Do Manufacturers Adequately Support Their Products? 629
Chris Edwards asks: "I've been having quite a few problems with Dell support recently, and would like to ask the Slashdot community a question. To what extent should computer manufacturers support their product? I own a Dell Inspiron 7500
laptop, which has been plagued with problems since the day I purchased it.
The Inspiron 7k series were the first from Dell to take advantage of the new
15"/15.4" screens that had become available. They made one very tiny
mistake; they didn't change the hinges to support these gigantic LCDs. The
hinges on my laptop have broken four times since I purchased it two years ago. To put this into perspective: 8% of the time that I've owned my laptop, it's been in for repair. Should Dell just replace the laptop? Their support department doesn't think so; what do you think?" Dell isn't the only guilty party here. I'm sure you all have had your share of hardware support stories, the recent Ask Slashdot on IBM Deskstars is another example of this. Which manufacturers have a real bad track record of this kind of behavior?
eMachines, Compaq... (Score:2, Interesting)
CompUSA is bad. (Score:2, Interesting)
He had a virus. I removed it for him and every thing was fine.
A few days later it started acting up again. He called HP customer support who told him it was the virus and that he had to use the restored CD (lose all data, etc.).
That didn't work.
He took it back to CompUSA. They told him it NEEDED A CLEANING! So for $10 they cleaned it.
That didn't work. He took it back. They looked at it again and realized there were hardware problems. They wanted to charge him over $100 to look at it and about $200 to fix it even though he paid for a 3-year service warranty on it. He pitched a fit and they decided to only charge him $35.
It sat at the CompUSA store for about a month before they finally decided to ship it to HP. And that's where the situation sits now.
I don't know what HP will do, but it will be very hard for them top the service offered by CompUSA.
(By the way, I tried to convince him not to buy a computer there, but to no avail.)
Lemon Policy (Score:2, Interesting)
Our policy was that if a PC came in that had been in 3 times for the same problem, and our repairs had not yet solved the problem OR if a PC kept having continuous hardware related problems, we'd replace the computer from the bottom up.
Satisfied customer able to have their REVENUE GENERATING *note emphasis* computer back in hand was more important to the company than the cost of a replacement PC (which was not cheap!). Dell, Gateway, etc., probably won't do this because your computer is not directly generating revenue for your company. Yes, you use it to do your job which in turn helps the cause, but the system I outlined above was for Telco systems that brought in a constant stream of dollars.
In my opinion, yes, Dell ought to replace it OR offer a 100% guaranteed (field tested) FIX. You have documented a continuing problem that they have failed to solve. Will they do it, doubt it.
Gateway + Dell on a College Campus (Score:3, Interesting)
The intersting bit is the support contract. We seldom use it. Typically, our own Computing Services techs are modifying units when they come in the door (some of our labs need zip drives, but the administration doesn't purchace them... so we add them on site. As an example). But the other factor has been response time. Even though we have a support contract, it's simply easier to say "We can fix this. Fix it now and send the broken part back to Gateway."
So how good is the support when we really need it? I have no idea... Computing Services answer to my problems with the Dell on my desk has largely been "You shouldn't be trying to do that anyway so it's not really a problem..." Ah well... that's another can of worms...
The law is your friend. (Score:5, Interesting)
It would not even cost you anything, since we have something called a 'Small Claims court' which deals with consumer disputes such as this.
I don't know if you have such a thing over there. Another angle to try would be the credit card company. In the UK, the credit card company is jointly liable for anything you purchase with it. So there is another avenue to explore.
Finally, how the hell can they claim that a laptop display with three or less broken pixels is 'acceptable' ? You can bet that Michael Dell's laptop screen has all its pixels functioning.
As in all things, the squeaky gear gets the grease, so complain, complain loudly, complain often. Make it cost-ineffective for them to mess you around.
Lemon Law (Score:0, Interesting)
a complaint). Usually it's if the product is in for repair for the same problem 3 times in a given period of time, you're entitled to a new product... again I don't know the restraints on this.
Acer Scanner Support (Score:3, Interesting)
A little while back, my old flatbed scanner quit working. It had had heavy use, and was several months out of warranty, so I figured it was a write-off.
I did my research and tried to pick the best USB scanner out there in terms of price, features, and reliability. I ended up with an Acer 640U flatbed scanner. It's a nice scanner, and works preotty well. It's advertised to work with Windows 9x, 2000, MacOS, and Linux, if I remember correctly.
Well, I work under W2k for the great deal of my multimedia and graphics tasks. Just after a fresh install of the Operating System, the scanner works like a champ. However, after more than a little bit of use, the driver starts malfunctioning. Obviously a DLL conflict or something similar, right?
