warning about hp customer service

I just wanted to warn everyone about the quality of HP's customer service. I'm currently in a battle with them about getting my laptop that is still under warranty fixed properly.

Back in August 2006 I bought a HP Pavilion dv6000z notebook. It worked great, but in March 2007, the motherboard died. It was still under warranty, so I sent it in to get fixed. I was told it would be 2 weeks to get it fixed, because some of the parts were not in stock. HP received the laptop on March 15th according to the FedEx tracking info.

On April 8, I still had not heard anything from them. I contacted them, and the customer service agent said he would email the repair department and have them contact me within a few hours. I made sure they had my correct phone number and email address. No answer, so I contacted them the next day. The person I spoke to then said it would be April 30th before the laptop would be fixed. Luckily, they were incorrect on this date, and the laptop was shipped back to me on the 11th, and I received it today (13th).

When I opened the package and booted the laptop, I found the following:

The laptop was sent to them with a battery, but was not returned with a battery.
The repair sheet included in the box indicated the laptop had been imaged back to the original factory image. However, they put XP Media Center instead of XP Professional, and there was no partition with drivers.
The laptop had 2 GB of RAM when I purchased, and sent the laptop to HP. It returned with only 1.5 GB of RAM.
The fan in the case was non-functional. This is causing the laptop to overheat after a few minutes, shut down, and be unable to boot for a few minutes.

I am of course steaming about this, and will be contacting customer support and every phone number I can find on HP's website. However, I wanted to inform everyone about the "quality" of HP's customer service, in case they were thinking of purchasing from this company anytime soon.

 

Sorry to hear about your situation and thanks for the warning.

 

Sorry to hear about your situation and thanks for the warning.

 

I think the question you should be asking yourself, is this your laptop? Cross-ups do happen.

 

It's the same serial number on the case, and the enclosed repair sheet has the correct repair order number.

 

Yup, everything matches the record on their website, and the repair order number I was given on the phone originally.

 

You need to ask to speak to manager here in the US and tell them your problem. When I received my laptop from repair, it wasn't fixed, so i called back and they sent a brand new one upgraded from the original. In your case I don't see why they wouldn't do that.
Good luck!

 

I'm surprised that HP asked you to send in the laptop with the battery. When I had to send mine in, they specifically told me to leave out the battery and the power adapter. I guess now you'll have to call them and complain. Good luck

 

Thanks all. I would assume that to get in touch with a manager, I need to wait until after the weekend? And is there any number I should call other than the standard technical support number from their website?

 

At this point, you need to get in contact with tech support to escalate your case. Don't spend too much time with the techies since they aren't authorized to deal with situations like this. Instead, ask for the supervisor and explain to them the problem. Mention that you want escalation to a case manager. Once you are escalated, you'll be contacted by a case manager with a number to call and a quality reference ID or something number like that.

PS: don't try the case managers without a case number since they are individually assigned to a case based on that number. If you don't have it, then chances are they won't be able to help you.

 

Read my sig on customer care.

 

HP's service seems pretty poor in the US, coincidentally its primary market as it competes against Dell. This is very surprising, really.
In the repair summary sheet you received, HP should have listed the parts they ordered and replaced and document everything else they did. Everything else performed that is not listed is not an authorised action.

I'd suggest calling up and asking for a case manager to escalate the case if you have not already done so. Be firm but polite and they should be able to arrange something for you. For the commercial notebooks, we get access to HP's ITRC support which is really quick and efficient (and they do call).

 

You can escalate the case to the manager.

 

My experience with HP service is good so far.