Hewlett-Packard's head of product packaging was unable to explain the odd shipping choice, as he is currently en route to St. Ives.

HP shatters excessive packaging world record [The Register]

Alauna paid $26 to insure the laptop on its cross-country visit to a virus-hunting friend. When the laptop arrived, a menacing broken hinge threatened to scratch the screen.

She writes:

The United States Postal Service is falling apart. About 7 months ago, my father gave me a brand new, HP Pavilion dv9700z series (Retailed at over a thousand bucks, but it was a gift, so I don't know exactly how much it cost him). In the 7 months that I've owned it, I got a nasty bug (virus) on it, and it no longer allowed me to log onto the internet. Either way, my best friend is an expert with computers and lives in LA, so I decided to send it to him to take a look at it.

By this being such a high line item, I wrapped it in bubble wrap, placed in a laptop case, and wrapped it AGAIN in a ton of bubble wrap before placing it in a post office issue box that the clerk told me, "most people send their laptops in THIS box)". I made sure to put at least $500.00 dollars worth of insurance on the shipment (just in case).

Silly me for believing this woman as approximately a week later, I got a call from my buddy in LA explaining that the hinge of the unit was broken and it was threatening to cause further damage to the computer. He explained that if I close the laptop, the screen may scratch and cause about 800 bucks worth of damage. So I'm irritated because this company screwed me over, and some idiot ignored the FRAGILE that was placed on the box, but I'm somewhat relieved that I got insurance on the purchase.

I send my LA buddy the insurance information along with the required receipt and figure the money would be distributed in a respectable amount of time. NOT! My buddy calls me later after he received the insurance information and explains that the post office clerk in LA tells him that "without a receipt, they probably won't honor your insurance claim)". Are you serious? They weren't saying such nonsense when they sucked 26 bucks out of my pockets for the original shipment and insurance. Either way, I'm stuck with a brand new computer damaged by USPS, and the unfortunate truth that I may not receive any restitution for their mistakes. To all who read this, NEVER use the USPS to ship anything of importance. I live in a rural area (Cleveland, MS) so this was my only option, but I refuse to use this awful place again.

She later sent us an update:

So we file a claim with the Post office in April, and today I find out that they are denying my claim unless someone at the POST OFFICE admits to causing the damage! Are you serious?

I officially hate the USPS and this is what I get for using snail mail.

P.S. I don't know whether to be mad at the post office for breaking the computer or HP for making crappy hardware as I have a Compaq X1000 that wont charge (crappy HP).

We always thought the point of insurance was to protect a package in the event something happens. It doesn't need to be an abuse. If an employee admits to abusing an uninsured package, would the Post Office refuse to reimburse the owner?

(Photo: Getty)

"Taking it seriously" is a phrase companies use over and over again in public statements whenever they have bad PR. Our series of posts on occurrences of the phrase is our attempt to question how seriously companies are really taking these matters if every time they trot out this phrase by rote.
(Photo: jblyberg)

He writes:

I recently ditched Windows XP at my house, and have moved to the Macintosh platform (and converted my PC machines to Ubuntu)

I've had zero issues with the conversion, except for my HP "all in one" scanner/pc/fax machine. Although I can get it to work just fine with Ubuntu, I cannot scan from OS X Leopard.

After some googling, I contacted HP support who informed me that there are no plans to update their drivers for Leopard. This is not an old printer, I bought it 4 years ago and I'd think it's in their best interest to support the segment of the market that's moving to Mac.

Instead of solving my problem with a new driver, they're trying to solve it by offering me a "trade in / trade up" program where they want me to buy a new HP printer. The only thing this will serve to do is to kill any brand loyalty I had to HP and cause me to never buy another HP product again.

I find it funny that the open source community can get scanning working just fine on Ubuntu, but a company like HP can't tweak their drivers to get it to work on a mac. C'mon HP, get it together!!!

Hello Matt,

Thank you for contacting HP Total Care.

With the Officejet 6110 & the Leopard OS, you will be able to print dew to the pre-installed print driver with the OS. For scanning, there is no software and drivers that will support this. There will be no software updates for this product and the Mac OS 10.5 (Leopard). We do have a program called trade in trade up. This is where you can trade the older unit in on a newer model. If you would like more information about this program, please reply to this email. Thank you

If you need further assistance, please reply to this message and we will be happy to assist you further.

You may receive an e-mail survey regarding your e-mail support experience. We would appreciate your feedback.

For information on keeping your HP and Compaq products up and running, please visit our Web site at: http://www.hp.com/go/totalcare

Sincerely,
Scott W.
HP Total Care

Can anyone think of a way to translate the scanner's outdated language for Leopard? Suggestions in the comments.

