Gateway's Warranty Program Sucks!

"Ed" wrote in message
...
Ben, it is true and you are right that not all assembly is in Taiwan.
I just use Taiwan as a metaphor for the whole east as far as the area
of the globe where these "So Called" American companies get their
boxes with their names stamped on them. And yes it isn't only GW,
just that we are in a GW forum.

I think it has been discussed on here before where GW got called on
the carpet by the feds for misleading advertisement back when they
were showing a studio setup which would lead the viewer to believe
that there was an American Factory where American workers were
building (assembling) computers with the GW name on them when in fact,
GW had not even touched a computer since the late 90's when they sold
out the American workers and jumped in bed with the Asians for the
boxes and India for the support. The only thing American about GW now
is their marketing & Sales departments. Broadband.com even had a
story that said they even do their banking off shore. Mostly the same
with HP, Compaq, IBM, etc.

Now, I understand globalization and its fine with me if they are going
to bail out on their country of origin but don't be dishonorable and
deceitful by pretending to be an American Company selling an American
product, built and assembled by Americans in American plants. Like I
said, the feds already called them (GW) on the carpet for this
practice once before.

This is no better than what they caught Wal-Mart doing last year where
they were buying clothing out of Asia and having some NY sweat shops
sew a "Made in the USA" label in them (which was made [the label] in
Mexico).

FOX news had this thing the other night where they showed a class in
India where they were "Trying" to teach people in support jobs for
companies pretending to be American Companies how to speak English
with certain north American dialects, i.e. southern, northern,
midwestern and western dialects so the caller would be deceived into
thinking that they were talking to someone from their own country
about a product they were deceived into thinking was made in their own
country. The story went on to show a class where they were not only
teaching them a dialect but also enough information about Redmond WA
where an inquisitive caller would think they actually were in Redmond.
Hummmm... wonder what company that class of students were being
trained for????

Speaking of Redmond, a big company there is buying Claria Ad/Spyware.
Problem is, this company also has an anti Ad/Spyware application
available. They have set the default config in the anti Ad/Spyware
app to "ignore" any instances of Claria Ad/Spyware found on one's
system. Talk about integrity and honor......

Corporate Honor & Integrity is dead, or is in America anyway. There
is no way that anyone can justify these company practices to me.
There is no amount of spinning, misquoting or bending the truth that
can make it "OK" with me. It is with that, that I support what some
others on here have stated.... if you are going to buy a desktop,
find a reputable local builder and go that route. You might pay
little more but just how much is local support from a local company in
your own community worth?

Best Regards, Ben
Ed

Hey it worked for the US in Japan after WWII. You ever talk to Japanese
military air controllers? You'd swear they were good ole southern boy's.

I beg to differ on your comment about M$'s antispyware app and Claria.
it doesn't ignore it, but the threat has been down graded.

Honor? Integrity? Those are true of US businesses when? We had a
period where companies put on a nice facade and quietly went about their
usual practices due to governmental scrutiny, but that was the '60s and
Camelot is dead. Business has gone back to showing it's true robber baron
face to the public.

BTW remember NAFTA? Was supposed to steal all the jobs out of the US
and Canada. Surprise, Asia swooped in and stole it all. Left a lot of
Mexican companies holding the bag as well since they figured to capitalize
on the new job opportunities just as the Asian businesses are now.

KC

wrote in message
oups.com...
Where I live, there is enough of the population that ***has a clue***
that are keeping our local builders in business and flourishing. Yes,
the boxes cost more but there are enough people that also realize that
that increased costs relates into Quality Hand Assembled by someone
living and doing business in our community and supported by the same
individual that actually built the system. We have a bunch of builders
in the area but three of them have been here a long time and have
reputations the proceed them. Those three stay pretty busy. I find
that most of the young crowd that are "Computer Savvy" use the
local builders while your older crowd that don't have much of a clue
and believe the false advertisements marketed by Gateway and other of
such ilk usually go for the $299 - $399 Asian boxes full of **** with
American Company names on the boxes.

