Dear HP Customer Care, Do You Care?

A little background...on my HP (Hell People) experience

2009-09-28T20:27:00.000-07:00

Minutes before my computer proved non-working and how it all began...

Part 2 Day 5

2009-09-28T20:07:00.000-07:00

Still a bottom priority. Thanks for staying true HP.

Gilbert and anyone and everyone,
I did get your message tonight. However, it was past the hours you gave me, when I was available to return your call. I did not receive any other messages from you since we talked Thursday. Since we were unable to talk after you waited until the absolute end of the day to call me today, I am writing you this email which I am only able to write as my husband has been toting his work laptop back and forth when he is able, to allow me to pursue this serious matter with HP.

I am not sure what you are getting at exactly in reference to my role in social media? I did start writing, blogging, and tweeting about my poor treatment with HP and dissatisfaction before we talked. I have CONTINUED to write, blog, and tweet about my dissatisfaction since we have talked, and will continue to do so as you will see from looking at my blog. This should come as no surprise to you as I was completely dissatisfied and doubtful of the "resolution" options you provided me on Thursday. Of course I had reason to be doubtful based on my experience thus far, and based on my experience STILL.

That is why I wrote this statement in the email I addressed to your department:

"I think the "resolution" options were pretty shitty ones that Gilbert offered me since only part of my issue is my extreme computer problems, the other part of the issue is the nightmare it has been, getting this issue resolved. I think I have spent more time on the phone than anyone has spent actually trying to repair my computer" (and FAILING to do so!)

I think it is pretty clear from that statement alone that I am STILL dissatisfied since we have talked and STILL writing about it. I am at over 7000 negative impressions at this point by the way.

In continuing with a pattern of miscommunication and misinformation, I did not receive any call on Thurs or Fri to schedule a tech service call as you stated I would be receiving from someone. You mentioned the slim chance of Friday-that came and went, which I can accept as that was a long shot. You also mentioned Monday and Wednesday but stated someone would call to confirm a time. I was anxious to get someone out to fix the computer on Monday and anxiously awaiting a call to schedule a time. I received NO CALL. Then, this morning I received a call "confirming" my service call for 11am. I had a conflict at that time-an appointment for my daughter. How FRUSTRATING that NO ONE could have called to give options, or to notify me of service call availability? I called the technician to let him know this time was not a time I had available and told him I had a window later in the day, and tomorrow available. I called the dispatch center, gave them the same information, they said they would pass the information to the technician who would call to confirm. Hours past, I received NO CALL. I called and left the technician a second message. I called the dispatch center a second time. At 6:00 PM I still had no call confirming a service call for tomorrow. Am I supposed to clear the entire week, cancel work, cancel all appointments, and sit by the phone and my computer and wait for a service technician to magically appear? I called the dispatch center a SECOND time and FINALLY was at least given a "window" for tomorrow between 2-5. However, I was told the service person would call to confirm that time. Of course I have still received no calls AT ALL to confirm anything and have placed 5 outgoing calls regarding the matter. I do not have much faith I will receive that "confirmation" call tomorrow. If I had not been so persistent who knows if and when anyone would get to me. I am clearly everyone's last priority which makes me feel extremely uncared for.

And if you are wondering, YES, this update to my case will be posted, written about, tweeted, and facebooked, fwd to the external CEO, as well as passed along to the Mac and Apple service individuals I have been writing, tweeting, and messaging.

Clearly, this is more than a warranty issue Gilbert. It is an incompetence issue on the part of HP as a whole. I did not simply have a computer problem that required phone assistance, and send away assistance, etc. as specified in the warranty for how to resolve a technical issue. This is about EVERYTHING ELSE AROUND THAT ISSUE. This is about mistreatment, miscommunication, poor customer service, screw ups, lack of follow through, inconsistency, and complete disregard for me as a customer. The warranty is supposed to protect me as a customer. It is supposed to make me feel confident in my product. It has accomplished quite the opposite, as YOU like to bring up the warranty when it benefits HP. But HP has no accountability. No one has gone above and beyond to help remedy this horrible situation, and I am not even talking about my fairly new HP product that completely died with no explanation from HP, I am talking about my BAD experience with HP. I am talking about trying to be handled and managed and given a load of bs. You talk about going "the extra mile"-haven't seen that part yet.

