Kathryn Booth

Who supports tech support? HP/Compaq – never again.

I purchased a Compaq notebook in 2006 and it worked out pretty well for a couple years. Then HP/Compaq got aggressive with the updates and sent a mandatory BIOS update that crashed my system.

After getting it looked at by someone who knows (Tony) I sent it in for them to flash the BIOS with the correct code. When they got the unit, I was contacted and told that my CD/DVD drive was bad and causing the problem and it would take $350 to put in a new one.

This made me a little grumpy, so I told them that NO, their update had corrupted the BIOS, flash the BIOS and send it back. Which they did and it worked fine – until it crashed due to faulty system issues that instigated a recall (which was what they were attempting to correct with the BIOS update)

They didn’t tell me there were overheating problems at the first juncture and the laptop died in early 2008. It was a backup system, and I lost some data, but not too much so I decided to drop in a new hard drive and set it up for my daughter last month.

When I went on the site to check on hard drive info I discovered the recall – too late of course – so I called tech support and they offered to take it back in for $275 to put in a new hard drive and reinstall the systems OR I could put in my own hard drive and purchase a restore disc…for $25.  I’m good with the tech stuff so I decided that I could do the install myself. So ordered the disc and the hd.

Hard drive went in ok and I got the install disc running and windows going, but driver issues like the letter t not working on the keyboard and ports not working and no IP address getting recognized kept me still locked down. Searching the disc they sent I discovered the drivers I needed and disc layout were not correct for my model and sure enough when I checked the disc in the clamshell it had a different number than the part number bar code on the case. Simple issue RIGHT?

Not so much. I called tech support again and after over an hour got to a supervisor who told me that the labeling didn’t matter, this was the only disc they had and if I had them send another one it would be the same…wrong drivers for my machine…OR I could send in my machine and for $345 they would install the correct drivers. No way they would do it for free. No way they would send me the correct disc – they “don’t have it” and selling me a “restore disc” that is not the correct one for my machine is OK because it is the only one they have.

I admit that I raised my voice to the lady out there somewhere just trying to do her job. It didn’t help and I felt awful. I asked her to give me the number of HP/Compaq headquarters, but she said that they weren’t given that information and weren’t allowed to give it out.

This made me really sad – how would it feel to have to deal with customers calling in and having to deal with them being angry and only having an alternative that is completely stupid ($345 to fix a 3 yr old laptop) and knowing that other people are sending the wrong discs to people who are purchasing them to solve the problem caused by a faulty product?

People are more valuable to me than this – both customers and my employees or contractors.

I decided to end the call by apologizing for myself – getting angry and raising my voice made her job worse and didn’t help her understand me any better and I also told her that I was truly sorry she had to work for a company that would put her in this position day after day.

Note to HP/Compaq…file under Corporate Values or Corporate Conscience

“Selling a restore disc that doesn’t have the correct drivers for the machine it was purchased for is stealing. A restore disc has the programming needed to make the system work like it did when it started out. Shame on you. And shame on you for treating your tech support that way – they shouldn’t have to justify your attempt to make a buck off people who don’t know how to fix simple issues.”

And this is another reason “once you go Mac you never go back” – I’ve had issues with i-Pods and the employees had the ability to fix it or replace it. I’ve had a big Mac desktop running Windows for 18 months and love it, love it, love it.

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