In the Recall Roundup for September, smoke alarms fail to go off, kids’ sunglasses are decorated with Disney characters rendered in lead paint, and a cooking thermometer adds a little something extra that you didn’t want to your food. [More]
hewlett packard
Hewlett-Packard Recalls Nearly 6 Million Power Cords Because Melting Doesn’t Charge The Computer
By 8.26.14
Computer power cords are meant to provide juice to your device; they aren’t meant to melt or catch fire. So when that happens, it’s time for a recall. Such is the case for Hewlett-Packard. [More]
Hewlett Packard To Pay $32.5M To Settle Allegations Of Overcharging USPS
By 8.1.14
Breaking a promise and overcharging for products is a pretty shady deal to begin with, but when the company you’re taking money from is the already financially-strapped U.S. Postal Service, it’s like rubbing salt in the wound. Hewlett Packard has agreed to pay $32.5 million to settle allegations that it overcharged the USPS for nine years. [More]
Chubby Checker Suing Over Male Endowment Measuring App For Obvious Reasons
By 2.13.13
Warning: once you’ve read what we’re about to say, you’ll never be able to think of legendary singer Chubby Checker the same way. The man behind “The Twist” is suing the makers of an app that measures a man’s endowment, anatomy-wise, because well, he doesn’t want to be associated with that particular piece of equipment. [More]
Audit Finds That Foxconn Workers Are Laboring Under Crappy Conditions
By 3.30.12
While it turned out that monologuist Mike Daisey made up a bunch of stuff about working conditions at Foxconn, that doesn’t mean that things there are all sunshine and roses. A recent labor audit found the giant Chinese manufacturer has working conditions that need a whole heck of a lot of improvement. [More]
Fighting For A Working HP Laptop For 8 Months
By 7.25.11
Try as they might, HP just seems to be incapable of getting David’s repair right. When repairing his wireless card that was damaged in a previous repair, they broke the motherboard. Fixing the motherboard, they broke the screen connector. And so on. Even the replacement computer they gave him started to fail, and then they failed at fixing that correctly. This ridiculous dance has been going on for 8 months. [More]
Best Buy Replaces Deaf Bed-Bound Girl's Laptop After Holding It Hostage
By 7.22.11
After the story of a deaf and bed-bound girl whose laptop had been bouncing back and forth between Best Buy Geek Squad repair for 3 months went up on Consumerist, the ambassador for Geek Squad City, Randy Ratliff, reached out to help. “The buck stops here!” he said in his email. And of all the many who say that, he’s one of the few to mean it. He investigated the issue and now Jenni’s sister has a new laptop. [More]
Best Buy Holding Deaf Bed-Bound Girl's Laptop Hostage Since May
By 7.13.11
Jenni’s sister is disabled and bed-bound, and her laptop is her portal to the world. So when her HP laptop had to go in for repair, it was a big deal. It was an even bigger deal after the Geek Squad spent over a month dickering with the repair and while it was in their hands, the warranty ran out. Now Geek Squad won’t give it back unless the full out of warranty price is paid, and HP says it’s not their problem, it’s Geek Squad’s. Meanwhile it’s been almost three months and Jenni’s sister has no computer. [More]
HP Gives Gal Warranty By Accident, Knows It, Lets Her Replace Laptop Anyway
By 7.1.11
Donni is totally stoked! She bought a refurb HP laptop that kicked the bucket after its 90-day warranty expired. She gave up hope but then HP randomly sent her an email asking her if she wanted to renew her warranty. Donni called them up and they scratched their heads and said, yeah, that shouldn’t have happened, but they went ahead and let her get the warranty and replace her laptop anyway. For this reason, Donni is very happy with HP. [More]
HP Will Keep Sort Of Fixing Your Computer Until Warranty Runs Out
By 6.22.11
Terry is a graduate student, and doesn’t really need to be shipping his only computer off for repairs every few months. If the computer is unplugged while asleep, the display refuses to come back on. He paid extra for an “in-home” warranty, so why does he have to keep mailing his computer to HP so they can not really fix it? He tells Consumerist that HP really seems to want him to leave him alone, being consistently rude. Even the person who answered the phone at executive customer service called him an “angry person with a phone number.” Maybe he wouldn’t be so angry if he had a working computer. [More]
HP Call Center Supervisor Can't Help You, Answers To No One
By 6.2.11
Consumer electronics have this terrible, terrible habit of breaking down shortly after the manufacturer’s warranty is up. In Eva’s case, the battery of her HP laptop self-destructed just two weeks after her original warranty ended. She thought that perhaps since her battery had started failing during the warranty period, they might give her a break. Nope. Thus began her battle of wills with R., the HP call center supervisor who can’t help you, but answers to no one. [More]
HP Starts The Tablet Smack Talk, Claiming Theirs Will Beat iPad
By 5.25.11
We can just hear it now: “Your tablet is so stupid, it thought a quarterback was a refund!” Hewlett-Packard hasn’t released their TouchPad tablet computer yet, but already they’re smack-talking iPad and Android devices and claiming it’ll be the best one ever in the whole entire world. So there! [More]
Each Of The 8 HP Laptops I've Bought Suffer From Blue Screen Of Death
By 2.10.11
Dan made a boo-boo and now he’s blue-blue. He broke his wife’s laptop and decided to replace it with a HP DV6t Special Edition laptop, picking one up for himself too. But he’s not the only one suffering from discoloration, so are his laptops’ screens. They’re continually afflicted by the dread “Blue Screen of Death.” He’s called and complained and exchanged the laptops several times, but each time, BSOD. They’re on laptops 7 & 8 now. What’s the deal? [More]
Was Our Rejection Two Coincidental Typos, Or Vast Rebate Conspiracy?
By 10.6.10
Have you recently had an HP rebate cruelly denied even though you followed the instructions flawlessly and included all items asked for? A. tells Consumerist that this happened to two family members in two separate transactions. It may have been a coincidence, but still made A. suspicious. [More]
54,000 More HP Batteries Recalled
By 5.24.10
Hewlett-Packard doesn’t just make props for cringeworthy feature length commercials; the company also sells batteries that sometimes catch fire. A year ago HP recalled about 70,000 bad batteries, and now it’s added another 54,000 to the list. [More]
Hewlett-Packard To Buy Palm For $1.2 Billion
By 4.28.10
After months of rumor and speculation, Hewlett-Packard announced today that it will indeed purchase Palm Inc. for a grand total of $1.2 billion. [More]
Laptop Sets Off Smoke Alarm, HP Just Keeps Putting New Defective Parts In
By 3.13.10
Ryan tells Consumerist that his HP dv2700se laptop has been problematic, losing wireless connectivity, and overheating a bit. And when I say “a bit,” I mean “tried to set his desk on fire.” HP’s solution? Keep replacing the graphics processing unit (GPU) with the same flawed part until his warranty runs out. Ryan does not find this solution acceptable. Here is his story, with pictures. [More]
HP Won't Replace My Messed-Up LCD Monitor
By 12.7.09
Chris bought a Hewlett Packard-Compaq laptop that started suffering an ink blot-like glob of dead pixels several months later. Convinced that the malady is due to a manufacturing defect, he’s trying — so far unsuccessfully — to get HP to warranty it out. He writes: [More]