I heard in one of the many times I have been placed on hold something about HP's "award winning" care. If that were true, I would especially think HP would be bending over backwards to assist me if my experience were not the true character of HP.

I still have little faith in HP, HP affiliates, HP products, and the HP CSC escalation department. I keep waiting for something positive to happen, for HP to actually prove helpful and useful in resolving my matter. I am still waiting-with a non-functional "fixed"computer" and a new hard drive. Maybe I misunderstood, am I supposed to try to install the hard drive myself?

Discontented,

Brooke

PS Maybe HP should just pay me what you paid the idiot who sent me a non-functional computer-who "repaired" my computer, and signed him name to it being "repaired" Apparently HP computer repair men and I have something in common, we both don't know how to fix a computer. At least I would have the common sense not to mail a customer a broken one. An apology does not remedy this major mistake on HP's part. Fixing my computer a SECOND time still does not remedy this major mistake on HP's part, that is simply what should be done and is the bare minimum which I guess is where I sit. I am trying to understand why no one cares? Would somebody care more if my husband called? Is this a gender thing as well?

Part 2 Day 4

2009-09-26T19:13:00.000-07:00

Yes HP, I f you are out there, I am STILL blogging about this. I vow to blog about this until we reach a "resolution" that is appropriate for the mistreatment I have been subjected to as a loyal return HP customer-which by the way-I will NEVER BE AGAIN.

Dear HP Desktop Escalated CSC team,

Please forward this message to your superior. The escalated case managers have to report to someone who deals with the customers that are going ballistic. I am that customer. I have been blogging, tweeting, and facebooking about my dissatisfaction with HP and received over 3800 negative impressions in just 2 days. I am just one customer, but social media allows me to reach hundreds of thousands of customers which I will continue to do as I am very plugged into social media. I also emailed to the External CEO department, as well as the CEO of HP directly and will continue to do so every day until we find a "resolution."

I think the "resolution" options were pretty shitty ones that Gilbert offered me since only part of my issue is my extreme computer problems, the other part of the issue is the nightmare it has been getting this issue resolved. I think I have spent more time on the phone than anyone has spent actually trying to repair my computer since the repair center is a joke and mailed me back a non-working computer with no explanations.

I am starting to have an intense hate for HP. I am going to make as much noise as possible every single day until we find a "resolution." I tried to be understanding and nice and respectful and apparently no one gives a shit for nice.

Here is some background information I provided Gilbert if anyone of real authority is going to actually take me seriously.
http://hp-servicemadesimple-andhorrible.blogspot.com/

Sincerely,
Brooke Fuller

The saga continues...Part 2 Day 3

2009-09-25T19:18:00.000-07:00

To my "escalation manager"

Gilbert,
I am feeling frustrated AGAIN. I emailed you last night, you did not respond. I thought you were going to call me after you ordered the service call and you did not. Today I received a hard drive in the mail. It would have been nice to know that it would be mailed directly to me.

Obviously no one came to fix the computer today and no one called either, which makes me have little hope that they will be able to fix it on Monday. Which was the next possible time you said would be available and that they would call to figure out a time. I understand that it would have been near impossible to get someone here to fix the computer today, but I think its ridiculous that no one could call to schedule a time for next Monday or to schedule a time for any day next week. Now if I even do get a call next week who knows when they will have time to squeeze me in?

This does not feel like the "extra mile" you said you were going for me. You might need to "escalate" me two more levels because that is how I am feeling right now.

Brooke

You should send these out in your Care Pack HP.

2009-09-24T21:03:00.000-07:00

How about sending these out to your customers HP? Thanks for the tip J. and www.despair.com!

Don't want to keep you in suspense, but HP has provided me with a "resolution" that sucks. After more drama, more incompetence, and more run around my case manager said he would try to "go the extra mile." He gave me 3 options for fixing my computer. I felt extremely lucky that he was willing to go the extra mile and order a technician to fix my computer-oh wait, isn't that just a given with my warranty!!!??? And he might just extend my warranty if I am lucky and on best behavior. In conclusion, HP customer care still sucks. I do not feel any "resolution" AT ALL.

OH, and I still have a non functioning computer and I am sure hours more of runaround before we get this issue resolved. Looking forward to it!