I have an Aunt that finally decided to buy a computer. She's in her
mid 50's and doesn't know one thing about computers except for what
Gateway, Dell and the others tell her on their lying ads on TV. I
tried my best to get her to buy a bare minimum (but workable) system
from a local builder but a well marketed ad scheme of Gateway's on TV
caught her eye for a $399 system. Well, she got screwed... Surprise,
Surprise, Surprise!!!! System showed up with a dead monitor.
Gateway's Asian supplier was back ordered and it took two months to
get the monitor replaced of which it was replaced with a refurbished
unit (read their warranty info, real small print). While waiting for
the monitor, I loaned her an older SVGA CRT monitor (one of those 100
pound slugs) to use. Well, the computer wouldn't boot up, kept
getting errors reading boot system files or some such thing. Turned
out the HD was bad and needed replacing.

Anyway, there is more but I get real heated every time I think about
this so suffice it to say, she got screwed. Forgot to mention the $75
shipping fee for the original shipment they forget to mention when
charging her credit card plus the $35 shipping fee she had to pay on
the monitor exchange.

So..... When she finally got this piece of **** running, she discovered
that 64meg of memory was not enough to run XP. She had to shell out
money for more memory and so on and so on. Needless to say, they whole
experience left a bad taste in her mouth for Gateway specifically and
computers in general. If she had shelled out an extra $200 or actually
less than $100 when adding in all the GW shipping charges, she could
have had a bare bones but quality workable system from a local builder
plus local support.

Now she finally has a clue but the damage is done thanks to companies
like Gateway. I don't know if she will ever buy another system after
this but I guarantee you that if she does, she will go with a local
builder.

BTW, the builder I use has a profitable network
installation/maintenance business besides building systems so he's
doing pretty good. He works 60 hours a week though! You'll do fine
Ed because each day, Gateway and others help people wise up and get a
clue... meaning their next computer will be a local build supported
locally by the same person that built the system.

NIK

This seems to be where a lot of companies are missing the emerging
trend. Older adults coming late to the digital age who just need a basic
reliable product. The aren't going to do AutoCAD, video editing, or play
high-end FPS games online. Most of them would happily putter around on any
machine that can reliably run any M$ 2000 or later OS with the basic M$
Office suite of applications. Heaven only knows how many are still using
old Pentium (yes, the one without the roman numerals) machines with 128 Mb
or ram and running Win98, Office 97, etc. Not unlike many of the early
model automobiles that just kept running and running. They weren't
luxurious and had few if any options, but then their owners weren't looking
for that. All they wanted was a way to get down the road and back reliably.
Such folks are less interested in the information super highway than they
are the internet's older general roadways.

KC

"Ed" wrote in message
news
On Sat, 09 Jul 2005 18:08:52 GMT, ben_myers_spam_me_not @ charter.net
(Ben Myers) wrote:

99% of the people buying computers are so enamored with getting the best
deal
and the lowest price, that it has become impossible to for most white box
builders like myself to compete

That is a sad state of affairs isn't it? The guy I am letting build
my systems now is owner, not just manager, but owner of a Radio Shack.
Before setting up the Radio Shack, he ran a computer store and built
white boxes but not enough to keep all the bills paid. So, he opened
this Radio Shack. But, in the back of the radio Shack, he still
builds computers and has a growing clientele. I guess the good thing
is, that the Radio Shack store draws people in for other things and
while there, they see his white boxes on display and one thing usually
leads to another. I think his bargain basement system runs around
$499 but like Nik says, you get local support with that from the guy
that built the system to start with. My last system from him ran
right under $850, less monitor, and is a bitchen' machine maxed out in
performance and crazy with case mods to boot. He gives the same
warranty the corporations tell you that you are getting except that he
honors all of them. And unlike what Nik was telling about GW and
others sending out refurbished parts as warranty replacements, this
guy replaces with brand new parts. He will also come out to your
house if need be.

