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Thursday, March 13, 2008

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My HP Repair: The Saga Continues

- Sierra Modro

Okay, a great big update on the whole saga so far. Note that I do NOT have my HP Compaq 2710p back from the repair facility yet.

1/25: Called HP. Very nice person, very helpful. Sent me a box for shipping the system to HP for repair.

2/1: Day 1: Shipped to HP in the provided box. I photocopied everything, that goodness.

2/8: Day 8: First call for status. In repair, case escalated. Corrected spelling of my last name.

2/14: Day 14: HP rep unable to get a status update; the call center was experiencing "system issues" After about 25 minutes on the line, I was given an email address to get a status update. I emailed the address and never got a response. Ever.

2/22: Day 22: Claimed that I had been sent status emails on 2/19 and 2/21. I never received the emails. Offered to send me another email. Um, why, if the first two were never received, would anyone think that sending another is going to help? I suggest we verify my email address. It was wrong - same misspelling of my last name that was corrected on 2/8. Said the unit status was "being evaluated".

3/3: Day 32: Day Status was "new system board needed" waiting on parts. Notice that it has taken more than 30 days for them to determine the problem, let alone fix it. ETA 3-5 business days.

3/10: Day 39: New system board was installed on 3/8. Should ship within 2 days. Provided another, different, email address for status.

3/11: Day 40: If this were the Bible, at least the torment would be over. Alas, no. Receive an email update. (Wow!) Email says that I need a new system board and that they're waiting on parts. Um, okay, there's a conflict...

3/13: Day 42: System on hold waiting for a part. When I mention the status update from 3/10, I got put on hold while the person investigated the issue. When he came back, I was told that they installed a new keyboard (?!), and that they have received the new LCD (?!) and it should be ready in a couple of days and ship next week.

HP has had my system for nearly as long as I did before I had to send it in for repair. Overall, I'm pretty nervous about what I'm going to be getting back. I have no idea why they would replace the keyboard or LCD - both were functioning fine when I sent it in. Why would they need replacing now?

I've been running this as rather an experiment. Since I didn't desperately need my system right now, I wanted to see exactly how long it would take for an average repair. This was a pretty simple problem, too. Given that I have a 3 year, business grade warranty on this system, I'm appalled at how long it has taken to have a simple repair done. I am equally, if not more, appalled at how badly HP has communicated the status updates on my system. That is not business grade service.

Check out the thread 2710p Repair Story in the Forums.

Technorati Tags: HP,repair,2710p

Sierra Modro | HP

3/13/2008 4:26 PM MST

My HP Repair: The Saga Continues Comments [17] | Digg This | del.icio.us | Citations

Thursday, March 13, 2008 5:58:26 PM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

I have to say that when I first read about your woes a couple of weeks ago, it prompted me to go for the Fujitsu T2010 instead of the HP 2710p. I'm very sorry for your tale of woe, but grateful for your willingness to share your experience, as I'm absolutely delighted with my new T2010!

Thursday, March 13, 2008 6:17:59 PM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

Sierra,

The previous comment was on target. If there's a way to get anything good from these experiences, it is to share them, so others will be forewarned. HP will have to do a lot of reputation rebuilding with the business community after this. Keep sharing, and we'll keep reading. HP should be ashamed.

harv

Thursday, March 13, 2008 6:57:18 PM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

I've got a new HP TX2000 that has a problem with the keyboard. I've chatted with HP support and they are just awful. I'm supposed to send the unit in for repair, but I fear I'll have the same experience based on my conversations with tech support.

jberger

Thursday, March 13, 2008 7:44:03 PM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

You think that was bad. I use my TC4400 for work and the "enter" button is slowly not functioning. In other words, I have to keep pressing the enter button a couple times from time to time. When I spoke to HP Repair (I also have the 3 year warranty), they told me that they need to replace the keyboard. I marked my keyboard, sent it away in their box, when I received it, 3 weeks later, the SAME MARK WAS ON MY KEYBOARD.

I called them, they told me that according to the service log, they replaced the keyboard, brand new. Yet, the same mark was on my keyboard the day it left and the enter button is still at the same state. When I complained about it, they stated, they will send out another box to put my laptop in. I was like forget it, I'll do it when I'm not using the laptop!!!!

Thursday, March 13, 2008 8:31:44 PM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

HP, if you're reading this, add me to the list of business users that won't consider your products. And considering I'm a co-CEO of my company, that's a LOT of lost sales for you.

