HP is definitely wearing me out

It's a game of survival basically. I called my HP Executive Case Manager (ECM) immediately after my laptop returned from being repaired and expressed my disappointment that only the heatsync fan was replaced and the graphic card was left alone along with the rest of the motherboard even though I smelled it burning! The ECM said there was nothing she could do about the repair that since the repair order was submitted by a tech in India she didn't have access to it so even though I was speaking to her for over a week about the problem and how it would be fixed she couldn't update the repair order to communicate with the repair tech! What? Your kidding me. Really?

I even wrote a detailed letter to the repair tech explaining what happened and what I suspected were the problems. That didn't help either.

The call with the ECM got disconnected and since I had waited 30 minutes on hold to talk to her in the first place I didn't have the energy to call back. So later I called the Executive Customer Relations (ECR) I was speaking with and expressed my disappointment not only with the repair but with HP's processes, and the fact that no one at HP considers these failing graphics cards to be an issue even though there are hundreds if not thousands of affected people. Some people have documented their failure and HP experiences here.

But, that didn't help as the ECR just doesn't get it. Not only am I unhappy with my repair I also want to make suggestions to HP for where they just aren't getting it when it comes to customer service and the processes they employ. But...lol, I'm crazy to apparently think they would want to improve as a company. Does it help I have an MBA and I worked as slave labor while in grad school at Compaq right when the merger was taking place? No.

The next time I spoke with the ECM she told me that both her and my voices were little and that HP was a huge company and I'd never be heard. I told her I begged to differ as I work for a very large corporation and my voice is heard and my company does improve their processes on a daily basis.

So while I try to speak on behalf of the many of us who are experiencing this graphics card failure, the only thing I have been able to do is get a 2nd repair on my laptop. That's right. It goes back in this week for repair. Who knows how long they will have it or what they will do to it this time.

Laptop back from HP

My laptop returned from the HP Service Center yesterday. Unfortunately all they replaced was the GPU fan which means they took care of one of the symptoms but not the cause. Had laptop on last night for a few hours and the temp got up to 72 deg C which while hot is not anywhere near as hot as it was getting before hand. However, my laptop did spontaneously shut itself down a few times which was odd. So, we will see what happens in the next few weeks.

NVIDIA Graphic Controller Chip Litigation

I finally came across one class action lawsuit involving NVIDIA, Dell, and HP and that lack of acknowledgment about the faulty graphics cards. What's even worse is the computer manufacturers are charging people $400 and up to repair the laptops and all they are doing is putting in a fresh faulty chip (which then fails even quicker than the first one did). I'm glad there is a class action lawsuit and have heard there are at least three different ones filed through the U.S. I'm ready to join. Bring it on.

Read the complaint.

The law firm's website says the following: If you have purchased any of the foregoing products and wish to discuss your legal rights or this litigation, please call us at 1-(800)-922-4851 or Contact Us to submit a request for more information.

Wired Blog on NVIDIA/HP/Dell Faulty Graphics Cards

There is a WIRED Blog entry on this issue of getting NVIDIA, HP, and Dell to admit that the faulty graphics card are causing laptops to fail at an alarming rate.

New Executive Case Manager

Last night a new Executive Case Manager (ECM) called me and she is soooo much nicer than the previous one and she actually listens and understands what I'm saying to her.

The following is what I found out from her:
1) They are replacing (for my series of laptops) the graphics card with the exact same one, Nvidia 8400M. I have asked her to confirm the manufacturing dates of these cards they are replacing our faulty ones with. If they are additional faulty cards, then in a year we are back to the same problem.
2) They are not taking the graphics card out of laptop A, repairing it and then putting it in laptop B. Well, at least that's not HP's policy I'm told.
3) Nor are they just repairing the graphics cards and sticking them back in the same laptop. Everyone should be receiving new graphics cards.
4) If the motherboard has to be replaced then it is highly likely the hard drive will need to be reset to factory conditions. I admit I'm not a computer expert....but this prepares me for a laptop coming back wiped clean.

But, per the forums this is not happening. Heck, even an employee at HP is having the same issues with his personal laptop and not getting the service he needs.

I found another website dedicated to this nVidia issue at HP. It's called, HP Lies. How sad is that?