I got my own little story I read about refurbished warranty
replacements from GW. This person's monitor died that came with his
brand new two week old GW system. After trying 4-5 times to get
someone that spoke English at support, it was determined that he get a
replacement. When the replacement came, it was scratched up and
tarnished brown all over from cigarette tar and wreaked of cigarette
smoke. Being a non-smoker, he couldn't handle this as it also stank
up the whole house, especially when it warmed up. They called GW
support and got no where. They called GW customer service and was
told sorry, but the warranty says that any replacements can be
refurbished parts and as long as they "Work Properly", they are
considered as meeting the requirements of the warranty. This was a
Two Week Old New System!

And 100% of
the parts I use are made somewhere out there on the Pacific Rim... Ben
Myers

It's not so much as where the parts were made as it is the loving care
and attention to detail with which they are assembled to make a
quality system. Throw in quality local support, honesty and integrity
with that and you have a happy and ever returning customer base even
though the cost is a little bit more.

There are those that require customized quality builds backed by local
support. The rest by cheap Asian boxes with American company names on
them supported by Ra'ull in India.

I do remember back when GW built quality systems right here in the
states along with English speaking support from North America. I had
two of them back in the early to mid 90s. You said (in so many
words) that outsourcing is the wave of the future and so be it, we
have to accept it. I on the other hand, do not accept it. That is
why I purchase white boxes from a local builder, supported by a local
builder. I am not saying that I have that choice in each and every
product that I buy, but the ones where I have a choice, I buy locally
or as close to American Made as possible. These rat faced immoral
companies might sell out America but that doesn't mean I have to when
I have a choice. Now I didn't have a choice when it came to my
notebook as none of us do when it comes to notebooks. At least I
don't know anyone manufacturing notebooks stateside. But desktops for
me will forever be local builds backed by local support.

Good luck with your white box business Ben.

Ed

I wonder if the EPA or whomever has it in for smokers in general would be
interested in this. Talk about second hand smoke... But now that you
mention it, I've noted that on any number of electronic products. I think
it has something to do with the plastic of the cases themselves. It seems
to absorb such pollutants and along with discoloring the case, serves to
release them when ever they get warmed up again by any source.

KC

ben_myers_spam_me_not @ charter.net (Ben Myers) wrote in message
...
It's not that outsourcing is the wave of the future! For just about any
board-level component, chip-level component, or computer chassis built
since the
mid-90's, outsourcing is the past, present and future. Since the
mid-90's,
only a small percentage of electronics parts have been truly manufactured
in
these United States.

But the selection of the right parts, the careful assembly and burn-in,
and the
installation of the operating system up-to-date with the latest almost
daily
patches from Micro$oft sure do not have to be outsourced. Competent and
personal service cannot be outsourced... Ben Myers


I beg to differ on part of that. Personal service requires an
interpersonal relationship and that I doubt can ever be outsourced. Support
can, but good support rarely is. In example:

CISCO has been outsourcing their support for years. The key is their
reasoning, they did it to distribute their support world wide and always
provide the end user with the best support they could. I worked a lot of
late hours doing tech support to companies when their networks were idle,
after hours, etc. Call CISCO with a problem and you usually got folks in
Australia, bright eyed and bushy tailed ready to put in a days work. Not
that any where else in Asia you couldn't have found the same. The big
difference came in the staffing and utilization of their people. They
didn't have a mandatory script, but a basic check list that mad sure that
the end user had already covered the usual simple stuff ( power on, all
cable snug, etc.) Then their techs "communicated" with the you in an
intelligent two way conversation. If in the first few minutes the tech
could see that you need to be passed to upper level support they did so
quickly and the quality of the upper levels was every bit as good. They
also accepted that the hardware could be dead and you might need a
replacement without delay. If you needed a replacement they put every
effort into getting it to you as quickly as possible, not only in keeping
with what ever the requirement of the support contract was, but ASAP.

Would that some of the PC makers would take such an example to heart.
You can teach the language, but can they teach the philosophy?