When I was heading off to college two years ago, my parents bought me a brand new laptop from HP (summer of 2005). In July of this year (about a year after the warranty has expired), the hinges of the laptop's lid started to crack open (despite that I've never dropped it and take very good care of it), the touchpad stopped working (the left button would act as the right one, and the right one wouldn't work period), and the wireless built into the laptop had stopped working over the course of the previous year (it somehow began to degrade in its signal quality). So I talk with my dad (as the laptop was purchased in his name), and we talk about whether I should buy a new laptop or try for repairs. On the 23rd of July we got online to HP's website and chatted with a representative, informing us that the price for repairing the laptop would be a few hundred dollars (less than half the price of your average college-student laptop). The rep in the online chat was very helpful and set up an overnight delivery for the repairs, and my dad paid (thanks Dad) for the repairs through a checking card. The next day (July 24) a laptop box is delivered to our house, and is mailed out the next day. We soon receive an email (July 26) with a link to a Status Webpage, which stated that HP had received my laptop and would thusly begin repairs. The webpage also stated that the Expected Delivery Date was August 5th.

When August 8th rolled around and my laptop had not returned, we checked the Status page, and the date had been changed to August 21st. After August 21st, the Status page would continually update the Expected Delivery Date by two weeks at a time, and by the time the third date change had appeared, we got on the phone to call HP. Within an hour (after a couple of dead-ends with holding for a living person), we were able to talk to someone who informed us that my original laptop could not be repaired (apparently they couldn't find any way to repair the hinges of the lid), so they were going to simply custom build me a brand new laptop that would have more RAM and a larger Hard Drive as well as each of the previous features of my previous laptop, which was ordered with a double-size battery and a syned media remote (according to the rep on the phone), but an exact model of the laptop was not specified. The representative also stated that the laptop would definitely be delivered by the most recent date on the Status Webpage (September 24). September 24 rolls around... and... guess what? The date changed again.

Needless to say, we're each a little frustrated. Over the following three weeks I sent three emails to Mike Hurd, the CEO of HP (or, at least what HP's website claimed was his email), and my dad had left HP at least 10 voice messages on their machine. As you can guess, zero responses. Eventually it got the point that my dad said, "If they don't give us any replies by Wednesday, we're just gonna call the attorney general." As luck would have it, someone from HP called my dad back on that Wednesday (October 10) to say that the new laptop would be a Compaq Presario, and it would be delivered by October 23 (the most recent Expected Delivery Date). October 23 came, but no laptop. My dad then decided to wait one more week (just for a little leniency time in case of the delivery being late... in relation to October 23). However, the EDD had once more changed to November 7th.

Of course, the reason we noticed the repetitious changing of Delivery Dates was from the Status Webpage. Yesterday, I checked the page, and lo and behold, there was something new! It said that the Scheduled Ship Date (which previous had always said "not applicable") now said October 25, meaning the new laptop had been sent out. There was even a link to a Tracking Webpage! And today, the laptop arrived to its destination! Lavergne, Tennessee! Except, we live in Iowa. HP (or FedEx, or both) put the wrong address on the package, even though the Status Webpage has a completely different address than the Tracking Webpage.

So, in a short summary: HP received my dad's payment, got my laptop, decided not to repair it, took three months to build a new laptop, and mailed it to someone in a completely different state (her name, her address, her city, and her state aren't even close to resembling ours). And they didn't even tell us, except for our incessant prodding.

Thanks HP!

(Photo: jenn_jenn)

FROM: KEVIN HUNSAKER

Hi guys, If/when we put the tracer in an email to the reporter, is there any chance it will be discovered? Is it something a firewall could pick up, or antivirus software? Would it make it through HP's security and get to, say, my email? If CNET knows something like that was sent to them, we could end up with some seriously bad publicity.

FROM: RON DELIA

Team, Surveillance teams were in place from 9 a.m. to noon, and no activity was observed at either residence. It appears DK has not returned from vacation. We waited in the event the family was sleeping in. However, by noon the newspapers were not picked up from the driveway. A pretext call to the residence was not answered. Surveillance activity at GK's residence revealed no movement as well.

Every Word You Say [Harper's]
(Photo: Sister72)

This comes after the Hewlett-Packard hearings where pretexted phone records were a central issue.Did the HP fracas merely exposed the problem, or did someone just wanted to punish companies involved in getting and selling records... — BEN POPKEN

FTC Asks Court to Order Permanent Halt to Telephone Record Pretexting [FTC.gov] [Photo by Josh Mullenite]

Everything I have given is accurate as of the last day I worked there. It's not that HP is a bad company. People just need to know what they are getting themselves in to when they buy HP.

1: Yes, the imaging drum/image transfer assembly will stop the printer from working if you go over the page count. Anything with the word "transfer." Be careful with the NV ram reset because it erases everything.

