Alex writes that his five-month-old Toshiba Thrive tablet cracked, sort of under its own weight. Is that possible? Maybe. Stranger things have happened to electronics. But everyone he’s talked to at Toshiba doesn’t think so, and they’re acting like it was accidental damage.

I bought the Toshiba Thrive on 11/2011 and the screen cracked on
04/2012 while I was holding the thing. I attached a picture of the
cracked thrive and how I was holding it when it cracked. I didn’t drop
the thing and never tinkered with it. This tablet literally cracked in
my hand while I was about to put it down.

I called customer support and to now ones surprise they said they
couldn’t do anything. I spoke to a guy named “E” who was kind of
snarky with me which I didn’t appreciate. I asked him if there was
someone else I could talk to. He replied, “I could transfer you but
that person is just going to tell you they can’t do anything either”.

I called support and they told me they couldn’t do anything about it.
I am pretty upset at this point and don’t know what to do. I thought
you guys would appreciate knowing this about the product.

That’s a scary thought. Here are some places for Alex, and anyone else experiencing tech support stonewalling to get started:

• Call back at a different time of day and try to get another representative. It’s amazing what a difference that can make.
• Check with your credit card company to see if they have added warranty coverage. Assuming that you paid for the item with a credit card, that is.

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