KC

That's what I said, too: "Competent and personal service cannot be outsourced...
Ben Myers"

On , "Kevin Childers" wrote:

NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 10 Jul 2005 10:25:14 MST
Date: Sun, 10 Jul 2005 12:25:04 -0500
Xref: Hurricane-Charley alt.sys.pc-clone.gateway2000:5256

ben_myers_spam_me_not @ charter.net (Ben Myers) wrote in message
...
It's not that outsourcing is the wave of the future! For just about any
board-level component, chip-level component, or computer chassis built
since the
mid-90's, outsourcing is the past, present and future. Since the
mid-90's,
only a small percentage of electronics parts have been truly manufactured
in
these United States.

But the selection of the right parts, the careful assembly and burn-in,
and the
installation of the operating system up-to-date with the latest almost
daily
patches from Micro$oft sure do not have to be outsourced. Competent and
personal service cannot be outsourced... Ben Myers


I beg to differ on part of that. Personal service requires an
interpersonal relationship and that I doubt can ever be outsourced. Support
can, but good support rarely is. In example:

CISCO has been outsourcing their support for years. The key is their
reasoning, they did it to distribute their support world wide and always
provide the end user with the best support they could. I worked a lot of
late hours doing tech support to companies when their networks were idle,
after hours, etc. Call CISCO with a problem and you usually got folks in
Australia, bright eyed and bushy tailed ready to put in a days work. Not
that any where else in Asia you couldn't have found the same. The big
difference came in the staffing and utilization of their people. They
didn't have a mandatory script, but a basic check list that mad sure that
the end user had already covered the usual simple stuff ( power on, all
cable snug, etc.) Then their techs "communicated" with the you in an
intelligent two way conversation. If in the first few minutes the tech
could see that you need to be passed to upper level support they did so
quickly and the quality of the upper levels was every bit as good. They
also accepted that the hardware could be dead and you might need a
replacement without delay. If you needed a replacement they put every
effort into getting it to you as quickly as possible, not only in keeping
with what ever the requirement of the support contract was, but ASAP.

Would that some of the PC makers would take such an example to heart.
You can teach the language, but can they teach the philosophy?

KC

What I see is the personal part as non-outsourceable. Competent can, if
the price is right and the sourcing agent enforces a quality standard. As I
see short of the tech support, where ever it is, doesn't flat out tell the
end user "You got screwed when you bought this piece of tin". Well then the
sourcing agent will just let it all ride. At least until sales drop.

KC

ben_myers_spam_me_not @ charter.net (Ben Myers) wrote in message
...
That's what I said, too: "Competent and personal service cannot be
outsourced...
Ben Myers"

On , "Kevin Childers" wrote:

NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 10 Jul 2005 10:25:14 MST
Date: Sun, 10 Jul 2005 12:25:04 -0500
Xref: Hurricane-Charley alt.sys.pc-clone.gateway2000:5256

ben_myers_spam_me_not @ charter.net (Ben Myers) wrote in message
...
It's not that outsourcing is the wave of the future! For just about
any
board-level component, chip-level component, or computer chassis built
since the
mid-90's, outsourcing is the past, present and future. Since the
mid-90's,
only a small percentage of electronics parts have been truly
manufactured
in
these United States.

But the selection of the right parts, the careful assembly and burn-in,
and the
installation of the operating system up-to-date with the latest almost
daily
patches from Micro$oft sure do not have to be outsourced. Competent
and
personal service cannot be outsourced... Ben Myers


I beg to differ on part of that. Personal service requires an
interpersonal relationship and that I doubt can ever be outsourced.
Support
can, but good support rarely is. In example:

CISCO has been outsourcing their support for years. The key is their
reasoning, they did it to distribute their support world wide and always
provide the end user with the best support they could. I worked a lot of
late hours doing tech support to companies when their networks were idle,
after hours, etc. Call CISCO with a problem and you usually got folks in
Australia, bright eyed and bushy tailed ready to put in a days work. Not
that any where else in Asia you couldn't have found the same. The big
difference came in the staffing and utilization of their people. They
didn't have a mandatory script, but a basic check list that mad sure that
the end user had already covered the usual simple stuff ( power on, all
cable snug, etc.) Then their techs "communicated" with the you in an
intelligent two way conversation. If in the first few minutes the tech
could see that you need to be passed to upper level support they did so
quickly and the quality of the upper levels was every bit as good. They
also accepted that the hardware could be dead and you might need a
replacement without delay. If you needed a replacement they put every
effort into getting it to you as quickly as possible, not only in keeping
with what ever the requirement of the support contract was, but ASAP.

