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
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]
Chubby Checker Suing Over Male Endowment Measuring App For Obvious Reasons
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
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
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 Holding Deaf Bed-Bound Girl's Laptop Hostage Since May
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 Will Keep Sort Of Fixing Your Computer Until Warranty Runs Out
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
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
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
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]
54,000 More HP Batteries Recalled
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
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
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
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]