HP customer service has a bad rep and it seems they finally got around to noticing it. Here’s a press release announcing the completion of what they call, “the most substantial investment in consumer technical support in its history.” Highlights:
hp
Dear HP: It Has Been Three Months Since I Last Saw My Laptop
By 3.2.08
For three months, HP has promised to return reader N’s laptop within the next ten days. N sent his HP Pavillion for repairs in December after his screen became a blurry mess incapable of displaying anything as basic as say, oh, a tracking page. HP insists that they fixed the laptop, but they won’t ship it back to N. Conveniently, the one-year warranty expired last month.
Customer Files Class-Action Suit Against HP & Staples, Charging Printer Ink Price Collusion
By 12.20.07
Ranjit Bedi, a Californian, has filed a lawsuit against Hewlett-Packard and Staples in a U.S. District Court in Boston, accusing the two companies of colluding to prevent the sale of third-party ink cartridges in Staples stores. Bedi is accusing HP of paying Staples over $100 million to get it to stop selling lower-priced ink refills, but none of the news sources we found supply any evidence to support that figure, so we hope Bedi has more than just a gut feeling about this.
HP Takes Three Months To Repair Laptop, Then Ships It To The Wrong Address
By 12.1.07
Hewlett-Packard took over three months to fix reader Mark’s ailing laptop, which they then shipped to the wrong address. HP charged Mark several hundred dollars for the repairs in July, and gave an expected delivery date of August 5. In early September, Mark was told that the laptop would definitely ship by September 24. On October 10, Mark learned – after sending an email to the CEO and leaving ten messages – that his laptop could not be repaired, and that he would instead receive a new Compaq Presario by October 23. The laptop finally shipped on October 25 to Lavergne, Tennessee. Mark lives in Iowa.
Morning Deals
By 10.10.07
Office Printers Spew As Many Particles As Smoldering Cigarettes
By 8.3.07
Everyone hates the office printer, including scientists who blame the printers for emitting dangerous amounts of ultra-fine particles. Scientists from Queensland University examined printers from Canon, Hewlett-Packard, Ricoh and Toshiba. Their findings don’t condemn any one brand: the HP LaserJet 4050 emitted no particles, while the the HP LaserJet 1320 and 4250 raised the particle count of the surrounding air tenfold. From the LA Times:
Morawska did not originally set out to study printers. She was invited by the Queensland Department of Public Works to measure air quality inside a six-floor office building near a busy road.
A Camera That Takes Slimming Photos?
By 6.8.07
Sick of looking fat in pictures of yourself? Buy a camera that stretches the photos vertically so you look thin. No, really. Now you can do to your family photos what MySpace sluts have been doing to theirs for years!
Are You Still Stuck In Vista Upgrade Hell?
By 5.11.07
If you bought a laptop at the end of last year, you probably qualified for a free Vista upgrade. We did and although it took 6 weeks to get the disc in the mail from our laptop manufacturer, we didn’t run into too many hassles. No so for a lot of people, according to PC World:
“I was told it would be an easy process,” says William Bond, of Tampa, Florida. But, he says, the process has been anything but simple. Bond purchased a Hewlett-Packard Pavilion desktop in November at Circuit City and is still waiting for his Vista upgrade disc from ModusLink, the company handling the program for HP.
Man Gets Brand New Laptop After Suing HP In Small Claims Court For Losing His
By 4.18.07
HP seemed to have “lost” David Barzelay’s laptop when he sent it in for repairs. After a month of no laptop, HP wouldn’t replace it or return it.
Help Improve Tech Support At Apple, Dell, Gateway, And HP
By 3.17.07
Vocal Laboratories, a company that helps other companies improve customer service by surveying customer calls, is working on project to improve tech support at Apple, Dell, Gateway, and HP, and you can participate.
Customer Pries Rebate From Circuit City’s Clutches
By 10.30.06
He recorded the call, made in Colorado, a one-party consent state, and uploaded it to YouTube. A slideshow of Colorado scenery plays in the background.
All Laptops Break. Period.
By 10.27.06
This Consumer Reports chart ranks how quickly different laptops need repair.
Soldier in Iraq Shoots Crappy HP Printer
By 9.11.06
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.
Ex-HP CSR Says His Job Really Sucked
By 8.25.06
Have compassion when you call tech support. That’s a real live human on the other end of the line (eventually).
Ex-HP CSR Says Broke 3000 Series Printers Are Hopeless
By 8.25.06
Fresh from his non-disclosure agreement expiring, an anonymous tipster writes in some dirt about 3000 series HP printers.
HP Markets Girdling Camera to Rather Delusional Women
By 8.18.06
And with the proud forward march of technology comes one more reason not to trust that Match.com profile picture: the newest Hewlett-Packert cameras include an automatic “slimming” effect that can transform even the tubby, the amorphous, the morbidly obese into slender sylphs.
How To Get A Support Ticket From HP
By 6.7.06
While Ben continues to burst aneurysms out of his skin like tiny out-of-control fire hoses in his efforts to cancel his MySpace account, here’s a reminder that impenetrably convoluted instructions to get support aren’t limited to community websites aimed primarily at Popken and his sulky teenage emo girl peer group.
