Mark is one of those longtime loyal Apple customers who Apple haters love to hate. For the first time, though, he’s run into an intractable technical problem that even the Geniuses can’t solve. The computer freezes when he uses wifi, which is problematic for anyone using a computer during the last decade. He’s taken his MacBook to the store in person, called Apple tech support (on his iPhone, naturally) [More]
warranty and repair
My Dell Touchscreen Computer Keeps Touching Itself
By 8.2.12
Travis is heading to college in a few weeks. That’s very exciting, but he’s nervous that he’ll be heading to school with no computer or no working computer. He got a new laptop at the beginning of the year, and it’s no longer working all that well. The touchscreen keeps touching itself, moving the pointer to random points on the screen and disrupting whatever he’s doing. A Dell technician came to his house, didn’t fix the problem, and broke his headphone port. A second tech didn’t help all that much, and now it’s at Dell’s repair depot, still not getting the touchscreen fixed. What should he do? [More]
HTC Incredible Gets Stuck In 2 AM Reboot Loop, Wakes Me Up
By 7.20.12
There are still a lot of users around with the original HTC Incredible, and many of them need to go out and buy alarm clocks. That’s because a new software update that Verizon just sent out makes their phones go into a freaky reboot loop around 2 AM, wearing down the battery and sometimes locking the phone up entirely. The phone does wake its owner up, though. At 2:00. Reader Joe reports that every night, it makes the DROID startup noise at least once. Loudly. Every time it restarts. [More]
Nike GPS Watch Breaks, Locks Up Your Running Data Forever
By 7.17.12
Jose doesn’t want a free replacement for his out-of-warranty Nike GPS watch. He doesn’t even want a free repair. He just wishes that the company would offer in-house repair options for the device, which he paid $160 for. His watch has what looks like a hardware issue, but he can’t be sure. His run data is locked up on the watch, and he can’t get it out. The only option is a third-party service that charges $12 just to look at the watch. [More]
Five Months With A New HP Laptop, But Not A Functional One
By 7.11.12
Skurk32 bought a new HP laptop in February. So he’s been spending five months enthralled with his new computer, right? Um, not exactly. He’s experienced a series of problems, large and small, with the new computer, that range from the color red displaying as orange (weird) to the machine overheating while idling (dangerous.) HP chooses to acknowledge some of these as problems, but not the ones that are actually important. [More]
TomTom’s Top Gear-Branded GPS Is Absolute Rubbish
By 7.10.12
Kristan, like many sensible and awesome people, was excited when GPS maker TomTom produced a limited edition unit for fans of the BBC program “Top Gear.” The biggest draw: the recorded voice of Jeremy Clarkson, the show’s lead presenter and an internationally beloved contrarian jerk. Clarkson’s voice isn’t available for separate purchase from TomTom, at least for American consumers. Oh, no. We have to shell out $269 for this spiffy satnav, and that’s what Kristan did. It turned out that the unit….wasn’t all that great. But the final insult came when it failed, and TomTom sent a warranty replacement of an inferior unit that contained no Top Gear content and required an additional $60 fee to reactivate the GO LIVE that Kristan had already paid for. [More]
La-Z-Boy: Don’t Clean Your Leather Chair With That Leather Chair Cleaning Kit We Gave You
By 7.10.12
When Stephen bought a pricey La-Z-Boy recliner, the salesperson handed him a leather care kit along with the warranty information. When the color of the chair arms began to fade, he tried using that kit, which removed the leather’s color entirely. When he contacted La-Z-Boy, he learned that the kit was more useful for wrecking leather than caring for it, and that he never should have used it in the first place. When he tried to make a warranty claim for the fading color on his chair’s arms, La-Z-Boy blamed the OP, telling him that he lost any chance at a warranty claim by putting his hands on the arms of his recliner. What? [More]
Leaky Dishwasher Wrecks Hardwood Floor And Ceiling Below, Sears Shrugs
By 7.2.12
Sometimes, you buy a defective appliance and your only problem is that that the appliance doesn’t work. It’s sad, but you replace the item, either using a warranty or by purchasing a new one. Sometimes the company will stand in your way, and you have to fight them for a replacement. And then sometimes your defective appliance warps your hardwood floor, leaks through to your basement ceiling, and causes more than $4,000 worth of damage. That’s what happened to Nachos Grande and his wife (not his real name) when they bought a defective Whirlpool dishwasher from Sears. [More]
Best Buy Quits Offering Replacement Plans For Cheap Earbuds
By 6.29.12
For once, it’s easy to understand a situation from Best Buy’s point of view. They used to sell $4.99 replacement plans for relatively cheap earbuds––those costing $10 or less. Pithecanthropus thought this was a great idea, given the longevity of a cheap pair. Especially if you have a string-loving cat in the house. But Best Buy has wised up and is no longer offering replacement plans for earbuds that cost $30 or less. That makes sense, but makes Pithecanthropus sad. [More]
Caught Between Newegg And ASUS With A Defective Tablet