Well, a quick call to Acer to try to track down the conflict let me know that I was not privaleged to phone support any more because my product was out of warranty. Do they offer per-incident pricing for phone support?
http://www.acercm.com/support/technical_support.h
Apparently not. Even if they did, I could probably spend less on a brand new scanner than I could on 1 or 2 hours of support calls.
I resorted to newsgroup and messageboard searches for problems like mine, but couldn't really find any. I'm certain we've all had problems like this before, right? Where we are absolutely the onle ones to have them?
So, after a while, I tried emailing Acer's support like the page linked above suggests. I included detailed system specs including hardware specs, OS installed, a fairly comprehensive list of software installed, error codes and anything else I could think of. I specifically stated in the email that I thought that my problem was being caused no doubt by a software conflict, and asked for help tracking down the conflict.
The reply I received was along the lines of:
"Apparently there is a software conflict between the Acer driver and software applications installed on your system if your scanner will work with other computers. You should try to track down this conflict and uninstall the confilicting software."
This is adding insult to injury in my opinion. Either the support staffer who answered my mail was so untrained as to be useless, which is a real possibility in any support staff, or he or she didn't care, or had been instructed not to provide specific help to email support problems. So, despite the fact that the Acer scanner is actually a very good scanner, the software can't be trusted to keep working, and Acer's support of that software is in no way useful.
Sorry guys. Next time, I'll buy the Agfa Scanner.
Dell 7000 -- My Experience (Score:3, Interesting)
It also uses the 15" display but I never had the hinches break or anything like that, but who knows, maybe they decided to make them thinner on the 7500.
Yet, it wasn't without problems.
On the first Dell I got the Keyboard stopped working after two days. They wanted me to ship my unit back to get it repaired. After making clear that I am pissed, that this is a one week old computer I got a replacement within 24 hours (nice). I transplanted my HDD and thought I was off for good now, only to realize 3 days later that the HDD died on me. Luckily I hadn't returned the old one yet put the original HDD in and everything worked fine.
6 Months later the DVD ROM went. It couldn't read the DVDs anymore but CDs were fine. I had moved to Europe at that time and when I called Dell they told me I am out of luck because Dell Europe has nothing to do with Dell US, my warranty didn't cover it (great), so I lived with a defective DVD ROM.
6 months later I moved to Canada, and 2 months after that the Drive stopped working alltogether. Again I was calling Dell and I heard the same story: Dell Canada has nothing to do with Dell US. Again I raised hell, escalated it and they finally agreed to send me a replacement (I have to say the Dell Canada people were very nice and helpful).
A week later I had a new DVD ROM, only problem: Instead of sending me a "swap" unit together with the Floppy drive attached to it, they only sent me the DVD ROM drive. Fine, no problem, unscrew everything, reassemble it, done. When I called them back and asked them why they did this they told me that this was the wrong part, usually they send out complete units for customer maintenance, but apparantly a technician was supposed to do the swap for me. Oh well, no harm done.
A month after that the Display went, or better the lower third of it. Same thing again, calling Dell explaining why an AMERICAN Notebook needs service in Canada, no problem this time. They have a technican call me.
A week later (some scheduling conflicts on my end) the guy drove up to work and replaced the display in the office.
So: Even though I had some bad experience with Dell and it's international Support, in the end I could get what I needed.
Would I buy another one? Yes, because Dell isn't worse or better than anyone else.
Michael
AppleCare hardware Support == The Best (Score:3, Interesting)
That was Monday. Tuesday Airborne Express shows up with a box. I signed for it. Opened it up and inside was foam packaging for my TiPB and a Return Airborne Express slip. So I put the PB in it and called Airborne Express. They were back an hour later and picked up the box and shipped it to apple. (This is all at apples Expense) So. I send it out Tuesday. On Thursday my Powerbook is back in my hands and in Primo condition.... How cool is that?
I said it once, I'll say it again. Apple Rocks. If you think otherwise... You most likely haven't used one.
My Dell-Hell Inspiron 4000 (Score:2, Interesting)
So I went to DellTalk, the online support forums. I explained my problem and what I've tried. Got replies back from several technicians who told me all the same things the email guy did. One DellTech even said "What you're hearing is crosstalk from the IDE bus coming out of the speakers, which is normal for a notebook". After I explained that was impossible since the speakers are located elsewhere, I asked when it became normal for a notebook to have audible crosstalk coming from its speakers. Not normal for any of my previous 5 laptops.
Finally I went back to phone support. I got to run through the standard rigor-morah about what operating system I used (Linux and Win2k) and how Linux wasn't supported. I got to run the diagnostics disk, which to my knowledge does not test to see if the machine is making any unusual noise. Of course, the diagnostics passed, there was nothing wrong with my machine. It took some convincing, but the machine got another overnight flight to "the depot" to replace the motherboard. Got it back, same noise.
