repaired notebook back to me before then, I was assured that my repaired notebook will be back with me before I leave & not to worry. Great!
Actually, not really, I wasn't aware the next 7 days were going to be hell for me! When did this phone call take place? 07/24/2009.

I was given an order number by that agent on the phone which was WQG775-01 but when I tried checking its status online it wasn’t on the server yet so I couldn’t get any information on it. The next morning I was leaving to D.C. for the weekend so I could only check on this order once I got back late Sunday night.

When I tried checking the status of this order I was showed that it had been cancelled & to contact customer service over the phone, so, I called up customer service the next day [07/27] to find out what the hold up was. This agent was very friendly, and told me that the previous order had been cancelled & a new order had been created for my notebook, & so he gave me the new order number which is WQG988-01. The reason the previous order was cancelled? The agent entered the incorrect serial number & thus the system rejected her repair order request. So, whose fault was that now? Yup, the agents fault.

So I check the status on Monday & Fedex has received my prepaid box to be sent to me but when I started tracking the box through its tracking number I noticed that it was going to Durham, NC while I live in Cary, NC.
I immediately rechecked the address on my order & it appeared to have the incorrect address so I called up customer service to get this address changed. Even though I had given the agent the correct address & the correct address was on file for the first order created [WQG775-01], the second order [WQG988-01]did not have the correct address, this second order was automatically created by the agent after cancelling my initial order so I was never asked for an address, I did give it for the first order so I'm still not able to understand how this mistake was made to be honest!

The agent told me not to worry & that the address had been changed to the correct address & that Fedex will be given the new address to reroute the box.

This was the day before the box was delivered so I waited the entire next day for the box to arrive but later when I checked online Fedex showed that the box had been delivered to the incorrect address. Now that's just absolutely awesome isn't it?!

So I ring up customer service once again for this one order to find out what is going on.

This agent that I spoke to was unaware of what was going on & kept telling me the box had been delivered to my address. I told her that box the address was sent to was incorrect & that they needed to send me another box to the correct address or retrace the previous box & have it sent to me. This was on 07/29.

This exact conversation continued everyday for the next few days with every agent I spoke to & every agent assured me the new address had been entered & that a box was on its way to my correct address here in Cary, NC. Great now we've gotten to the weekend & I'm leaving in two weeks with no box to send my broken laptop in. I had a few chat conversations with agents online to see if they would be able to help me better than the agents on the phone but it was the same result. And I assure you, every agent I spoke to was notified by me that I am leaving on the 15th of August & I need my repaired laptop back with me before then cause I need it with me before travelling.

Yesterday night [08/02] I was told by an agent that the previous order [WQG988-01] will be cancelled & that he will create a brand new order for this repair [WTH113-01], again I was assured my repaired laptop would get back to me before 15th August. Today when I checked the status of this new order that had been created, it had the incorrect serial number once again & so I had to call up customer service.

After being frustrated with service provided to me over the past 7 days I spoke to the supervisor but he was extremely rude on the phone unwilling to help out in any way & told me the previous order [WQG988-01] was never cancelled & that the order was still active so were just going to work on that order & cancel the new order that was created [WTH113-01].

But when I asked for the status of the box that is to be sent to me, I was told he is unsure of any details of the box & that I should expect the box to arrive in the next 3 - 5 business days. That's great but I am leaving in 10 business days so how is my laptop going to get repaired before I leave??

So now I’mstuck with a broken laptop, I paid over $200 for extended service that clearlyappears to be non-existant & am leaving the country in a little less thantwo weeks before which I need a working notebook.

Are you confused by all of this? I wouldn't be surprised if you are cause I myself get confused at times on what is going & I am being thrown around by the customer service agents without any actual information on what is going on!

This is extremely frustrating & I was hoping somebody could point me in the direction to get in touch with a person working at HP that could actually help me out. I don't know if the box is actually on its way to my correct address as I don't have any tracking number for it but have a little less than two weeks before I leave & so I'm trying everything I can to get this broken laptop out of my house & into the repair centre so that I can have it fixed & sent back to me before I leave the country.