Dear HP, "Service made simple" or not.

2009-09-23T21:29:00.000-07:00

Here is a letter I sent to HP after my recent horrible experience with my HP Pavilion, its demise, and horrible experience with my "HP Care Pack Services." The slogan "Service made simple." How about, we simply do not care?

Please refer to another experience I had with HP here.

Dear Archie,

Thank you for your response. I will be contacting you first thing in the morning. I too hope we can resolve this issue by refunding my money.

As you can imagine, receiving my "repaired" computer in the mail yesterday only to find it not working properly was extremely frustrating. Especially after it took me 7.5 hours, speaking to 13 different individuals, and 2 ridiculous attempts that were insisted upon by two technicians for me a non-technician to remove parts from my computer myself which made me extremely uncomfortable. I understand there is a certain order of events that required a tech over the phone to assist a customer in troubleshooting. But a technician insisting I gently remove certain parts out of my computer when they were literally screwed in with 4 screws did not help me to feel trust in these technicians since we clearly were not looking at the same computer-especially when they did not believe these parts were screwed in and insisted I try and try again. If I would have followed their instructions to the "T" I literally would have broken parts out of my computer. I do not have much faith my warranty would have been validated after that.

There are NUMEROUS problems with my HP experience. I would like to share them with you so you will have some more background here so we can take care of this problem as quickly as possible and not waste anymore time-yours or mine.

1. "HP Customer Care Services" are a joke.

We ordered this computer from the HP website, a mistake I will never make again. We purchased the "in-home repair service" a mistake I will never make again. I find it ironic that your tag line is "service made simple." My experience has been quite the opposite-from dropped calls to REPEATEDLY being connected to the completely wrong person and having to call back again, to having a case number that pretty much meant nothing since I had to explain over and over again the situation to many different people, to being told completely different things by different people, to being forced to take parts out of my computer, to having to spend 7.5 hours on the phone before someone would finally take my warranty info and figure out a way for a professional to fix the problem, to sending the computer away to a "professional" and having it sent back NOT WORKING. Is this "service made simple?" My computer is only a year and a half old. And this is not even the first time we've had problems. This is the third time in its short life it has malfunctioned-including being shipped a new monitor at one point, when ours simply stopped working. So I have not been impressed with my "HP Care Pack Services" to say the least or my HP quality. I didn't realize the "in home service repair" option meant I would be doing the in home service repair. It is actually laughable and false advertising to have a nice looking gentleman helping a family on the cover of this "Care Pack." Why not show a desperate woman on the floor on her hands and knees trying to take apart the insides of her computer frantically with a screwdriver that is not even the right size frustrated out of her mind, getting an unwanted crash course in computer parts 101? That sounds about right.

2. EXTREMELY poor execution of repairs-or non-repairs and customer communication (lack of).

After someone finally ordered a box to be shipped out to us to mail the computer in, we did receive a call from Gottfried rather quickly explaining what to do-one point HP. I inquired about data recovery, Gottfried told me for an additional $52.43 they could attempt data retrieval, and if date could not be retrieved the $52.43 would be refunded. We proceeded with this. After mailing in the computer I thought I might get a call after they had located the problem. I thought at least I would get a brief couple of lines summarizing what happened, and or what they did when the computer returned home. I received no call of course. When I received the computer yesterday it was in a shitty box that looked like it had been used 5 times before, the tape was tearing and I actually thought it might have already been opened. No knife necessary, my 4 year old helped me pry it open. I felt extremely confident about the shape my computer might be in. Inside I found the computer tower and 1 slip of paper-wow a service report. 2 lines: "SMARTORIMMINENTFAILUREERROR" Replace Hard Drive "NoPOWERorPOST" Replace Power Supply. Well that really cleared things up. No three lines explaining what might have happened, or that they didn't know what happened but here's what they did. NO statement saying whether they were able to retrieve our lost data or not. No mention of it at all.

