Reader Uses HP Executive Customer Service Number, Great Success!
Chris reports getting sweet satisfaction from HP after he searched for their executive customer service number on our site and gave them a ring:
Chris writes:
I would like to thank you for your posting of Hewlett-Packard's Executive Customer Service number. They were able to help me obtain a new laptop battery free of charge after my warranty had expired. My laptop battery would no longer hold a charge after just 13 months of use. The warranty was for 12 months. I contacted HP customer service and was told there was nothing they could do.Having been an avid reader of Consumerist the last year, I searched your site for help. I was originally going to send an EECB but stumbled across this number. They picked up the phone on 1 ring and proceeded to put me in touch with a case manager. The case manager had no problem replacing my battery and even expedited the shipping. Thanks again for your help and keep up the great work!
Glad to hear it, Chris! That number once again folks can be found here. When in doubt, take it to the top.
(Photo: Scott Ableman)
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Comments:
That's pretty great that they helped him out even though he was out of warranty. They could have done nothing and still be in the right.
Having said that, I still think HP blows. I have my reasons.
A "Case Manager" is the ONLY way to get a battery, even if you are in warranty! I fought them for two months with a comedy of errors with a backordered battery to be shipped under warranty. A Case Manager ended up using a coporate AmEx card to purchase a battery from their own online store and had them mail it to me. They even paid themselves S&H and tax.
A "Letter to the CEO" was sent twice with no results other than two form letters.
I'm finished with HP. The fact they came through in the end is in no way mitigated by the shoddy treatment they put me through for two months.
I submitted my HP success story 4 months ago and all I got was an email from The Consumerist saying "Thanks". HP sent me a brand new laptop (to replace a 2-year-old model that I sent back for repairs 4 times) after I launched an EECB to the CEO and VP of Home Systems (or whatever that title is, I don't recall). I'm not upset that the website refuses to publish my story, but HP really isn't as bad as some people think...
@SabreDC: It's all about personal experiences. I myself have had a very bad HP experience that keeps me from buying their brand again. If they've been good to you however, then by all means support them.
I myself, despite many negative stories about them here on the Consumerist, have never run into problems at Wal-mart and love my GM car (as examples). So I don't hesitate supporting them.
More likely, Chris had a battery found on the HP Notebook PC Battery Pack Replacement Program site, conveniently located here.
I always say, don't buy an extended warranty... except on a laptop PC, and then only from the manufacturer!
Even with its warranty, I never imagined I would feel even slightly satisfied with my $1200 HP DV9000 CTO laptop, which I configured and bought online in November 2006.
The DV9000 was such a piece of crap that I bought a Vostro 1400 to use during its frequent trips to rehab. My wife found that the $700 price was a bargain compared to "listening to me piss and moan for two weeks every six months."
Today, however, its 5th failure in less than three years may ultimately restore my faith in HP... or, more specifically, in the 3 year HP CarePack I purchased with the laptop for an additional $199.
My laptop had a bad hinge, which they fixed (poorly), and a DVD drive that popped open for no apparent reason, which they also replaced on its first trip home.
A few months later, its original system board failed; while replacing it, the repair depot also cracked the case. Luckily, I spotted that right out of the shipping box; it went right back to HP for its third trip, and they actually fixed the floppy display hinges as well.
The replacement system board lasted about six months, so it made its fourth trip home to get another one. That was last July... eight months later, and still within the extended warranty, it took to shutting down for no apparent reason.
I again copied my profile to the relief laptop, and started the process with an Email to their worthless offshore support center in JalalaBabaBooeyBai, politely demanding a new replacement. "Ohm" offered little resistance, telling me I needed a case manager, and gave me a ticket number...which was all I really wanted from those hapless clowns.
I called the HP case manager line (877-917-4380, extension 08). To my surprise, the case manager agreed that I was entitled to a new machine of equivalent specifications. He walked me through the online configuration of an $1100 customized-to-order DV7T laptop, and promised to have it built in Shanghai and delivered to my lap in about two weeks.
If that actually happens, it will restore a great deal of my faith in Hewlett-Packard products and services. This will benefit HP more than one might expect: I run a home PC repair company with about 700 customers -- all of whom would ask me what brand of PC to buy before they made a purchase, and none of whom would have been advised to buy an HP until perhaps three weeks from now.