I don’t want to have to call up customer service in a few days because there is no box at my place & then have them tell me there is no way for them to repair this laptop before I leave. I have done nothing wrong! The HP agents are clearly incompetent of doing ANYTHING & due to their dumbness I am going to have to leave the country without a working laptop. This is just not acceptable! I’m sorry I cannot accept that after paying over $200 for extended service!

I appreciate anybody reading this & will be grateful for any help anyone can provide.

Thank You

 

I'm really sorry about your HP support situation. I know it happens but I've been lucky to avoid most of it. Then again I never buy extended warranties and try to fix most things by myself.

If you want better support, I'd look into the business section and buy a machine from there.

 

Sorry to hear about your problems manu08, hearing these scary stories about support has made me rethink whether its worth buying an extended warranty at all. Better to find someone I know who can fix any problems I have after the year warranty runs out perhaps? I hope you manage to get something sorted anyway.

 

I recently had a problem with tech support, the tech wasn't helpful, asked for the tech support supervisor he wasn't anymore helpful, he actually said " that they expect there computers to stop working with in the first year and that is why there is a 1 year warranty" and then he transferred me back to the same tech, when I got back to the tech I told him - that I did not want to talk to him or his supervisor and to give me a case manager. Once I got the case manager everything happened really quick (repairs)

I would recommend calling back tech support and tell them you want to talk to a case manager. Then hopefully everything will move quickly for you (getting boxes the next day, etc...)

 

Actually in the past I've had pretty good experiences with HP support. Just this one time, I don't know how but they managed to squeeze the hell out of me within that one week.

Shuzo, I don't know, I personally might stay away from HP in the future [I do like their laptops for their price] but the fact that every computer company has had their support sent overseas I can see myself having such a problem, or something similar with any other computer company as well, despite what ppl might say, it is definitely possible with any company nowadays.
In terms of getting the extended warranty? Just weigh it out. It cost me $230 for a 2 year service plan with pick up & return with accidental damage protection. Now I bought this towards the end of my first year of the manufacturer's warranty so my 'first year' kinda went waste if you think about it but in my second year I've actually used it a lot cause I knew I wouldn't be treating this notebook too well as I tend to be a little more rough with it, especially knowing that I'm covered regardless of what happens. I needed the warranty & for $230 I knew I could have my notebook repaired for free regardless of how it might have gotten messed up so that was a situation to me that seemed worth it. In retrospect, I probably wouldn't change the fact that I bought this extended warranty. I've had my LCD repaired cause I dropped the notebook by mistake, and now I'm going to get the motherboard [I believe] replaced as well cause of whatever problem so it definitely was worth it for me.

Anyway, I also emailed HP support this entire post I typed up here. To my surprise, within the hour I had an email response telling me that I would in fact not be able to get the laptop back to me by August 15th & that if I was travelling somewhere within the US HP would gladly ship my repaired notebook to my preferred address. Now, since I'm travelling to Montreal, Canada this was clearly not going to resolve my problem. In that same response I was also told that due to the responder being from the technical department his hands were kind of tied in terms of what he could actually do for me & that if this response hadn't resolved my issue the case could be escalated to the quality case manager.

I responded asking the case to be sent over to the quality case manager & yesterday [tuesday] I received a call early in the morning from Jennifer who was the case manager. Now she was extremely helpful, patient, & soft spoken & told me that I had a couple of options & well we worked it out over the phone as she advised me that it was unlikely for my notebook to get back to me before I leave. Finally I was provided with an additional one year of accidental damage protection here in the USA so it is now valid till September 2010. And, normally the warranty does not carry over outside the USA but for this one time, I have 30 days after I arrive in Montreal to contact her colleague to get my laptop taken care off in Canada itself. The best part about it? And both of us laughed about this actually, no more dealing with tech support for this repair of mine!

Sure it's not my ideal solution as I'd prefer to have a working notebook when I leave the country so I can get on with my work as soon as I arrive in Montreal but I've been given an additional year of warranty & my laptop will [hopefully] be fixed in Canada without any hiccups so I don't know if I really should be complaining at all.

It did take a week of absolute nonsense from the tech support people to get all this done though so maybe the offer they've made me is actually worth it, even in their eyes?