HP continues to amaze me (and not in a good way)

Someone please let me know when customer service has turned into this? Really, we have a known defect with a graphics card affecting thousands of computers, the OEM has provided almost $200 million to pay for repairs, and HP is fighting it tooth and nail.

The saga continues...

Over the weekend I had left a message for my original Case Manager asking him to please call me back on Monday and that I wanted to file a complaint against the Executive Case Manager (ECM). No shock - he didn't call. So I attempted to call him and wasn't allowed to speak with him because it had been assigned to an ECM, the person who wasn't helping me and was quite rude. I was told to leave a message and she would return my call. Instead I received an email that stated she already explained everything to me. I replied saying I have additional concerns about the repair and that I wanted to be transferred to a different ECM.

Then I called her thinking perhaps she just had a bad day on Friday. Oh no, that was being too generous. She was just as horrible today as she was then. It was a mistake to call her and expect customer service.

This morning I called Corporate Headquarters so I could file a complaint with Executive Customer Relations (ECR) and I politely explained my complaint against the ECM and how I wanted to be transferred to another ECM for my case. The corporate person I spoke with said the ECM was perfectly within HP's policy and transferred me back to her! I wasn't even allowed to file my complaint. I was shocked. I couldn't believe she too wasn't listening to me.

My original ECM, Cindy, was unavailable at this point so someone else spoke with me and told me that the ECR said to put me back in touch with Cindy who was on another line. I explained to this new person I was speaking with that Cindy was incredibly rude and I was attempting to file a complaint when I got transferred back to them. I was told that my request for a new ECM was being handled (yeah) and someone would call me back tomorrow morning.

But, no I'm not done yet because I still need to file my complaint and when I called the ECR back this time I received a person who understood what I was explaining and now I filed a complaint against the ECM and the ECR. She said she would send my case to the leads of both departments and that this behavior was unacceptable. Well, I agree.

Now, I still need to get my laptop fixed and I'm SO SCARED to send it off to HP's repair shop as I've read horrible things that have happened to people's laptops voiding their warranties by HP blaming the customers for things like liquid spillage. I'm going to have to take tons of pictures of my laptop (inside and out) to make sure I have documentation of the condition I send it in. And of course - I'm still trying to get a gurantee that they will replace the graphics card and not repair it.

New Tactic with HP

I came up with a new plan for dealing with HP and that was to make sure they had the type of graphics card that is in my laptop properly documented. So tonight I called them and spoke to a very nice guy in India even though we had trouble understanding each other. I found out btw he has an electrical engineering degree. Everyone should be asking the following question: why is he working in an HP call center?

It took an hour on the phone with him but I think the objective of the phone call was achieved. He documented that my graphics card is an nVidia 8400M and that my request of the repair technician is to replace the graphics card with a non-faulty one instead of "repairing" the graphics card. I'm very uneasy about sending the laptop in for repair based on the hundreds of people who have had issues with their computers failing even after the repairs.

I also shared with him that the rude escalated Case Manager (named Cindy) said HP would never replace my laptop and he apologized for her and said she should never have said that. I'm glad someone in this world agrees with me on that one.

Interestingly though, when I asked him if he could confirm my graphics card was on the list of faulty graphics cards he said he wasn't allowed to do that. Hmmm...

Rude HP Case Managers

I will give kudos to HP calling me back in 15 hours after being elevated to a case manager. However, their ability to understand and comprehend the issue and resolve it gets a big fat FAIL!

1) They told me my notebook does not have one of the defective nVidia chips and in fact doesn't have an nVidia graphics card. (It does, I specifically ordered my laptop with that brand of graphics card). She was adamant I was wrong.

2) I was informed that since there is no service bulletin for my laptop the only option was to get it taken care of under warranty (which I luckily have because of the previous dealing with HP) even though the fixes are not working (per the forum posts).

3) I was also informed that in no way would HP offer me a replacement laptop because I already received one. I explained to her that was not my choice, that was HP's decision to issue the replacement laptop based on they couldn't get a hard drive to me after 6 weeks. I thought this was incredibly rude of the Escalated Case Manager, whose name was Cindy. I told her they can't hold that over my head. She stated again that HP would never replace it.

4) Nor would she talk about what happens when they return the laptop to me and it fails a month later.

