Rosalie
Rocky Point,#2Consumer Comment
Thu, April 21, 2005
My Toshiba laptop replacement, the one from January (see above), officially bit the dust yesterday, just shy of 3 months. Circuit City wouldn't swap it out at first because they said I had to send it to their repair center under the conditions of my $400 warranty. Well, guess what, when I called to make the arrangements I was told that the warranty does not kick in until after the manufacurer's warranty expires. It seems that the district manager "made a mistake" about when informing the stores about when it goes into effect--OOPS!!!! This is its own story... I thought they were going to make me miserable over this, but they offered to give me credit towards a new laptop. Trust me when I tell you it is NOT NOT NOT a Toshiba. The pathetic one I had would no longer run on the adapter. The plug would get redhot after about 15 minutes and it would stop charging. It was superheated by hot air blowing out the back. This thing was probably singlehandedly responsible for Global Warning. It had great features but what would have really made it complete would be having it work. Just don't get one. Don't. You will want to regress to the stone tablet and chisel after owning one and it will probably be more efficient.
Paul
Anaheim,#3Consumer Suggestion
Tue, February 01, 2005
Search Toshiba USA headquarters. I live out here. That's how I knew. Plus, I've been buying Toshiba laptops since 1987. Anybody remember the old T1000? I had one. My first laptop. Toshiba's first laptop. 8088 processor. DOS in ram. No hard drive. One floppy. Super twist mono LCD screen. Yup, I had that puppy a long time. It lasted all the way until I got a T5100. Remember that one? Orange plasma monitor? 386 processor? Those things are freakin' antiques now. My current Toshiba? A Tecra 750CDT. A 1999 model. $3500 new. I paid $250 used a year ago. I had it in my truck (semi) running GPS maps. Banged around. Works like a Timex. Actually, better than Timex. I never saw a Timex with a screensaver. But, you get the idea. I think it's all new computers. The prices are way down. So is the quality. All I'm reading is problems. I had an old Dell. Worked great. Read here about new Dell problems. One comment is right on the money. Print this out. Mail it off. Better yet, wait until the search engines index this complaint. A week maybe. Print out the google listing. This site has a funny way of coming up before many company sites. Wouldn't that suck? First comes ripoff report/bad Toshiba. Then comes Toshiba USA right underneath. Oh yeah, that's good for business! Battery problems? My Toshiba runs on 12 volts. I plug it into the car lighter. I can run for days. A smaller sealed 12 volt batter would give me 10 hours. Just not the battery that comes with the laptop. Mine was dead when I bought it. I'm always in the lighter or AC adapter. Small 12 volt batteries are typically used as backups in UPS (uninterruptible power supply). Based on your comments, I'm hesitant to buy new. I'd like a DVD burner laptop. But, I'd hate to end up with these nightmares. Guess the old Tecra will have to stick it out a while longer. Don't count this old stuff out. It's 266 Mhz, but it runs win XP pro just fine. No heat. No shutdown. No problems. And, the price was right!
Larry
no city,#4Consumer Suggestion
Tue, February 01, 2005
I am a firm believer in never taking "No" for an answer from a flunky. Alisha is clearly a flunky. When customer service fails to do their job (as they have here) it is time to go to the top as communication in a corporation is like sewage: It only flows downhill. Being familiar with the website of the Arizona Corporation Commission I searched there for "Toshiba." There are several Toshiba companies listed but the most likely is TOSHIBA AMERICA CONSUMER PRODUCTS, INC. whose address is 82 TOTOWA RD, WAYNE, NJ 07470. The two officers listed are the President, TOSHIHIDE YASUI, and the Secretary, MARLENE FRANKLIN. I would recommend printing out your Ripoff Report page and sending that to the attention of the two corporate officers named above along with a request that your laptop be replaced. Please keep us posted.
Rosalie
Rocky Point,#5Consumer Comment
Mon, January 31, 2005
I received a long-awaited laptop for Christmas 2004. My husband went into Circuit City with a certain budget in mind and ended up spending several hundred more on a Toshiba Satellite A75-S229. It was admittedly beautiful, but I noticed certain things about it almost immediately, such as seeming to run very hot and shutting down, and the touchpad locking up. I was not sure if these were just a few minor quirks, but about a month later, the cursor would not budge, even after rebooting. I called customer service; my rep was from another country and used a dialect of English not spoken by anyone here for centuries. He asked for my serial number, which lo and behold, could not be found because THERE WAS NONE! That's right, they shipped a model without a serial number, and without this they could not honor my waranty! He suggested that the store I purchased it at was selling me a return. I called Circuit City (this was just beyond the 30-day store warranty, by the way), who said that they only sell merchandise sealed in boxes by the manufacturer, and that Toshiba probably shipped out a defective customer return. I called Toshiba back on 3-way calling and let them battle it out, with the blame being tossed back and forth between them. After listening to this nonsense, it became apparent that Toshiba was jerking around both of us. My husband got on and asked the Circuit City manager if we could just swap out the old computer. Now I know that Circuit City is notorious for being weenies with their returns, with restocking fees and generally hard times, but they jumped through flaming hoops for me on this one. I didn't even have the box, I hadn't purchased their extended warranty, but they gave me an upgraded, newer model. I purchased the extended warranty for it this time, to which they applied an instant rebate of $100 (instead of me sending it in), plus voided out the restocking fee, and transferred my data as well. They also apologized profusely for the inconvenience, which is much more than I can ever say for Toshiba. They assured me that since I bought the 4-year warranty I wouldn't even have to deal with those jerks, which was worth the additional investment alone. I have a feeling I may be using it a lot in the future after seeing what goes on here.