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repairs
repairs
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Yes, Televisions Are Pretty Much Disposable Now
By Laura Northrup on February 24, 2012 11:30 AM
114 Comments
It seems like an ancient, lost world now, but there was once a time when people bought electronics or appliances, and when they broke down, they hired someone to repair the item and kept using it. This may not sound weird and obsolete to you or to me or to reader Donna. Toshiba, on the other hand, certainly thinks that it's not worthwhile to repair the television that she paid $1,800 for in 2007. She doesn't want anything for free, and is willing to pay for parts and repair. Only the needed part isn't available from Toshiba, or from anyone. More »
Michael Dell Replaces High-End Laptop Previously "Fixed" With Black Marker, Crumbs
By Ben Popken on November 4, 2011 11:00 AM
52 Comments
Jeremy's 3D Alienware gaming laptop from Dell didn't work right from its first bootup. It had blue screens of death and the video card needed swapping out. When he sent it in for repair, he got it back with crumbs in the keys, and a crack on the side someone tried to hide with black marker. When we posted his story on Consumerist, we gave him CEO Michael Dell's email address to go tell his story. Now Jeremy writes that after he emailed Mr. Dell, the CEO intervened and made sure Jeremy got a brand-new laptop, along with a free memory and CPU upgrade. More »
How To Beat HDTV "Customer Service"
By Ben Popken on October 27, 2011 12:00 PM
36 Comments
If your HDTV set is malfunctioning you follow the advice most HDTV manufacturers put on their website, you can actually end up screwing yourself. Surprise, surprise. Here's what you should do instead. More »
Reader Saves $400 Using YouTube To Fix Her Washer
By Ben Popken on October 4, 2011 3:00 PM
75 Comments
The fable goes that the nice white-haired appliance guys are a dying breed and they're way better than their outsourced, van-driving, retail store counterparts. But sometimes the local guy is just as bad as the guy in the store wearing the official colored shirt. When her Kenmore model 417 front-loading washer went bust-o, Jane discovered she was able to save $400 in repair costs by learning how to fix it herself from Youtube videos. More »
(nbc4i)
Instead Of Fixing His Computer, Sony Sends Him 7 Other Customers' Broken Ones
By Ben Popken on September 21, 2011 10:00 AM
84 Comments
A man was waiting for Sony to send him a box and a shipping label so he could send his laptop off for repair. Instead, he got sent broken computers from seven other Sony customers. More »
How Our AT&T U-Verse Outage Lasted 5 Days Longer Than It Should Have
By Laura Northrup on September 16, 2011 9:00 AM
53 Comments
Ron has his AT&T U-Verse cable TV, Internet access, and phone lines working now, but only after spending most of the past week fighting with AT&T. He could have had access back on Saturday, the very first day of the outage, but an AT&T rep told him that sending a tech out to him on a Saturday was impossible. It's not. They shipped a replacement for his malfunctioning gateway out via UPS. It got lost. Ron is frustrated, because he likes U-Verse. When it works. More »
(Dell)
Alienware Laptop "Fixed" With Black Marker, Food Crumbs
By Ben Popken on September 2, 2011 3:00 PM
66 Comments
Jeremy's 3D Alienware gaming laptop from Dell hasn't worked right from its first bootup. It had blue screens of death and the video card needed swapping out. Then when he sent it in for repairs, he got it back with food crumbs between the keys. The side panel was also cracked, and someone had tried to hide the crack by coloring it in with black marker. More »
Irene Knocked My Neighbor's Tree On My Deck, But He's Run Away From His Foreclosure
By Ben Popken on August 31, 2011 11:57 AM
81 Comments
Irene blew a listing tree onto Brian's property from his neighbor's yard, smashing both his deck and fence. A seeming wrinkle is that his neighbor has long ago skipped town, leaving behind his foreclosed house with its drowsy trees untended. Brian wants to know how he can track the guy down, private eye style, and get reimbursed for the tree removal. More »
Dyson Fixed My 5-Year-Old Vacuum For Free Without Receipt
By Chris Morran on August 16, 2011 2:30 PM
86 Comments
As anyone who ever looked at the price tag on a Dyson knows, the vacuum cleaner company charges a premium for its devices. But for Consumerist reader Matt, his recent customer service experience with Dyson has him believing the high sticker price was worth the investment. More »
Figure Out Which Model This Maytag Oven Is
By Ben Popken on August 11, 2011 5:00 PM
100 Comments
Timothy, as he describes it, is in a pickle. His Maytag oven started flashing "F5" and turning itself off whenever he turned it on. When the Maytag guy came over, he couldn't figure out which model number it was and so he couldn't repair it. "He asked for $130 for this useful piece of service, which I refused," writes Timothy. Can you, dear Consumerist reader, identify which model this Maytag oven is? UPDATE: 13 minutes later, one reader thinks she has the answer. More »
Man Gets Freezer Burned On Defective Maytag Fridge
By Ben Popken on June 9, 2011 12:00 PM
29 Comments