5) I asked to be transferred to someone above her and she said there was no one else that she was at the top. Finally I was able to get Corporate's information from her so I could file a complaint and she gave me a toll number. Me, being irritated at this point asked if there was a toll-free number and her reply was that there wasn't because they were the Corporate Office and they were busy running the company. I couldn't believe she said that.

I go back to this problem exists and I guess my only option at this point is to CONVINCE HP that my laptop has this graphics card.

HP Laptop is extremely hot and smells like it's burning. Thanks HP!

This week my HP Laptop started to get extremely hot and two nights ago it smelled like it was burning! I was a bit freaked out I do admit. I powered it off and let it cool down for about 24 hours before trying to use it again. It quickly heated up again so I called HP. Remember my laptop fiasco with the dead hard drive back in the Fall of 2007? Well, it turns out that the replacement laptop they sent me uses a defective nVidia graphics card. But I didn't know that when I called HP last night. Nor did I know it when I got off the phone with HP last night.

The call was of course routed to India where the person couldn't hear me very well because there was a lot of static on the line. I couldn't hear the static, but he could and we couldn't terminate the call because I'd have to start all over in the process. He worked from a script and had me first turn off the laptop, take out the battery, unplug the AC adapter and press the start button to discharge the static. Then he had me turn the laptop back on and asked me if it was running cooler. I said no. Next he had me run a quick test on the hard drive to see if it would pass. It did. Then he had me update the BIOS (um, did that in December 08 and there wasn't a new version released since then). Started the laptop back up and he asked me again if the laptop was running cooler. Umm, no. The fan constantly runs. It's hot to touch. You can't even type on it because it's too hot.

They said it had to go in for repair and they thought it was either a problem with the processor or the hard drive and it would take 2 weeks before I'd get it back. This caused me heartache to hear this because how can one live without a computer for 2 weeks? From online banking, to online businesses, to keeping in touch with the world - I'll be lost.

However, after the call ended I did a google search and the first item that popped up was an HP forum where hundreds of people have documented the very same problem. That surprised me because I specifically asked the HP rep if others have reported this problem and he said no. WHAT? How could you not know this?

Further research yielded that nVidia released into the market defective chips from May 2007 until September 2008 and didn't acknowledge the problem until late summer of 2008. In August of 2008 they contributed $196 million dollars (to computer manufacturers) to fix these computers (both desktops and laptops). So my question is: why didn't HP notify owners of computers with these chips that they were defective? My laptop could have caught fire two nights ago! I almost burned myself on it. What, is this the Ford Pinto case all over again? It's cheaper to deal with the aftermath (pay of the grieving relatives) than fix the problem?

I called HP back and told them I was appalled that I got the run around about my issue when it's well documented on the internet. I requested that my laptop not be repaired as repairs are not working (evidence from the forum posts) and the fact that my laptop smelled like it was burning (other permanent damage could have occurred). My case was elevated to a case manager and now I'm just waiting for someone to call me.

Stay tuned...we will see what happens.

Bait and Switch at AirTran?

Dear AirTran,

Here is the flight I tried booking on AirTran’s website this morning. As you can see on the first page it said it was having difficulties with the payment processing system and to call 1-800-AIRTRAN. I called and was on hold for about 20 minutes before someone answered the phone at which time they wanted to not only charge me the higher fares (for what their computer said because they couldn’t access the web specials) but also charge me an agent fee for booking over the phone.

I have been at this for over three hours this morning trying to book this flight via your website and over the phone. I was then given the customer relations number 866-247-2428 option 3, to call for help. That person promptly knew what the problem was with the website (apparently the A+ rewards number needed a nationality (even though it doesn’t ask you for that information). However, the first person I spoke with at the phone number given on the page had no idea that this was the problem. Your company should be able to promptly disseminate information to those who speak to customers having this problem.

Once the problem was resolved by the second person, the flight I was trying to book was no longer available at the price I was quoted. This is a prime example of bait and switch. I go to the internet site, try to book a flight, your site doesn’t work, I have to call, told to pay agent fee to book and that the flight is more expensive.

Please see the attached documents (2 pages) for the flight details and price amounts for what I was purchasing. I am not a crazy customer – just trying to keep the system fair and honest.

In addition, due to the fact that this has been a 3+ hr ordeal to book a flight I would appreciate a discount in addition to getting both flights at the quoted cost on the attachments. No one should have to go through this in order to book an airline ticket in this day and age.