Jeff_R

Thursday, March 13, 2008 10:13:42 PM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

Theres no excuse for such disgraceful levels of customer service, and I would be nervous if I lived in the states considering I just ordered one of these. Fortunately in the past I have found HP Australia to be quite helpful and not the quickest but reasonably timed in getting repairs done.

Osiris

Thursday, March 13, 2008 10:54:13 PM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

I may be selling my 2710p just based on the problems Sierra is having. This is really disappointing to me as I love my tablet, but I am not in a position to go 40 days without my laptop. After your ordeal is over you better get in touch with one of the HP contacts that GBM has and get this service issue fixed.

Techgeek32

Friday, March 14, 2008 12:28:36 AM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

I dont work for HP and im not trying to defend the experence this poor girl is having getting her device fixed, but I think the thing to keep in mind is this is just one persons experience. Most likely not representative of the entire HP support experience. Over on the Tabletpcreview forums member PML has recieved an entire new unit because the magnetic latch wasnt working 100% and they have sent a technician to him to fix the stuff on occassions so.

Osiris

Friday, March 14, 2008 2:31:19 AM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

I don't think it is appropriate at all to minimize Sierra's experience by referring to a grown, successful woman as "this poor girl".

There have been a lot of other experiences with HP's notebook service departmetments mentioned both on this board and Tabletpcreview that are similar to Sierra's.

I found pml on that board, but no reference to the replacement that you discuss, so it is impossible to compare whether the circumstances surrounding the repairs are comparable. In particular, HP, like some other companies, has different repair policies depending on the market channel for the machine -- large corporate account or individual retail customer.

Cuhulin

Friday, March 14, 2008 4:12:42 AM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

This is where Dell is superb! I always take 3 Y Onsite NBD garantuee, like the XT now has as a standard feature. Just had a telephone intervention on a Inspiron system this week. The Dell support guy kept on searching for over an hour what the (network) problem could be. In the end he found it and the system worked fine again.

Over the last 10 years I've had to use the Dell onsite NBD for 3 or 4 times and everytime things got fixed like they should.

Tuur

Friday, March 14, 2008 9:11:14 PM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

Sierra, do you regret your initial purchase of the 2710p now?

mrpacs

Saturday, March 15, 2008 1:00:31 AM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

Mrpacs - no, so far I do not regret buying the 2710p. As I remember ;) it's a marvelous design that was very well executed. I can't fault the HP/Compaq design team for the fact that the support and repair teams are falling short.

The prolem that I had originally was, I suspect, a random motherboard burn in issue. I used to test motherboards - somtimes they just fail or go flaky after 100 hours or so of being on. That seemed to be what happened with my system. Unpredictable issue. The repair debacle is another story, but up until that point I was very pleased with the system.

But I'll think twice about buying another HP.

Sierra Modro

Saturday, March 15, 2008 4:17:27 AM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

well, I'll bet someone at HP sits up and takes notice big time now.

doubtful

Saturday, March 15, 2008 7:37:24 AM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

I thought I would add my two cents to the comments about my experience with service.

I bought a Fujitsu T4215 that came direct from Fujitsu refurbished, but I could not find anything wrong or different from a "brand new" unit, no blemishes, no scratches, nothing. It is perfect.
BUT,
it arrived with a broken connector on the mother board for the CD-ROM bay, looked like the automatic insertion machine hit it. I am very surprised that it went thought inspection and shipped like that. I took pictures of it, and contacted Fujitsu immediately via email. I was given immediately an RMA number and I sent it back.

This is awesome:
They received it Monday June 11, and I got it back repaired at noon on Thursday June 14! Awesome service.

Erich

Saturday, March 15, 2008 5:50:18 PM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

my scanner is not workign

peter dikaios

Thursday, March 20, 2008 3:39:23 AM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

I just wanted to share my experience as well. HP received my laptop on 2/14/08. It has been 36 days they've had it and I received the same stock answer..."the board is on backorder". Supposedly, they're receiving the parts in on the 21st. I won't hold my breath. Even worse, the case managers they assign aren't even reachable and they NEVER return calls that they promise to.

I suggest everyone steer clear...WAAAAY clear of HP for any computer. There are more horror stories on HP's very own forum. If only I'd known back then.

Brandon

Tuesday, May 06, 2008 11:53:47 AM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

I am having the same issue with HP support. I am on day 33 and I still have until May 13 for an expected shipping date. This shipping date has been pushed back twice and then seem to give out a standard 2 week extension from the day you call for an update.

I will never buy another HP product again.

Tom

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