I Hate HP & Best Buy

I had to send my laptop into Best Buy to get fixed, since it has issues. I sent it in on the 19th of March, and picked it up today. I had issues with the screen resizing itself, the keyboard occasionally not registering the keys I typed, and the whole computer just crashing randomly. I know that an entire generation of HP laptops contains bad chips made by nVidia. HP has acknowledged that some of its laptops are severely messed up and has extended the warranties on a few dozen models because of those issues.

My machine counts as one of the ones that are messed up, but not enough of them are messed enough for HP to extend the warranty on them. I contacted HP and they told me to take it to Best Buy, since they do warranty repairs for HP. Three weeks later (the day after I was supposed to get my laptop back) I get a call from the HP service center in California saying that they need my authorization to do a hard drive replacement. They said that they didn’t find any of the problems that I have been experiencing for the last few months, but they said that my hard drive failed and that they needed my authorization to replace it at a cost of $236 for parts and labor. I asked them why it wouldn’t be covered under the warranty, so the guy asked the HP representative there about it. The HP guy said that since I bought the laptop on eBay, they wouldn’t honor the 12 month warranty and thus I would have to pay for any and all repairs. (I’ve dealt with HP before about a hard drive issue, and they replaced it for me for free a few months ago, because that was under warranty, they didn’t care that I bought it from eBay, all they cared was that it was less than a year old, and was therefore covered under warranty.) I said I was not willing to pay that much for a hard drive replacement, so they shipped it back to me without actually doing anything to it, other than it coming back to me with dirt and dust in it that wasn’t there when I gave it to them.

The hard drive I have in my laptop sells for $50 and you need to remove a single screw to take it out of the computer. I really need to find a job where I can get paid $186 to remove a screw and put it back a minute later. If anyone can find me such a job, I would really appreciate it. I ran my own detailed diagnostic on the drive when I got it back and found nothing wrong with it.

HP sent me a survey about my recent experience with them, and I said I was very dissatisfied and explained why. They said they may contact me for follow-up information, and I hope they do.

The people at HP and Best Buy need to actually communicate with each other. Everyone I talked to said they’d make sure the problem was taken care of, except for the guy at the service center. Everyone I talked to at HP and Best Buy said my machine was under warranty, except the guy actually in charge of doing the work. If the HP people, and the Best Buy people I interacted with a month ago had told me that my machine would not be fixed for free, I wouldn’t have been parted from my laptop for almost a month with the hopes of getting it back in full working order. The lady at Best Buy was going to charge me $34 for the labor of looking at my computer, but since I pointed out that her sheet says my computer is still under parts and labor warranty, she didn’t charge me.

I now have no idea if my computer is under warranty or not. One guy at Best Buy said that an HP person told him it wasn’t under warranty, yet everyone else I’ve dealt with at both HP ad Best Buy believed it was under warranty. Everyone needs to be on the same page. Either my machine is under warranty and I want it fixed, or it’s not under warranty and I’ll open it up and try to work something out myself, without the fear of voiding the warranty. And yes,

I wish my experience with Best Buy and HP was more like my experience with Logitech. My wireless headphones broke, and there was a known defect in the plastic used that caused them to break. Not only did Logitech let me know that there was defective plastic used in my headphones, they sent me a pair of the newer, better headphones as a replacement because they would not replace a defective part with a part that would probably fail in the same way. Although I wish that I didn't have to deal with broken headphones, I appreciate that they took the time to ensure that I was satisfied with their product. Here's my post about that situation. And yes, after 15 months, I am very happy with my replacement headphones and they still work great!

Logitech Likes Me

A year and a half ago I bought a pair of wireless Logitech headphones for my mp3 player. After a few weeks the band managed to snap on them, which was a sad day as I had come to love these headphones. I tried to fix them but the fix didn’t last and they broke permanently with the wires snapping inside. I started shopping for a new pair and found the ipod version on eBay for around $35. These were the same except that they were white and grey instead of black, and they had a weird plug so that you could control the ipod through the buttons on the earpiece. Thankfully I have an adapter so that I can plug the little wireless transmitter into my Zen, making them even better than my previous pair since the colors better matched my player, plus the battery lasted a little bit longer.

This pair also broke on me shortly after buying them, but I successfully fixed them and they have lasted for quite a while now. Sadly, this pair too met a tragic end when I moved them out of harm’s way while I was arranging stuff by the downstairs TVs, only to have my sister sit on them and snap the band in a new place where I couldn’t fix them. Looking online I found that these models of headphones were notorious for having fragile headbands that would snap soon after they were opened. I emailed Logitech about them and they have decided to send me a new pair. Since the versions I had had too many band problems they were discontinued and replaced with a newer model that should be more comfortable to wear and much stronger with a spring-steel band instead of the brittle, plastic one. This version also sells for more than I paid for my first couple of pairs combined.

If these new headphones are as good as the reviews I’ve read I’ll be very happy. Here’s the link on them.