By 6.25.12
Sara is stuck. Almost two months ago, she ordered an ASUS tablet from Newegg. Shortly after she began using it, it had problems recognizing the dock that turns it into a notebook computer, and some minor video issues. She called up ASUS for technical help, and they instructed her to send it to them for repair. They couldn’t duplicate the issue, so they shipped it back to her after hanging on to it for three weeks. By then, it was even more broken than when she originally shipped it, and by then Newegg’s return period had ended. She should have returned it to Newegg in the first place, but didn’t know that at the time. What should she do now? [More]
Newegg Refuses To Exchange Defective Laptop That Doesn’t Even Have Linux Installed
By 6.14.12
Gary’s friend’s laptop didn’t have a catastrophic flaw or anything. But its wireless Internet connection was slower than it should have been, indicating a possible problem with the wireless card. So he packed it up and sent it back to Newegg to exchange for a new one. Newegg’s RMA department decided there was nothing wrong with the machine and sent it right back. Gary advised his friend to initiate a chargeback on the transaction on his American Express card and refused to accept the laptop’s shipment back to him. Newegg responded by blocking his account, evidently not wanting his business anymore. [More]
Newegg: Installing Linux On Your Computer Is Basically The Same As Breaking It
By 6.12.12
One would think that Newegg, beloved electronics supplier to the world’s geeks wouldn’t have a problem with customers installing different operating systems on their systems after delivery. Heck, they should expect it. Which is why Norma was surprised when she returned her new Thinkpad that had a glitchy display after only three days, and Newegg refused the RMA. Why? Well, she had installed Linux Mint on it, which voids the Newegg return policy for computers. Update: Newegg tells us that, oops, this was all a terrible mistake. [More]
Wait, Best Buy Replacement Plans Don’t Fix Or Replace Discontinued Gadgets?
By 6.11.12
In October 2010, less than two years ago, Best Buy sold Jason a $630 camera and a $120 Geek Squad protection plan for it. The plan included repair past the manufacturer’s warranty as well as accidental damage. His camera didn’t just get damaged: it fell onto some rocks and shattered. Wow, good thing he bought that protection plan! He brought the shards to a local Best Buy to see about getting the camera replaced. He was told that since Sony no longer makes that particular model, he was out of luck. That would be a nice racket for Best Buy if they don’t have to honor their plan for models that have been discontinued. [More]
Hey, Restoration Hardware, Come Restore The Crappy Finish Of My $18K Patio Set
By 6.4.12
I was always under the–apparently incorrect–impression that when you pay the prices that places like Restoration Hardware command for their furniture, you get some kind of guarantee along with that. Say, that if you drop eighteen grand on some beautiful weathered-finish patio furniture, that beautiful finish isn’t going to just weather itself right off the furniture in under a year. Dennis has learned that this isn’t the case. [More]
Your Computer Was Built In 2007 And That's All There Is To It
By 6.1.12
Max was trying to be all “yay, local business!” and bought his notebook computer less than a year ago from a local independent retailer. This computer wasn’t built by that local store, though. It came from Gateway. According to Gateway’s records, they don’t even have parts for it anymore, since it had been manufactured in 2007 or 2009. Even though it came new in the box with Windows 7 installed. Remember, that operating system that wasn’t released until 2009. According to Gateway, Max’s computer is so positively ancient that Gateway doesn’t even keep the parts for it around anymore. The computer that he bought new–or so he thought–less than a year ago. [More]
Pay No Attention To The Flickering Excited Pixel On Your Plasma TV
By 5.21.12
Joshua has only had his Panasonic 3-D plasma TV for six months, so it’s still well within the initial one-year warranty. It’s developed a strange problem where one particular area of the screen glows bright green, flickers, and is hot to the touch. Once Panasonic was able to find someone on staff capable of viewing the YouTube video he sent in as evidence, they ultimately concluded that a hot flickering pixel is not covered by the warranty. Really? Somehow, he expected more after dropping $1,500 on a TV. [More]
Lenovo Has My Defective Computer, Isn't Returning My Calls
By 5.17.12
Bethany’s Lenovo laptop computer is pretty nice. At least, it is when it’s around. It keeps taking extended vacations at Lenovo’s repair depot, to the point that she had to buy another computer in order to get through finals and computerless life in general. After they held on to her machine for three weeks, she finally asked for a refund instead of getting the evidently defective computer back. That’s when they stopped returning her calls. [More]
I Think Maybe I Used To Own An Asus Laptop
By 5.15.12
Dave owns an Asus laptop. Well, he kind of vaguely remembers owning an Asus laptop. He’s had it for four months, but it’s spent the last month at the repair center, not being repaired. The system claims that it’s waiting for parts, but no one is able to explain what that means, or when he might expect to see his computer again. [More]