Would that some of the PC makers would take such an example to heart.
You can teach the language, but can they teach the philosophy?

KC

And as far as gateway goes, sales did drop which led to dissolving the
country store line which led to partnering up with e-machine to try and
save what little was left. All the while, it never dawned on the
"brains" at the top that sales dropped due to two things:

1. Quality hit an all new low after shifting from what was seen as at
least half competent assembly in the States to zero competent assembly
in Asia. Google it and read the horror stories associated with boxes
assembled in Asia.

2. Along with growing bad quality comes a need for better tech support.
However, at the time quality hit the skids, gateway decided to
outsource tech support to India so what you have are support agents
that can't speak the language reading canned statements off a monitor,
people that wouldn't know a computer if one jumped up and bit them in
the ass.

So, new sales dropped as word spread about gateway and most people got
a clue about what this company (and others) was doing. Return sales
dropped because ongoing customers saw that the boxes they were getting
now were a small reflection in quality to the boxes they were replacing
and tech support was all but nonexistent when looking at how and where
it was coming from.

To answer this downward spiral, the "brains" at the top of gateway
partnered with e-machine (another piece of ****) and went into the wide
screen TV business ***INSTEAD*** of returning to what had been a
winning and profitable business model a decade before, or before they
sent the whole company to Asia except for their sales and marketing
departments.

NIK

***Email address is Fake***



Kevin Childers wrote:
What I see is the personal part as non-outsourceable. Competent can, if
the price is right and the sourcing agent enforces a quality standard. As I
see short of the tech support, where ever it is, doesn't flat out tell the
end user "You got screwed when you bought this piece of tin". Well then the
sourcing agent will just let it all ride. At least until sales drop.

KC

ben_myers_spam_me_not @ charter.net (Ben Myers) wrote in message
...
That's what I said, too: "Competent and personal service cannot be
outsourced...
Ben Myers"

On , "Kevin Childers" wrote:

NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 10 Jul 2005 10:25:14 MST
Date: Sun, 10 Jul 2005 12:25:04 -0500
Xref: Hurricane-Charley alt.sys.pc-clone.gateway2000:5256

ben_myers_spam_me_not @ charter.net (Ben Myers) wrote in message
...
It's not that outsourcing is the wave of the future! For just about
any
board-level component, chip-level component, or computer chassis built
since the
mid-90's, outsourcing is the past, present and future. Since the
mid-90's,
only a small percentage of electronics parts have been truly
manufactured
in
these United States.

But the selection of the right parts, the careful assembly and burn-in,
and the
installation of the operating system up-to-date with the latest almost
daily
patches from Micro$oft sure do not have to be outsourced. Competent
and
personal service cannot be outsourced... Ben Myers


I beg to differ on part of that. Personal service requires an
interpersonal relationship and that I doubt can ever be outsourced.
Support
can, but good support rarely is. In example:

CISCO has been outsourcing their support for years. The key is their
reasoning, they did it to distribute their support world wide and always
provide the end user with the best support they could. I worked a lot of
late hours doing tech support to companies when their networks were idle,
after hours, etc. Call CISCO with a problem and you usually got folks in
Australia, bright eyed and bushy tailed ready to put in a days work. Not
that any where else in Asia you couldn't have found the same. The big
difference came in the staffing and utilization of their people. They
didn't have a mandatory script, but a basic check list that mad sure that
the end user had already covered the usual simple stuff ( power on, all
cable snug, etc.) Then their techs "communicated" with the you in an
intelligent two way conversation. If in the first few minutes the tech
could see that you need to be passed to upper level support they did so
quickly and the quality of the upper levels was every bit as good. They
also accepted that the hardware could be dead and you might need a
replacement without delay. If you needed a replacement they put every
effort into getting it to you as quickly as possible, not only in keeping
with what ever the requirement of the support contract was, but ASAP.