2: Support for home computing products is done via flow chart.

3: HP considers countries like Canada to be not worth the time or effort to market to. The market base in there is equivalent to one of the smaller American States. If you are calling in from Canada, you have to prove that you are in warranty and some of the features that Americans get, Canadians don't.

4: Often heard from US customers: "Thank god you speak American! You're not someone from Inja(India)!" Even CSRs hate dealing the HP outsource center in India. I wasn't joking about speaking a "variant of American." Yes, I speak English.

5: Back door link to HP. Only for onsite Tech Support: http://learning.compaq.com/wbt/e9-10200-wb/default.htm
This has stuff like how to field strip your products. Info varies by products.

6: Outsourced companies pay their people crap and like all things, you get what you pay for. If it were to become unionized, the company would fold up like a house of cards.

7: With regards to HP Parts: Here's an example of a conversation had by a CSR: "Oh, you haven't gotten your wingding yet? Okay, you should have gotten that a couple of days ago. Can I put you on hold while I deal with that?" (uses other line to call HP Parts, sees on his screen what is in his inventory) "Hey, this is Dude over in CSR, how come Mr. Yoda hasn't gotten his wingding yet?"
"Oh, we're all out."
"No you're not! I can see 16 on the availability!"
"Oh, sorry, I meant its on hold cause its a duplicate order."
"No its not - its the first order done for this customer in a year."
"Oh the customer must have ordered it wrong then."
"No, we did the order for the customer."
"Well, there's nothing that we can do then."
"Tell ya what - go do the job you were trained for or my next call is to your supervisor and he will do what he was trained for and fire you. Now get that wingding out Pronto!"
"You can't do that."
"I'm HP Internal, and I have a customer on my line. You will do it now." (back to customer) "Sorry, for the delay sir. I will have that wingding out to you via (shipping) right away. Can I call you back in a couple days to make sure you've got it?"
Now, multiply the above by many calls and many irate CSRs per day and you'll wind up with a memo on your desk that says CSRs can not talk to Parts.

The most frustrating part of being a CSR at the outsource center is when you call up the customer a few days later and no, they haven't gotten the part you promised them they'd get and then you get your ear chewed off.

8: I just wish I could give you the "stupid customer stories" because some of them are hilarious. Others are hair pulling. There's the one customer who used an HP printer from Eastern European country and plugged it straight into an American electrical socket and the magic blue smoke came out. Then there's a customer who thought that printing cardboard was a good idea because the sales guy told them so.

9: In training our trainer said that if it takes longer than 30 minutes to troubleshoot (low end printer) we are then costing HP money and should just replace it.

— BEN POPKEN

Previously: 14 Hewlett-Packard Company Secrets From A Former Employee

A former Hewlett-Packard worker could barely wait for their non-disclosure-agreement to end so they could spill 14 company secrets to The Consumerist.

1: Many HP Printers, like their laser printers, have a built-in page-count after which they won't work. This resides in the a transpart sometimes called image or drum kit. Rather than get the printer fixed, it's often cheaper to buy a new printer, OR you can do a NV ram reset. It resets everything in the printer, including all the page counts, but it's not without risks.

2: To get past the voice prompt system, repeatedly say "Agent." It will take two or three repetitions, but it will get you to a human.

3: If a set of cartridges cost more than the printer, don't buy the printer. It's considered a "throwaway" printer. HP service techs are told to spend no more than 30 minutes working on these because at that point, you are costing HP money.

[Photo: forester401]

4: HP cartridges have a warranty separate from their printer. The printer might be out of warranty, but the cartridges might not be. Cartridge goes plooey, call in.

5: Any HP printer that has been on the market for 6 months has its tech support outsourced. This means you might wind up talking to India, Canada or Costa Rica. Of the three, Canada at least speaks a variant of American.

6: If you have been told that you will receive a part by a certain date, follow up immediately. HP Parts Store was recently moved to Central America. HP Parts Store isn't talking to HP Tech Support because the Tech Support CSR can see what is in the HP PS inventory and knows when they're bullshitting. Every other part of HP hates HP Parts Store because of lost inventory, improper procedures, missed shipments, etc.

7: Using non-HP cartridges in your printer will void your warranty, and sometimes makes stuff blow up real good. The tech support will hang up on you if it is proven that the damage was caused by non-HP cartridges.

8: Just because the sales people say that your HP printer can use 120lbs paper doesn't mean it actually can. You want the straight dope on a printer? Call up HP tech support or check the website.

9: If your printer is just out of warranty and you have a problem with it, call tech support anyway. You will first likely be directed to a "warranty agent." Tell them firmly that you have an "extended warranty" and they will forward you on to tech support under "customer claims warranty." The Tech Agent MUST give you support as per HP policy.

