Mike Fritzler
Regina,#2Consumer Suggestion
Fri, November 28, 2008
Just reading your letter to HP Canada and I say, honestly I must agree. I am a reseller of HP equipment, and I spend most of my days educating customers that there are two different divisions of HP, and they do not make any attempt to educate the customers themsevles. It is frustrating. First off, HP has Consumer and Business class systems. If you go to their website www.hp.ca you will see this. Future Shop and Best Buy are two companies owned by the same parent company, and unfortunately, HP is right when they said "How did you get this system? When did you live in the United states?" because unbenounced to them, these companies bring the equipment up from the US, and resell it. They also resell piles of "refurbished" or repacked items they get as a discount from HP, and resell as new - unless you read the fine print. So basically, a deal from them is not really a deal. When you have a warranty issue on a consumer class unit - you get the service you just got. If you actually purchaseda bsuiness class unit, there are service centres across Canada that would help you in every major city, most cities with more than one. In Regina here, we have 3 - and I am one of them. Customers do not know this when buying an HP product. They figure the name "HP' means it's an "HP" which it does and doesn't. When you buy a GM car, you can go to any GM repair centre for warranty service - but not so with the HP line. I brought this up the ladder at HP Canada recently - and they finaly have a response I was told - they will be rebranding the consumer line to be Compaq and keep HP to be the business line. At least that way, as a customer you will know what service you are entitled to. Business class products are normally "Next Business Day Replacement" or Fix. Consumer clas products, cross your fingers and hope for the best. If you think this is a problem only to HP, you are wrong. Dell and other major companies do it as well, but to a different extent.HP did it to price compete against others, but are ruining their good name trying to do so. I thought you should know the inside scoop on your issues, and why you were treated the way you are. It's not just an HP issue, but Future Shop for shipping US only product to Canada. -Mike
Mike Fritzler
Regina,#3Consumer Suggestion
Fri, November 28, 2008
Just reading your letter to HP Canada and I say, honestly I must agree. I am a reseller of HP equipment, and I spend most of my days educating customers that there are two different divisions of HP, and they do not make any attempt to educate the customers themsevles. It is frustrating. First off, HP has Consumer and Business class systems. If you go to their website www.hp.ca you will see this. Future Shop and Best Buy are two companies owned by the same parent company, and unfortunately, HP is right when they said "How did you get this system? When did you live in the United states?" because unbenounced to them, these companies bring the equipment up from the US, and resell it. They also resell piles of "refurbished" or repacked items they get as a discount from HP, and resell as new - unless you read the fine print. So basically, a deal from them is not really a deal. When you have a warranty issue on a consumer class unit - you get the service you just got. If you actually purchaseda bsuiness class unit, there are service centres across Canada that would help you in every major city, most cities with more than one. In Regina here, we have 3 - and I am one of them. Customers do not know this when buying an HP product. They figure the name "HP' means it's an "HP" which it does and doesn't. When you buy a GM car, you can go to any GM repair centre for warranty service - but not so with the HP line. I brought this up the ladder at HP Canada recently - and they finaly have a response I was told - they will be rebranding the consumer line to be Compaq and keep HP to be the business line. At least that way, as a customer you will know what service you are entitled to. Business class products are normally "Next Business Day Replacement" or Fix. Consumer clas products, cross your fingers and hope for the best. If you think this is a problem only to HP, you are wrong. Dell and other major companies do it as well, but to a different extent.HP did it to price compete against others, but are ruining their good name trying to do so. I thought you should know the inside scoop on your issues, and why you were treated the way you are. It's not just an HP issue, but Future Shop for shipping US only product to Canada. -Mike
Mike Fritzler
Regina,#4Consumer Suggestion
Fri, November 28, 2008
Just reading your letter to HP Canada and I say, honestly I must agree. I am a reseller of HP equipment, and I spend most of my days educating customers that there are two different divisions of HP, and they do not make any attempt to educate the customers themsevles. It is frustrating. First off, HP has Consumer and Business class systems. If you go to their website www.hp.ca you will see this. Future Shop and Best Buy are two companies owned by the same parent company, and unfortunately, HP is right when they said "How did you get this system? When did you live in the United states?" because unbenounced to them, these companies bring the equipment up from the US, and resell it. They also resell piles of "refurbished" or repacked items they get as a discount from HP, and resell as new - unless you read the fine print. So basically, a deal from them is not really a deal. When you have a warranty issue on a consumer class unit - you get the service you just got. If you actually purchaseda bsuiness class unit, there are service centres across Canada that would help you in every major city, most cities with more than one. In Regina here, we have 3 - and I am one of them. Customers do not know this when buying an HP product. They figure the name "HP' means it's an "HP" which it does and doesn't. When you buy a GM car, you can go to any GM repair centre for warranty service - but not so with the HP line. I brought this up the ladder at HP Canada recently - and they finaly have a response I was told - they will be rebranding the consumer line to be Compaq and keep HP to be the business line. At least that way, as a customer you will know what service you are entitled to. Business class products are normally "Next Business Day Replacement" or Fix. Consumer clas products, cross your fingers and hope for the best. If you think this is a problem only to HP, you are wrong. Dell and other major companies do it as well, but to a different extent.HP did it to price compete against others, but are ruining their good name trying to do so. I thought you should know the inside scoop on your issues, and why you were treated the way you are. It's not just an HP issue, but Future Shop for shipping US only product to Canada. -Mike