Sincerely, A First Time Passenger

Circuit City Frustration

I went online looking for the best shipping deal when pre-ordering a Wii game coming out in September and found Circuit City had free shipping. Awesome, right? So then I redeemed points for a $50 gift card to pre-order the Wii game. Does anyone see anything wrong with this picture? It turns out you can't pre-order a Wii game using a gift card. Not that it tells you that. It tells you that you can't pre-order music or movies. Is a Wii game music or a movie? Not the last time I checked. How was I to know? So I called their customer service and I told the person I wanted to pre-order a Wii game using a gift card. If this was really their policy she would have told me right then and there. But no instead she took all my info down and set up the order and then told me that the system won't let you pre-order a game using a gift card. I asked if there was any way around this and she said no, the computer won't let her. I asked to speak to a manager. She said I would have to call back and press another number to speak to someone higher up. She kept apologizing. How does apologizing in every sentence make things better?

Why did I waste my points on a gift card for a store I don't shop at? I guess I should have known better.

Airline Fees have you down?

Check out this msnbc article about how to complain about the outrageous fees are now charging - from checking first and second bags to getting a drink while on a four hour plane ride.

"A complaint letter is a good start. There’s evidence that airlines count the number of grievances about a particular fee. They may even read the letter you’ve sent. In the past several weeks, I’ve had a chance to review several airline responses (they’re all form letters) which suggests the carriers have no intention of lifting these new surcharges. One way to underscore the seriousness of your complaint is to copy the Transportation Department, which compiles these grievances in a monthly report. Airlines pay attention to those numbers."

Petco no more

Today I attempted to return kitty litter to Petco and was disappointed that they wouldn't accept it because it had been more than 30 days.

While back I bought some expensive kitty litter made out of corn that is flushable. I have been trying to come up with a method to eliminate plastic bags (from stores) in my home. Mostly I use them to throw away the kitty litter. But with this corn type you can flush it down the toilet. The price for a 30 lb bag was $46, which is personally just outrageous. But, I thought I would give it a try and see what happens.

Let's just say it wasn't accepted by my cats. Instead of using the litter box, they used the floor. Totally disgusting. And this was after I attempted to wean them off of the regular kitty litter by mixing the two together.

At first the answer at Petco was no returns accepted after 30 days. I tried to explain to them that this good earth friendly kitty litter lasts a long time and it took quite awhile to wean the cats off of the old stuff before using it alone. Nope, nothing from the store manager. She called the district manager and he said they'd refund half my money. Well, that'd be fine if I had used half of the product. But considering I hadn't used very much at all I thought that was a bad deal.

My next attempt is to contact the manufacturer and let them know that my cats were dissatisfied with the product. Which is true. And thus so was I because I had to keep cleaning up the mess.

Home Depot's Green Attempt

In this morning's home depot advertisement they stated they were giving away free reusable bags this morning and quantities were limited. You see stuff like this every year around Earth Day, a company's attempt to look "green" without actually implementing any sustaining changes.

I went to Home Depot this morning and found out that they only had 150 bags to give away and they were given away as you checked out. So one person theoretically could have left with 10 bags. 150 bags barely counts as trying to be "green".

Home Warranty (Beware)

Dear National Home Protection & Nationwide Home Warranty,

I found your company's website to be very misleading. In your contract terms it says that each item is limited to $1500 to repair/replace. However on this page of your website your company provides the estimated cost to fix things if you don't' have a warranty, but state if you had a NHP plan you simply pay the annual contract price and the per visit trade service fee which is listed as $60.

That's what is misleading. Where some repairs could cost $4000 to $7000 your only going to cover $1500 and the homeowner has to cover the difference. Other warranty companies pay for the full cost of the repair and don't cost much more than you for the annual warranty plan.

Very disappointed in your company for mis-representing this information.

Sincerely,
A frustrated homeowner

Has Target lost their mind?

Here is Target's reply to my friend's incident I reported recently. They want you to jump through hoops to return a 1 year old's birthday gift.

Love Lost (Target)

This is from a friend.