Would that some of the PC makers would take such an example to heart.
You can teach the language, but can they teach the philosophy?

KC

Maybe I should have said "Hit bottom" or "Reach zero"? Then again
perhaps they are having the same support guys read them the sales reports.

KC

wrote in message
oups.com...
And as far as gateway goes, sales did drop which led to dissolving the
country store line which led to partnering up with e-machine to try and
save what little was left. All the while, it never dawned on the
"brains" at the top that sales dropped due to two things:

1. Quality hit an all new low after shifting from what was seen as at
least half competent assembly in the States to zero competent assembly
in Asia. Google it and read the horror stories associated with boxes
assembled in Asia.

2. Along with growing bad quality comes a need for better tech support.
However, at the time quality hit the skids, gateway decided to
outsource tech support to India so what you have are support agents
that can't speak the language reading canned statements off a monitor,
people that wouldn't know a computer if one jumped up and bit them in
the ass.

So, new sales dropped as word spread about gateway and most people got
a clue about what this company (and others) was doing. Return sales
dropped because ongoing customers saw that the boxes they were getting
now were a small reflection in quality to the boxes they were replacing
and tech support was all but nonexistent when looking at how and where
it was coming from.

To answer this downward spiral, the "brains" at the top of gateway
partnered with e-machine (another piece of ****) and went into the wide
screen TV business ***INSTEAD*** of returning to what had been a
winning and profitable business model a decade before, or before they
sent the whole company to Asia except for their sales and marketing
departments.

NIK

***Email address is Fake***



Kevin Childers wrote:
What I see is the personal part as non-outsourceable. Competent can, if
the price is right and the sourcing agent enforces a quality standard.
As I
see short of the tech support, where ever it is, doesn't flat out tell
the
end user "You got screwed when you bought this piece of tin". Well then
the
sourcing agent will just let it all ride. At least until sales drop.

KC

ben_myers_spam_me_not @ charter.net (Ben Myers) wrote in message
...
That's what I said, too: "Competent and personal service cannot be
outsourced...
Ben Myers"

On , "Kevin Childers" wrote:

NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 10 Jul 2005 10:25:14 MST
Date: Sun, 10 Jul 2005 12:25:04 -0500
Xref: Hurricane-Charley alt.sys.pc-clone.gateway2000:5256

ben_myers_spam_me_not @ charter.net (Ben Myers) wrote in message
...
It's not that outsourcing is the wave of the future! For just
about
any
board-level component, chip-level component, or computer chassis
built
since the
mid-90's, outsourcing is the past, present and future. Since the
mid-90's,
only a small percentage of electronics parts have been truly
manufactured
in
these United States.

But the selection of the right parts, the careful assembly and
burn-in,
and the
installation of the operating system up-to-date with the latest
almost
daily
patches from Micro$oft sure do not have to be outsourced.
Competent
and
personal service cannot be outsourced... Ben Myers


I beg to differ on part of that. Personal service requires an
interpersonal relationship and that I doubt can ever be outsourced.
Support
can, but good support rarely is. In example:

CISCO has been outsourcing their support for years. The key is
their
reasoning, they did it to distribute their support world wide and
always
provide the end user with the best support they could. I worked a
lot of
late hours doing tech support to companies when their networks were
idle,
after hours, etc. Call CISCO with a problem and you usually got
folks in
Australia, bright eyed and bushy tailed ready to put in a days work.
Not
that any where else in Asia you couldn't have found the same. The
big
difference came in the staffing and utilization of their people.
They
didn't have a mandatory script, but a basic check list that mad sure
that
the end user had already covered the usual simple stuff ( power on,
all
cable snug, etc.) Then their techs "communicated" with the you in an
intelligent two way conversation. If in the first few minutes the
tech
could see that you need to be passed to upper level support they did
so
quickly and the quality of the upper levels was every bit as good.
They
also accepted that the hardware could be dead and you might need a
replacement without delay. If you needed a replacement they put
every
effort into getting it to you as quickly as possible, not only in
keeping
with what ever the requirement of the support contract was, but ASAP.