Frank has had to use up five days of timeoff because of his leaky new Maytag fridge that they just can't seem to ever repair correctly. Like when he told them to bring out the UV light since the last tech had installed a dye so you could find leaks. The rep said oh yeah, we'll make a note of that. Then the guy shows up with only a mulitimeter and says, hm, we're going to have to send another guy out here with more tools. No kidding! More »
(jayRaz)
Man Uses Consumerist Tips To Gets Xbox Repaired For Free
By Ben Popken on June 2, 2011 5:00 PM
21 Comments
Reader Ben was sad. His Xbox was doing the ol' Red Ring of Death. He thought that was quits for his trusted gaming companion but then he started doing some research on Consumerist. Perusing our archives, he realized from some of our old posts that included in the price of the repair to the machine he had done not too long ago was a one-year warranty extension. Huzzah! Here's what he did next: More »
Toshiba Won't Repair Faulty Hard Drive Because You Sharpied "Faulty" On It
By Ben Popken on April 25, 2011 12:00 PM
216 Comments
Chris was fixing his neighbor's Toshiba laptop when he discovered that the hard drive was defective. Just like how he does at his job where he is a professional computer technician, he wrote "FAULTY X" on it to indicate it shouldn't be used again. When he sent the computer, which was still under its 1-year warranty period, in to Toshiba, he was dismayed by the reply he got back. They refused to replace the hard drive because "the label was written/torn" and "Toshiba does not cover the cost for this type of damage." Now they $417.58 for the repair. More »
Wedding Set Returns From China With Unacceptably Crappy Repair
By Laura Northrup on March 24, 2011 8:00 AM
40 Comments
Good news! Reader Jennifer's wedding set has returned from its long voyage to China for repair. The bad news: she writes that the repair work done in China was so terrible that her local store sent it back out to a US repair facility to be fixed. When Jennifer finally went to pick the rings up, she found their repair job unsatisfactory—the word "botched" comes up—and now they've been sent back. Again. More »
(MShades)
Whirlpool, Free Us From This Fridge's Unholy Buzzing Sound
By Laura Northrup on January 28, 2011 9:00 AM
23 Comments
Justin and his wife saved up and bought a sweet, petite, shiny new Whirlpool refrigerator from Lowe's. They were thrilled with their new purchase for about three weeks, until it began to make an unholy buzzing noise. No one can make the buzzing stop. Not Whirlpool, not Lowe's, not an endless procession of repairmen, and not either company's executive customer service. What now? More »
(Razor512)
EECB Gets HP To Replace Laptop They Tried To Pass Off As Water-Damaged
By Ben Popken on December 15, 2010 1:00 PM
30 Comments
Charlie sent in his HP Mini for repair after the keyboard and mouse stopped working. They denied his warranty repair by saying that a loose tape was caused by water damage, which, while not only unlikely on the face of it, seemed impossible to Charlie as he babies his computers like they were Fabergé eggs. So he launched his campaign on HP upper management... More »
(izik)
ASUS, I Just Want My Computer Back From Warranty Repair Hell
By Laura Northrup on November 10, 2010 8:00 AM
50 Comments
Rob really, really liked his ASUS laptop. He kept it clean, treated it kindly, and loved it very much. Yet the display mysteriously broke...sort of... and it began crying rainbow LCD tears when it was only six months old. He sent it in for repair, and the company first told him that the repair would take three business days...then fourteen. Rob would really, really like his computer back. More »
(Razor512)
Charter To Customer With Five Failed Service Calls: "You Haven't Bugged Us Enough To Resolve Your Problem"
By Chris Walters on September 21, 2010 10:30 AM
31 Comments
Charter tells it like it is: the problem with Eric's incorrectly installed Internet service is that he hasn't been trying hard enough to fix it. Here's a copy of an email that Eric tried to send to Charter's CEO last week, but it bounced back. Maybe someone at Charter can read it here? More »
Best Buy Repairs Laptop With Fried Motherboard By Replacing Hard Drive, Removing Operating System
By Chris Walters on September 20, 2010 11:30 AM
97 Comments
The Geek Squad service timeline for Stephen's $1300 Asus laptop went something like this: ship it off for repairs, get it back in an even more broken state and missing all data, be forced to buy a $35 disk from Asus to prove to Best Buy that the problem is their responsibility, then finally find that something went missing during the first repair. Stephen eventually just asked for his money back on his ruined laptop, but the best he could get was store credit. More »
(kfas)
Sprint Customer Finds Naked Pictures On Her Repaired Cellphone
By Chris Walters on September 13, 2010 11:30 AM
94 Comments
A woman in Colorado had her eyes burned out by images of "nude women and male genitals" on her cellphone's new(ish) memory card, reports KRDO.com. She says the Sprint employees who worked on her phone must have known it was there, since they're the ones who swapped in the new card. She's pretty upset: "If [young family members] had seen those pictures, it could have ruined them for life." More »