Funny thing: this call took place before 9AM, and there was no record on file of a new box coming to my correct address but at around 10AM [coincidentaly when Jennifer called me back with more details] Fedex delivered a box which had been given 'overnight shipping' to be sent back to the repair centre to get it repaired.
She was surprised herself to find out that a box had actually arrived cause I checked with her on the first call whether or not a box was on the way to my place & she told me no new box had been shipped out.

HP has got quite a few problems in terms of what is actually being recorded on file & where money is just being wasted with multiple boxes & what not & probably not ever being recorded but I guess that's just the way it happens with big companies huh?

Listen, I really appreciate you guys responding, it definitely felt a lot more relaxing to see someone out there understood the trouble I was going through cause the HP agents.. Oh well, enough about them.

 

My experience with the case managers in Canada has been really good. Tech support is another thing.

 

Glad you got things sorted and yes I think you're right and the extra cover is worth it in the long run. Nice that you got another year from them too It does make it all better when they actually offer you something good after a week of rubbish support.

 

Wow, sad BUT glad to hear it's not just me this is happening to. My problem was far smaller than most I've read here, but that is what makes my experience even worse. How hard could it be to get a diagnose/replace a laptop battery ??

I have a 11 month old HP pavilion dv7. My battery is not part of the recall, and just recently, the charging light would blink once it was full, the batt icon stated 95% but not charging. Hmmm, never did that before. Battery would discharge unplugged, then charge back up to a certain point, then stop. Battery failed HP battery check, which stated replace, and had a warranty ID code.

Then hell ensued. Dispatched an email to HP, which is always responded to by an auto reply. Then received first "actual" email from a friendly tech, who stated they were going to take ownership of my issue, and were sorry for the problems, etc, etc. I stated all the errors/symptoms, and all system information I could provide. He responded with a slightly vague, "I can see by your email, that you are having battery issues", etc, etc, could you provide some information", which I did. Serial numbers, order numbers, every number I could find. More auto response emails, and more "actual" emails, all of which had headers with some reference number which it said I should NOT delete. This continued for many more emails, where I was asked for MORE information, numbers on, and behind the battery, etc, etc.

It seemed obvious that not only was no one there (I did get responses from more than one tech) was reading all of the attached emails from before, nor reading the reference number, nor entering any information into any system as far as I could tell, because every email seemed to ask for MORE information.

Finally they asked for home address, phone number, etc, etc. I thought it was odd given all the information I had already provided, but what the hell. THEN, they sent an email stating that would need to call me to "verify" my address ?? Are you kidding me. How long must this continue ??

I was growing very upset at the large amount of my time wasted (and sadly enough their's as well), over such a simple issue. I even sent a screenshot of the actuall HP Battery Check failure message including the Warranty ID number. As expected I missed a few of their phone calls, and finally called back, and had to almost RE-explain the entire situation all over again to someone else, no matter how many "reference" numbers or emails I referenced.

During this last 25 minute call where the tech was very friendly (as they always are, and have been) he began to mention about my having to BUY a battery. At this point, I had had enough. Thanked him for his time.

After having wasted more than a few hours with emails, reading/responding, phone calls, searching for hidden numbers, over such a simple issue, on a less than 1 year old laptop, is rediculous. I can ONLY imagine the hell others with far worse problems will endure.

The laptop was maxed out when I purchased it, and it has been as good as I expected, which says alot. Lots of features for the money. Ran pretty fast after stipping off the load of HP bloatware on all of their machines. Even have Windows 7 on the second hard drive, which almost seems to double the machines speed.

Can't complain about the laptop at all, and will be buying my own battery to avoid going through anymore "support".

I'm fully aware of modern business models, price point structuring, and outsourcing, but HP cannot be making money when things are being run like this. My problem was simple, and many others, are far worse.

Have purchased a more "beefy" Alienware laptop which will serve MORE as a true desktop replacement, and we shall now see how they fare.

 

I had many many many different incidents, I dunno where to start......

basically, to sum this all up......I am NEVER buying an HP Notebook again! no matter what the special offer was!

next laptop is going to be a Toshiba probably