Mike Fritzler
Regina,#5Consumer Suggestion
Fri, November 28, 2008
Just reading your letter to HP Canada and I say, honestly I must agree. I am a reseller of HP equipment, and I spend most of my days educating customers that there are two different divisions of HP, and they do not make any attempt to educate the customers themsevles. It is frustrating. First off, HP has Consumer and Business class systems. If you go to their website www.hp.ca you will see this. Future Shop and Best Buy are two companies owned by the same parent company, and unfortunately, HP is right when they said "How did you get this system? When did you live in the United states?" because unbenounced to them, these companies bring the equipment up from the US, and resell it. They also resell piles of "refurbished" or repacked items they get as a discount from HP, and resell as new - unless you read the fine print. So basically, a deal from them is not really a deal. When you have a warranty issue on a consumer class unit - you get the service you just got. If you actually purchaseda bsuiness class unit, there are service centres across Canada that would help you in every major city, most cities with more than one. In Regina here, we have 3 - and I am one of them. Customers do not know this when buying an HP product. They figure the name "HP' means it's an "HP" which it does and doesn't. When you buy a GM car, you can go to any GM repair centre for warranty service - but not so with the HP line. I brought this up the ladder at HP Canada recently - and they finaly have a response I was told - they will be rebranding the consumer line to be Compaq and keep HP to be the business line. At least that way, as a customer you will know what service you are entitled to. Business class products are normally "Next Business Day Replacement" or Fix. Consumer clas products, cross your fingers and hope for the best. If you think this is a problem only to HP, you are wrong. Dell and other major companies do it as well, but to a different extent.HP did it to price compete against others, but are ruining their good name trying to do so. I thought you should know the inside scoop on your issues, and why you were treated the way you are. It's not just an HP issue, but Future Shop for shipping US only product to Canada. -Mike
Mattvshp
Toronto,#6Consumer Comment
Mon, November 05, 2007
I know what you are going through!! I went through the same identical situation with my laptop. What makes me so mad is that I work in the call center industry as an account manager. I have never, ever witnessed such a nightmare before. The reps are very ill trained, cannot understand English what so ever and do not know how to apologize. Another very big point is try calling the excusive customer service team for the Canada operations. You think the agents are bad, that is nothing compared to what you will get at there so called executive level. Also do a quick search about "HP" with a search engine and you will find hundreds of the same complaints. It is certainly the service provider of customer service were the majority of the issues arise from. However it comes from the top and that is were the problems are. This company has in my opion a very serious customer service issue. They refuse to accept any responsibility for any errors. They do not contact customers back after stating they will. There case managers do not call back ever. There so called Executive customer service team is beyond poor. A very very serious problem. I have done everything I can including contacting the CEO Mark Hurd. Melissa I also wanted to sue them in small claims for the warrenty, however you cannot sue for bad service. While they said they would provide the warrenty for me, if they do not, there is nothing more i can do. I have sent letters, faxes, emails, nothing. This company does not care about you or anyones eles. That is what it is. A very sad sitution which could have been corrected for me with an apology statment. Alot of time i had to do just that, appologize to the customer when things go wrong. You always can make a bad situition great for the customer by taking ownership and saying" As a compnay we did not handle your concern correctly. We will correct this for you. Things go wrong all the time, that is life, but it is how you handle it is what matters.This is what we can do See my report on ripoffreports ripoffreport.com/reports/0/282/RipOff0282879.htm I wish you luck, Trust me they will not respond to any letters you send..... MS
Melissa
Vancouver,#7Author of original report
Fri, October 26, 2007
Hewlett-Packard's POP or "proof of purchase" department is a joke. So is their customer service. Their CS representative kept me on the phone for over an hour, kept on telling me she would put the order through, and put me on hold about a hundred times, and kept coming back with excuses. But she did do one thing for me, she confirmed that the warranty was validated as of October 17, 2007. According to her records now my warranty was still good when I phoned in the problem with the monitor. I was relieved because the first idiot I spoke with in September (some guy in India) kept insisting that my warranty expired in May "according to their records". But lo and behold, when I called technical support today to see about getting this order processed and having my monitor replaced as the service order called for, the tech guy told me that "according to their records" the warranty expired in August of this year. He told me that I would need to fax my receipt, my proof of purchase, to their POP department and go through that whole dog and pony show again. I had done all this already, about 10 times, and was told already by them the week before it was updated and verified. I just flat out asked him if they were running a scam. And he said, "Ma'am I just answer the phones." Right. So is it worth it? Hell yeah. Their scam artists. It's exactly the same as those rebate schemes where they tell you "the check is in the mail" and weeks go by and no check is in the mail. Somebody has to say something. Or they get away with it and keep doing it. I'm documenting everything and spreading the word. HP will repair or replace this piece of crap they sold me. And I know I'm not the only one who has gone through this. And sure most people would have given up by now... but I'm not most people.
J2
Victoria,#8Consumer Comment
Thu, October 25, 2007
Wow, just spend the $10 on a cheap pair of computer speakers and call it a day. It sounds like you've taken this a little too personally and are just trying to prove a point. I've always had great response from HP support for real issues.