The problem with many companies today is that they do not make the equipment they sell. An undisclosed company makes Dell's laptops for them and Dell just sells them and supports them. I couldn't possibly expect that the yokel that sold me my television could actually repair it, why do these companies like Dell think they can? Short of swapping out every part one at a time, like my mechanic does, they don't have any understanding of what they're selling. I'm curious how many times they'll replace the motherboard on this machine before they start to think, "Maybe we should start holding our manufacturers to a bit higher standards".
Lousy Support. (Score:3, Interesting)
Wow was I mistaken. Each time I called them it was at least a 4 hour session, with vast stretches of time being placed on hold, or sitting in some call queue. Nevermind I have already determined it was the ethernet card that was having trouble. The tech I spoke with insisted on following his script in front of him. "Have you re-installed windows?" He about went nuts when I mentioned the system was a dual boot system. Pretty much his answer was reinstall with windows only and call back. *click* Nice.
Called back, waited in phone queues some more, got another guy who went through same script. This time I didn't mention Linux. He arranged to have the laptop shipped to them to be fixed. But I was to keep all peripherals, HD, ethernet card and so on. Humm, why is the laptop going back and not the broken ethernet? *shrug* Back it went. Two weeks later I got it back. This time the LCD wouldn't work. Swell. Back in the phone queues, and another 4 hours blown. Shipped laptop back again.
Two weeks later, got the laptop back...this time the keyboard didn't fully work, and other wacky problems. 4 more hours on the phone and shipped it back again.
Another two weeks, laptop arrives, finally works again. But original problem still exists. Called Dell again. Waited in phone queue for a few more hours, got a guy, who pretty much was telling me to ship the laptop back to them again. *sigh* I told him that wasn't the problem, it was the bloody ethernet card--ship me a new one. Put me on hold. Came back and said he couldn't do that. Told him I'm sure he can swap the ethernet card. Back on hold. Came back and wanted *my* credit card number to charge me for the card, and then refund *my* credit card when they recieved the old one. Told him that was unacceptiable, as this was *work's* laptop. Back on hold. Came back and said that's all he could do. Asked for his boss. Back on hold. Came back and said sure, we'll send you the card, as long as you ship back the old one. Like I wanted to keep a broken ethernet card....right.
Needless to say, because of their lousy tech support, I will not buy a Dell system for myself, let alone recommend it to anyone. That and I also saw the two other Inspirion 7000's that work bought at the same time as mine have many many more problems than mine ever did. I was lucky in that I got the good one of the batch.
I worked for Solectron, the Dell/IBM RMA facility. (Score:1, Interesting)
Actually that makes perfect sense (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:You've had a laptop for 2 years... (Score:2, Interesting)
With that in mind I believe that it would be fair to say that if a product suffers from repetitive failures during 'regular use' [not abuse], replacing the part with the same part [i.e. not a improved part] is a sham. Now I would argue that the incredibly rapid depreciation rate for computers [which does far out strip even that of automobiles] makes the 'lemon law' reimbursement clause too severe for computer manufactures. I feel that some middle ground must be available. What exactly I am not sure, but I would think that an extension of the warranty especially regarding the parts related to the inferior component would be a good start.
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:The law is your friend. (Score:4, Interesting)
It's fun to watch actually. He's not really aggressive or litigious, but he won't let somebody screw him over, particularly big companies who are used to walking all over the common man.
Re:Transcript: My HP Experience (Score:1, Interesting)
It reminds me of the time as a young law clerk I went to a government bureaucracy to obtain a copy of a bill of sale (a kind of mortgage) over a client's factory machinery. The bill was needed so I could sell the factory. The bureaucracy had a record of the bill of sale being registered, but no copy of the bill (which is what you really want). I paid for a copy of the bill, it never came so up to the department I went. There I was told that the bill had been archived, ok get it out said naive young lad. Well that wasn't possible because all bills over a couple years old were put in unmarked boxes randonmly and then taken to a warehouse where they were just randonmly scattered ! No index, no lists, they were just shelved haphazardly. But I could buy a "license" to forage amongst thousands of identical boxes provided I paid for some functionary to sit next to me to ensure I didn't damage their valuables documents. Why don't you just burn them I said, no one is ever going to find one in a big warehouse. Oh no I was chided these are important documents and the department had a duty of care to the public !
In the end I advised the client to indemnify the purchaser for any loss stemming from the bill of sale, or to wait another year when the bill's registration expired !
Dell Inspiron 7500 (Score:1, Interesting)