Complaint Review: Comp USA

On March 6, 2000, I went to Comp USA and ordered a custom built pc from Compaq. Computer cost $2500 and the Comp USA salesman suggested I buy a comp USA warrantee instead of a Compaq warrantee because if anything happened to it i could just bring it into the store where the technic would either fix it for me or get me another one. Well I bought the three year warrantee and just before the warrantee expired my graphics card went bad and my hard drive failed. Well I took my computer in October 2002 to have it fixed. But instead of fixing it with compaq parts that had the same features as the original parts Comp USA put in cheaper parts valued at 10% of the price of the origial cards. For example they replace a $499.00 ddr graphics card with tv out and an extra port for a second monitor with a $49.00 PNY card with a port for one monitor. They broke the door to my tower, reconfigured my modem so that it could not access the correct port, and did something to the dvd player so that the computer did not recognize it as being there. They also did something to the audio card so that the speakers, microphone, and cd player did not work. The system also began to freeze and show corrupted files. They also stole my "Chicken Run" dvd disk that had been mistakenly left in the computer.

I have been arguing with these people since October 2002. They do not return phone calls and at this point the sales manager Warren Spillar who was supposely put in charge of this problem after I caught the service manager in several lies does not come to the phone or if he mistakenly answers the phone he puts me on hold and then never comes back to the phone.

I have contacted Comp USA world headquarters three times and on each occassion they claim that they have no record of my complaint or problem.

Compaq the builder of the pc has offered to help them fix this pc but to date Comp USA has not contacted them, prefering instead to tell me that Compaq will not help them although they Comp USA were a authorized repair center for Compaq. So I know this is just another lie made up by Comp USA to stall me.

Their last con was to try to get me to take a $569.00 credit for the Computer I paid $2500 for. Their statement was that the Compaq DVD would cost $500 to replace and that my computer was only worth $569.00. Therefore the insurance company had instructed them to trash it, and give me a credit for $569.00.

But Compaq does not sell their DVD players for $500 so this was a lie. Further the $49.00 pny graphics card they used to replace the Compaq card does not work with my computer and the Compaq card which was available at $499 from Compaq is no longer available through Compaq, and they Comp USA refuse to buy it from any other source because they do not know how to install it without getting corrupted files, and they will not left Compaq assist them with the installation.

But I don't think that it is the fear of installation as much as I think they just don't want to spend the the money the additional money to buy the video card.

After all they are trying to get me to take $569 for my $2500 computer. The $569 is what they call depreciated value of my computer, but there is nothing in the extended warrantee that says you are insuring the depreciated value of your pc--i.e. an accounting term that does not represent the replacement value of my computer, because to get Compaq to build me another pc will cost me another $2500, not $569. Because the graphics card by itself costs $499.

The warrantee does say however that if they can't fix your pc that they will replace it, but Comp USA does not want to replace my pc with another custom built pc from Compaq they want to give me one off the shelf valued at $500. And this is BS.

I have given Comp USA and the insurance company American Bankers of Florida and their Plan Administrator Technology Assurance Plan of Plano Texas 10 days to give me my money back else I'm suing. And with all the other people that I am sure that have screwed over or are screwing over I think that they are long over due for a class action law suit. It takes three people to do a class action, and I know of one person namely me that would be glad to sign.

If you have bought something from Comp USA and haven't gotten screwed yet you are lucky, but if you don't want to be mad and screwed over like me, you need to get another warrantee from someone else!!!

R.
Morrow, Georgia
U.S.A.

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