Dear Target,

I don't even know how to do this. I know that breaking up via blog is so childish, but I feel like our latest spat was also childish (on your part), and I'm pretty peeved right now. My little Claire got the cutest bathing suit for her birthday, but I'm afraid it won't fit her in a few months when we're actually able to swim outside. I don't have the receipt, as it was a gift, and apparently you no longer give gift receipts with every purchase. But I thought I could at least EXCHANGE it for the next size up. I mean, it has the TAG on it still, which is CLEARLY marked Circo (a brand carried exclusively by you), and it has never been worn. The nice lady at customer service looked me up in your computer system using my driver's license, and noted that I had already used my 2 (TWO!) non-receipt returns/exchanges for the year. I quickly did the math, and came up with the fact that it is still January of this year, and I am pretty certain that I have not returned anything yet in 2008. She pointed to her paper where she had written down two dates:

1. 1/08/07
2. 6/24/07

She pointed at the last date and said that she would be glad to accept my return after June 24th of THIS YEAR. So it's not a calendar year thing, nor is it even a within-12-months thing, or I would have been able to return this bathing suit because today is later than January 8th. This makes no sense to me.

So. I called my friend Rae, who gave us the darling bathing suit in lime green and white stripes with the cutest ruffle you ever have seen, and asked her if she had by any chance kept that darned receipt. Maybe it was the tone in my voice, but she started in on a rant. "Oh I KNOW! It is so annoying that they won't let you exchange anything without your license, and you only get 2 per year! I once had to give them my license for a Match Box car return!" She told me she does still have the receipt, because she was concerned that maybe we would need to exchange the gifts, and then she launched into her experience trying to get a gift receipt from said store which does not accept returns without a receipt. She had already been cashed out, and when she looked at her receipt, she noticed there was no gift portion on it. She asked the checker if she could have a gift receipt and he said it was too late! "Just give them the actual receipt." This is not an acceptable answer, Target.

Now. If you are going to require a receipt for such silly things as EXCHANGES for the EXACT SAME ITEM, and people without their receipt may only have 2 of these exchanges per non-calendar year, PERHAPS you should include a GIFT RECEIPT on EVERY SINGLE DAMN PURCHASE.

I do love you, Target. You have fun things. Your prices are reasonable. You are so close by. Your stores make me happy, and even my oldest daughter loves to go to "the big red ball store". But I think we may need to take a break for awhile, and hope that each other's absence will repair the damage that has been done. Perhaps you should seek therapy. Until then, I will have to drive all the way to the BX, or even to *gah* WalMart. Please make a change for the better.

Sincerely,

The owner of a very cute too-small child's bathing suit

AT&T's proposed filtering policy is bad news

AT&T’s big plan, which CEO Randall Stephenson shared this week at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, is to monitor traffic over its online network in what he claims is an effort to stamp out theft of copyrighted material. He failed to mention that such a plan is also unethical, impractical, insane, and given the CEO’s explanation, probably more than a little dishonest.

“Do you guys want AT&T to read your e-mails?” Johnson asked the Thompson audience, when he should’ve been talking about gadgets. “Do you want AT&T to like, open up your instant message conversation and look and see if you maybe said something that they didn’t like or maybe the government didn’t like? Yeah? No. I don’t think anybody wants that.” A chorus of “Noooos!” echoed from the audience before producers shut him down.

Ulta - So much for help

The other day I went into an ULTA store to pick up some hair products. I asked one of the ladies for help in locating a specific hair product and she told me they were all too busy to help me. I couldn't believe that was the response I received. I then got in line at the register to ask for help and was told there was one girl working the floor to answer questions. Since the one girl was busy helping a customer I tried to wait around to get her attention next, but after 10-15 minutes I gave up and went home. So much for customer service.

HP - What a surprise!

I called HP today because as I've been slowly getting my new laptop up and running with my software I've come to learn (as I've been told) that most of my software and hardware is not compatible with Microsoft Vista. I've contacted the various makers of the software/hardware to see if they have drivers and upgraded utilities so that the versions I have would work with Vista, however, no such luck. So this means, I need to replace my software at a cost of hundreds of dollars.

After talking with two different case managers (apparently the one who handled my situation is no longer working there) I was kindly told that no, when I agreed to the replacement laptop that meant I realized that my software wouldn't work with it. But, the told me, as a gesture of HP's goodwill in recognizing the difficulty I've had with getting my laptop replaced they would offer me an extended warranty. Turns out...they gave me a 4 year warranty such that if anything happens, they will fix the laptop. Not bad, not bad at all.