It’s a common theme in “above and beyond” posts: a customer contacts a company asking where he or she can buy a certain small part for their widget, and the company sends the part for free–or a new widget entirely. Today, we honor Seagate, which sent globe-trotting academic Donna a new power cord and international plug thingies for her external hard drive when her American plug began to misbehave.

I’m a PhD student in a fieldwork heavy discipline…and I am writing my dissertation so I have depended on my Seagate external hard drive to, you know, not fail while I traveled from hemisphere to hemisphere. Now that I am settled in the US I noticed that my UK Seagate plug tended to spark in the converter when in an American socket.

I emailed Seagate, complimented their dependability (my Seagate has been carted all over the UK, France, Malaysia, the US and New Zealand in the past 6 months and it is still going strong) and asked where I could buy just the US plug piece for the power cable. I admitted that it was probably my converter but indicated that I was afraid of the sparks so I wasn’t backing up as much as I should. I had found the full cables online but didn’t want to pay $30 when all I needed was one little piece.

Seagate responded right away and within a week they sent me a whole new power cable AS WELL AS the plug pieces for the US, UK, Europe, and Oceania…for FREE! No more sparks anywhere in the world! To be honest, I had already reccomended Seagate to all of my friends and bought their hard drives for family members, but with this I will redouble my endorsement. Thanks for backing my my dissertation with minimal sparks Seagate!

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