Arianna O'Dell

Guess what? My netbook is STILL broken. This is my third and final post about the terrible customer service I have experienced with HP.

Post #1 – Hp Stands for Horrible Products

Post #2 – Just Send Me a Replacement HP

I have spent hours going back and forth with their customer service department. I have contacted HP through Twitter, email, and phone, only receive a big headache, unnecessary stress, and refusal to send me a replacement. Will I ever get reimbursed for my time or get back those wasted hours of my life? No. On top of that, they won’t even send me a replacement.

Over this entire ordeal, I even had a “customer service representative” tell me that “HP doesn’t do customer service – only technical support” Those were their exact words. What?! How do you expect to build and maintain a sustainable brand and company without customer service? In this day and age …..you know what? It isn’t even worth my time to finish this post. I’m done wasting my time on them. Never again will I buy one of their products.

To summarize all of the hatred in my head right now - they suck.

I typically don’t raise my voice. I rarely get upset. It truly takes a lot to make me angry. Within five minutes on a call to HP I find myself raising my voice, upset, and very angry.

As I posted earlier, I had been having trouble with my netbook. This was almost 3 weeks ago. Has my problem been solved yet? NO.

There is a simple soluction for this problem: just send me a replacement!

Netbooks are relatively inexpensive and sending me a working unit would not ultimately hurt HP’s bottom line. What IS hurting their bottom line is the amount of stress, frustration, and anger they have caused me. My computer is still under “warranty” for God’s sake. They act as if I am trying to scam them. I just want a working unit – can’t you exect that upon purchase?

My friends have all heard about the terrible experience I have had, my Twitter/Facebook networks, and even my mother. The response I get from everyone after sharing is : “oh I am definetly not going to purchase an HP now”  – as if they might have considered it before.

As an early adopter to technology – I often help non-techy friends when choosing what to purchase. Will I ever recommend that they purchase an HP? No. For the next 80ish years of my life,  I will now tell everyone who asks my opinion to NOT purchase an HP. Could they have solved this issue in a day. YES. I do not understand. Customer service is not rocket science. Not sending me a replacement is ultimately hurting them even more.

During the development of this issue, I had three different people asking me for my telephone number, address, and best time to call. The whole process has been very uncoordinated and frustrating.

I have already lost two weeks of productivity because of this issue. Getting off the phone a half an hour ago, the only solution they offered me was to take my netbook in for repair – thus disconnecting me from the Internet for an even longer period of time.  I have no access to my music, files, or programs – but at the very least could get onto an Internet browser.  I have reiterated my situation at least five different times to them already. Now, I have to wait around until 2:00pm for someone higher up (to authorize a replacement) to call me back. Right now, I have a business in the works, emails to answer, and research to be done. HP obviously does not value my time.

I purchased this netbook EXCLUSIVELY for the trip that I am on. Talk about a big FAIL on my part for choosing HP.

I rarely buy electronics. When I do buy electronics I put a lot of thought into the purchase, shop around, and research the product first. Call me crazy, but I expect what I buy to work. My last two “big budget purchases” were my laptop and netbook. Both HP. Both horrible products.

Let’s start with the laptop. Two years ago, I purchased an HP laptop. After about a month of usage, I had to send it in for repair. I then was convinced by a sales rep to buy the $200 warranty (only to cover my equipment over the next two years). Right as the warranty expired, I almost immediately saw a decline in performance. Coincidence? Now, the battery won’t charge, the laptop shuts off for no reason, and freezes constantly. Quality product? I think not.

There was one point where I called for help, only to have HP lead me step by step to complete data loss. The representative trying to “help me” ended up losing all my family pictures, favorite music, and work files. I then tried to get compensation to purchase data recovery – seeing as it was their fault. After being on hold a few hours, they agreed to give me $50 to put towards data restoration. How generous – my time and inconvience were surely worth that small of an amount! I waited for a few weeks, never to receive this check. I called to look into the issue and was told that “a customer representative would have never promised such a thing, and that the data loss was my own fault.” The only thing that was my fault, was buying their piece of crap. Angry and fed up with trying to explain the situation to someone who didn’t speak English, I gave up chasing the measly $50. During this ordeal, I spent over 8 hours on hold. I then vowed to never purchase another HP product.

Moving on to the netbook – A few months ago I decided that I would be going to Europe for six months. Not wanting to lug around a big laptop, I decided to purchase a netbook. Being the forgiving person that I am (but mostly the incentive of a discount) I decided to forgive HP and try them again. Before leaving, I made sure everything was in order and boarded the plane. Arriving the next day in London, I was happy that I could access the internet easily with my netbook. The next morning I awoke to a surprise! THE NETBOOK WOULD NOT TURN ON. I frantically typed an email out to support and hit send.

This was over a week ago.

Has HP solved my problem? NO!
Did they bother to answer my email? NO!

Here is a copy of the mail I sent to them:

I have an HP Mini Netbook that I had purchased a few months ago in
preparation for a 6 month trip to Europe. Now that I am in Europe my
netbook will not boot up. The only thing that it will do is start the
“Splashtop” but says I need to reinstall the operating system. I can
not access any of my files and I have tried every single
troubleshooting method possible – and was even willing to reset it to
factory settings (and losing all my files) in hopes that it would work
then – I can not find any way to do this, and I have no way to
reinstall the operating system without having to purchase an external
hardrive to do so.

The purpose of purchasing this netbook was to conveniently bring a
computer on my trip. So far, I have had nothing but problems. Is there
anyway you can send a replacement to where I am staying in London? I
will not be returning to the US until September and can’t afford to
purchase a hardrive to reinstall the system so this would be the only
solution that would work for me.

The address is:

Arianna O’Dell
XXXXXXXXX
London, UK

The numbers on the laptop are:
S/N XXXXXXXXXXX
P/N XXXXXXXXXXX

Thank you for any help you can be in this matter,
Arianna O’Dell
ariannaodell@gmail.com

Did anyone answer me? NO! 

 
I only then got a response when I sent a tweet to @HPSupport saying I was going to write a blog post about the issue.

Should I have to threaten writing an angry post to get decent customer service? NO!

The stress, inconvenience, and terrible customer service that came with this issue will not be forgotten.

I will say it one last time. HP stands for Horrible Products. I wouldn’t be surprised if they re-brand into SCS – Shitty Customer Service. Customer service is an extremley important part of any business. I do not understand why so many companies today seem to forget this.