I wonder if HP will sell me another 3-year care pack for the new machine? It might be well worth another $200, especially if the dv7t is as fragrant a lemon as the DV-series...
Wow this is a really great find. I'll have to keep this in mind if BestBuy shafts me from returning or fixing the HP laptop I bought three days ago but somehow doesn't work right already...
In all fairness, if the warranty was expired, why do you feel entitled to getting it replaced for free?
hahaha what no cat pic? that girl looks like she is flying....
While its awesome that HP went above and beyond on this one I have to question why the consumer thought the battery was covered under the normal warranty, let alone that it should be replaced after the normal warranty expired. The battery is considered a consumable part and covered for only six months if I remember correctly
I agree wholeheartedly with adamczar. The fact that you escalated this issue above the normal customer service is just wrong, in my book. You are warrantied for 1 year, after that, tough shit. Under no circumstance did he deserve a replacement battery. Abuse of the EECB or executive-type escalation hotlines does nothing but set consumers back. Your greed is what makes it difficult for real people with real problems to get real help. Good job, jackass.
I had problems with a HP desktop myself. bought a HP A6535c (refurb) from microcenter almost 2 months ago. 24 days in, the hard drive failed. Turns out, the hard drive is a KNOWN bad item (seagate barracudas), and they'd released a firmware upgrade for it a few months earlier. Problem is, the firmware upgrade can ONLY be run from a working vista install (it self-burns a bootable CD). When the drive's already bust, this doesn't work at all.
Spent 2 hours on the phone with HP tech support, where he had me switch SATA cables with the optical drive (but told me to be sure an do it with the PSU plugged in and live!), to try the recovery partition, and then the recovery DVDs I burnt as soon as I got the system. Neither worked, because the hard drive's MBR was knackered. His solution - "your restore discs might be faulty, so you'll have to buy a set from HP, we'll send them out, and we'll try that when they arrive. Thats all we can do"
Took 10 minutes of repeated asking for his manager before he would pass me over. another 30 minutes of wrangling got the supervisor t agree I can just take my HDD to a best buy they deal with, and swap the drive (my wife passes 2 on her way to/from work every day) but his systems were down, so he'd call me back 2 hours later (at 9pm eastern time).
Interestingly ,when I gave my serial number, he said 'ah yes you have 32 days left on your warrenty.would you like to buy an extension". I bought this 24 adys earlier, with a 90 day warranty, so I should have 66 days left. According to them, the warranty starts the day the system left the factory.
Next day, no call, no nothing. try the online chat. There I'm told over and over that the ONLY thing they can do is 'bench my system'. (this is HP speak for you sending your entire system to you - but she couldn't explain what 'bench my system' is - to me, benching a system is something like 3Dmark, or running muon1 to get computation rates). That took an hour. # hours total so far, and nowhere.
So, I called my retailer, Microcenter. The Duluth store had one left in stock on the website, so I called them. The store manager answered the phone for the sales floor, and when I explained, he said he'd check it was there and available (2 weeks earlier i'd had a problem with buying a laptop that was supposed to be in stock, but wasn't - they gave me a good discount on the next model up to make up. However it's a 90 minute drive, so i want to make sure it's there before I set off). He called me back 7 minutes later. It's not only there, but he's taken it to customer services, and put my name + phone number on it.
I get to the store, straight to customer services, woman opens the box, does a quick check that everything's there, and does the paperwork. 90 seconds to do it all. Then the manager comes to say sorry EVEN THOUGH IT'S HP'S FAULT, not his.
Long story short, it was quicker to drive 60 miles through a major US city at rushhour, and deal with microcenter, than to deal with HP on the phone, and I had a system that worked THAT DAY.
The next week a HP case manager called. Perhaps because I gave the support (phone and online) bad marks thoughout, and an email to the chairman. i've got 5 HP computers here, plus scanners and printers. I won't be getting any more.
REALLY unfortunatly for HP, I was participating in the FTC townhall on DRM a day or two after the case manager called, and as I told him, I would be (and did) pass on my experiances to the commission, along with my webchat logs, and recordings of the phone call.
at least he tried the normal route first.
i hate people that don't try that and just go straight to the top, because where i work most of the time we can actually get stuff done for you if you go the normal route and not go straight up the CIO's bum