Hi Consumerist,

I wanted to tell you about my comical free Windows 7 upgrade experience.

After purchasing an HP laptop from Best Buy last year, I was happy that I would be receiving a free copy of Windows 7.

I methodically followed the online upgrade process through Arvato, HP’s upgrade process handling company. Faithfully filling out all the forms and uploading an image of the receipt that Best Buy had emailed to me.

Of course, Arvato had failed to provide any instructions for the proof of purchase step, in their upgrade confirmation email. Fortunately, the Consumerist forums saved me and I found directions for uploading a receipt image.

The Windows 7 release date rolled around and I figured it was a good time to check my order status. I attempted to log onto the order status page and got an error saying that my order number was invalid. I knew this to be wrong so I called the 800 number on Arvato’s site. I didn’t have to wait very long and got a nice girl.

She explained that Best Buy had objected to the “screenshot” that I had uploaded. This seemed odd to me and I asked if I was allowed to upload a text document receipt instead. I was told this would be acceptable. I hung up the phone and logged onto the order status page as my access had been restored.

I navigated to the receipt upload page and noticed that these are the ONLY formats allowed for uploading your receipt.

Supported Images Types: jpg, jpeg, png, gif, tif, bmp, pdf

What?

I checked receipt upload page and found that, sure enough, I had previously uploaded a clean .png image of the receipt.

I immediately called back, and explained to a different CSR, that I was receiving badly conflicting instructions. She seemed as amazed as I was that a perfectly good screenshot with the order number, address, dates, and ordered items would not be sufficient. She quickly validated my order and said my copy would ship today. Hooray!

It was a fairly annoying process to plod through, but I am glad Arvato ultimately took responsibility for their wackiness.

Thanks,
Derek Basch