Would that some of the PC makers would take such an example to
heart.
You can teach the language, but can they teach the philosophy?

KC

Kevin Childers wrote:

wrote in message
oups.com...
Where I live, there is enough of the population that ***has a clue***
that are keeping our local builders in business and flourishing. Yes,
the boxes cost more but there are enough people that also realize that
that increased costs relates into Quality Hand Assembled by someone
living and doing business in our community and supported by the same
individual that actually built the system. We have a bunch of builders
in the area but three of them have been here a long time and have
reputations the proceed them. Those three stay pretty busy. I find
that most of the young crowd that are "Computer Savvy" use the
local builders while your older crowd that don't have much of a clue
and believe the false advertisements marketed by Gateway and other of
such ilk usually go for the $299 - $399 Asian boxes full of **** with
American Company names on the boxes.

I have an Aunt that finally decided to buy a computer. She's in her
mid 50's and doesn't know one thing about computers except for what
Gateway, Dell and the others tell her on their lying ads on TV. I
tried my best to get her to buy a bare minimum (but workable) system
from a local builder but a well marketed ad scheme of Gateway's on TV
caught her eye for a $399 system. Well, she got screwed... Surprise,
Surprise, Surprise!!!! System showed up with a dead monitor.
Gateway's Asian supplier was back ordered and it took two months to
get the monitor replaced of which it was replaced with a refurbished
unit (read their warranty info, real small print). While waiting for
the monitor, I loaned her an older SVGA CRT monitor (one of those 100
pound slugs) to use. Well, the computer wouldn't boot up, kept
getting errors reading boot system files or some such thing. Turned
out the HD was bad and needed replacing.

Anyway, there is more but I get real heated every time I think about
this so suffice it to say, she got screwed. Forgot to mention the $75
shipping fee for the original shipment they forget to mention when
charging her credit card plus the $35 shipping fee she had to pay on
the monitor exchange.

So..... When she finally got this piece of **** running, she discovered
that 64meg of memory was not enough to run XP. She had to shell out
money for more memory and so on and so on. Needless to say, they whole
experience left a bad taste in her mouth for Gateway specifically and
computers in general. If she had shelled out an extra $200 or actually
less than $100 when adding in all the GW shipping charges, she could
have had a bare bones but quality workable system from a local builder
plus local support.

Now she finally has a clue but the damage is done thanks to companies
like Gateway. I don't know if she will ever buy another system after
this but I guarantee you that if she does, she will go with a local
builder.

BTW, the builder I use has a profitable network
installation/maintenance business besides building systems so he's
doing pretty good. He works 60 hours a week though! You'll do fine
Ed because each day, Gateway and others help people wise up and get a
clue... meaning their next computer will be a local build supported
locally by the same person that built the system.

NIK

This seems to be where a lot of companies are missing the emerging
trend. Older adults coming late to the digital age who just need a basic
reliable product. The aren't going to do AutoCAD, video editing, or play
high-end FPS games online. Most of them would happily putter around on any
machine that can reliably run any M$ 2000 or later OS with the basic M$
Office suite of applications. Heaven only knows how many are still using
old Pentium (yes, the one without the roman numerals) machines with 128 Mb
or ram and running Win98, Office 97, etc. Not unlike many of the early
model automobiles that just kept running and running. They weren't
luxurious and had few if any options, but then their owners weren't looking
for that. All they wanted was a way to get down the road and back reliably.
Such folks are less interested in the information super highway than they
are the internet's older general roadways.

KC


KC,

I'll second that. I've got 5 Gateway E-3200 business desktops sitting in a
storage room at home. I got them for around $30 each on ebay. I set one up
for my wife in her home office by upping the RAM to 385 MB, installing Win98
and adding an LCD monitor, keyboard and mouse. It runs like a champ. I did
the same for a relative. Yes, there is a market for a basic computer without
all the latest bells and whistles.

Scott