10: Don't yell at the Tech Support CSRs. Most of them make just over minimum wage and just want to get the call over. If you have a problem, firmly request a supervisor.

11: If you threaten a lawsuit, HP CSRs are told to stop the call immediately and hang up.

12: Many HP CSRs are cross-trained into other departments. It doesn't hurt to ask if they know about the product or problem if you get misrouted.

13. HP's Beta Software website is at: http://www.hp.com/pond/ljbeta/. Only beta because it hasn't been put on the distribution cds yet. A lot of drivers here will do stuff that the installation cds won't. Also has fixes. HP maintains similar unadvertised websites throughout their system...

14. http://www.hp.com/pond/pnp Point and print = a new hp toy.

— BEN POPKEN

Loosely in honor of 9/11, here's an American soldier in Iraq expressing his dissatisfaction with an HP printer. With his automatic rifle. According to the original post on Break.com, after they sent this in to HP, they received a free new printer in return.

Part two of our former Hewlett-Packard CSR heart spilling describes the stressful call center conditions. He wishes HP had on-site counsellors round the clock. If you lasted over 6 months, you were considered a veteran.

Sorry to hear your job was so stinky. Here's three letters for you: G...E...D.

His letter, inside.

"ps.. make this anon. I'm going to have to delete this email in a bit. I don't want my informants to get in deep doggy doo over leaking this info. My NDA died last week between me and the call centre so I don't care, but theirs is still supposedly in force. But, as I was told in training, they don't really care if "spouses, family and significant others" find out the inside information. They can't force their techs to stay quiet, especially with the high stress job with low pay. They need a way to vent somehow and family and friends are the main way. They supposedly have access to "free counselling" but that's hit or miss. They really need on site councillors available 24/7, but there's no way the company would ever pay for it.

So, we get the worst of it. I could tell you stories about customers, procedures, faulty service manuals and more. There are certain printers that the CSRs cringe when they hear about them coming in. Or about how the outsourced company's policy of calling back customers for no less than 6 days was described by HP as akin to stalking. The CSRs are very happy that now all they have to do is tell the customer to call back if there are problems. They were spending all their time calling customers instead of letting calls come in and their "service levels" dropped.

Burn/drop out for the company is easily 70% or more. If you can last there 6 months, you are a veteran of the company and you might have a chance of getting "off the floor" which is the goal of every CSR there. I lasted 3 weeks.

Others in my training class lasted between 1 day and several months. I saw one there after a year. It is almost a rite of passage in this town to be fired from the outsourced company at least once. To say that you were fired from there is not a mark of shame on your resume - it shows that you had the guts to do the McJob they offer. Doesn't matter if you were there one day or one year. You were there."

Companies fail time and time again to protect our most sensitive data and we're learning our lesson: we know that our identity being stolen, our bank accounts being drained is as close to happening as firewall left unsecured, one CD forgotten in an airplane pocket, one disgruntled waiter walking away with our credit card number. The average American is a lot more savvy now: everyone knows now that there's no reason at all for Radio Shack to need your telephone number when you buy a transistor radio; Best Buy doesn't need your address when you pick up a Sopranos DVD. We shred our credit card statements; we deny companies our social security numbers when they don't actually need them. We're closing the security hole of our unwarranted trust in companies.

As an individual entity, then, the average consumer is much less of a target for fraud or identity theft than they ever were before. Yet companies like Verizon, Hewlett- Packard, Ford and now a government agency keep on "losing" laptops that make that extra vigilance worthless. These companies would like us to believe that the laptops are being stolen for their resale value, but is it so hard to believe that criminals are specifically targeting the thoughtless jackasses at these companies who keep putting millions of us at risk by bringing home their work?

What do you guys think?

Starbust drinks the koolaid, Canadians crash cars into people, Hewlett Packard chops people up, and debt goes... "ANGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!!!" right in your ear all day.

Super chunky blast of content to help you avoid doing work, after the jump.

UPDATE: 3 new ones just added.

CARSTAR

What if hospitals treated us just like car mechanics? Well, we'd freakin' die and get ripped off, that's what.

STARBURST

These ads succeed in tapping into the the manic youth weird pervo sensibilities of the moment, much better so than those stupid sheep with human heads Skittles ads or those ones where the kids stay on a rainbow as long as they don't look down at their pathetic lives.

Candy candy candy!

[via Fredrick Samuel]

HEWLETT-PACKARD

Clever ad asks, "Where do the deletions go?" Why, deletion land of course.

[via Aptbroadcast]

ICBC COUNTER-ATTACK

Graphical! Beware these Canadian anti-drunk driving ads.

[via Adrants]

HOME OWNERSHIP PRESERVATION FOUNDATION

Debt follows you around all day and gets all up in your business and you can't do a thing about it, sucka.

[via Adrants]