3. Repairs. Another joke.

I am glad you are paying people to not do their jobs. So I assumed I should just start up the computer and it started up like it was brand new, guess my data wasn't recovered-all I could do is guess at this point! I started it up, got all the virus scan updates, hp updates, F-ing Vista updates...by the way I HATE Vista-spent a good couple of hours doing all that while I waited for the 63 computer updates alone to update. It finally seemed to be working for like 5 mins, although it did seem to freeze for 2 to 3 sec at a time randomly. Then there was a grand finale, as I shut down the computer a freeze up, a blue screen, an Error message: "Kernal_data_inpage_error...Tech info 0x000007A(0xC0601B20,0xC0000056,0x57F3A884,0xC0364000 followed by a black screen with "Disk boot failure, insert system disk and press enter." Right, I'll just insert the system disk, easy enough...oh wait, I don't have a system disk! I don't know what the F that means! Didn't my computer just get repaired and mailed to me that day? What the hell. The next morning, today (Wed), I tried starting it up. It went right to the Disk boot failure screen. It is EXTREMELY frustrating and annoying to have a computer back from a repair center out in Texas that is not working properly. I guess we are making improvements though, when I sent it away it was completely dead with a black screen, no power and would not even turn on, now it actually turns on and I can look at a black screen. I am curious how someone sends away a computer to a customer without turning it on to see if it works properly?

4. More insult to injury. "Attempted" data retrieval???

I have no faith that anyone even attempted to retrieve my data. Yes I am the idiot who did not back up my data, but Gottfried is the idiot who told me he would attempt to retrieve it for $52.43 and if he could not do so, would refund my money. Remember that point Gottfried got for his speedy call? It is revoked after he did not refund my money. I am only left to assume that no one gives a shit about me or my computer or they were not able to retrieve my data, that is a conclusion I reach by looking at a computer with a new hard drive that doesn’t work! However, my credit card statement says otherwise! Yesterday I get a piece of shit computer that does not work in the mail followed by a charge on my credit card for $52.43 from when the order was placed that has not been refunded. I get to pay $50 for nothing it looks like. No explanation, no "we attempted to retrieve your information without success," no "you will be seeing a credit to your charge card in ____ days." I guess this is the service made simple part-it simply sucks.

5. Round 2: More "customer care"

On top of it all I get to play phone tag with HP, yet again today to begin the nightmare all over again. Call #1 Disconnected, Call back #2...follow the service menu...explain my situation...oh wait, right you can't help me, you need to transfer me to a different tech person...yes I can hold...wow, thanks for transferring me to some business services/contractor of HP who can do NOTHING for me at all and who actually said "I feel your pain," with my frustration of being connected to the absolute wrong person. Call back #3 (we might beat my all time high score of 13 from last week!) I request to talk to a supervisor. He tells me based on all the above that I tell him, that he can have a tech help me with "troubleshooting" and if that doesn't work, we can ship the computer in for repair. Isn't that what we did already? Is this déjà? No its HP-Hell People! The supervisor tells me that the hard drive or some component may not have been loaded properly based on my error message. Wow, I am feeling even more confident in HP by the minute and eager to have them work on my computer again, maybe we can use the same shitty box 3 more times. He also tells me after he has no explanation for my data issue (refer to #4) that he can put me in contact with the refund department. That sounds like a whole lot of fun, talking to more people to get a refund I should already have! Or wait; if I don't have the refund did they retrieve my data? An unsolved mystery. That is when I lost it. I do not want to send my computer back to Texas so they can screw it up even more-but wait-it does come with 90 days of warranty? But I already have 90 days of warranty on my warranty!

To bring this additional amount of time I have invested into this problem to a close.

I have absolute no faith in HP to repair my computer.

I do not want to go back and forth between Irving TX. And I honestly do not believe that if I did send it in that they would do more than put a band-aid on a problem that is going to explode on me at the end of the year when my warranty expired and my computer crashes and I am out of luck. I think the data recovery issue is ridiculous and an insult that I have no refund or mention of refund. I think the custom care sucks. I think my 1.5 year old computer that had to have a hard drive replaced already, sucks. I want to wash my hands of this mess. I do not want to explain this problem to another 10 people. I do not want to mail it to the repair center again. I do not want to take it to a repair center. I already went through all the steps involved in my "Customer Care Service Plan." All I want is my money back. My order confirmation #H102114434 in the amount of $1088.45. That is how you can help me resolve this issue. I see no other way. It will probably cost you less to write me a check than to employ and pay the 42 people it would take to talk to me over the phone, attempt to repair my computer, ship it, and handle it. Please put us both out of our misery.

Sincerely,

Brooke Fuller