Compaq horror story-don't buy one!

My new Compaq laptop developed a serious problem in March, and I ended
up sending it back for repairs after hours on the phone. They
replaced the M-board, and when they returned it, they had removed my
RAM upgrade. I e-mailed them about it and was told "the right amount
of RAM is installed." Then I e-mailed and got no response. Then I
called and we've spoken over the phone repeatedly ever since. Compaq
has spent way more than the $100 I spent on the RAM on phone calls!

I was just advised that their repair facility says they "did return
the RAM to the customer" and closed their case and they refuse to
discuss it further! I still do not have my RAM! I would tell anyone
seriously considering buying a Compaq or HP to buy a Dell. We have
had excellent service from Dell with our desktop. Compaq has taken my
property and apparently has no intention of returning it. I suspect
small claims court is my only recourse at this point.

Anyone have any other ideas?

Thanks.

Martian wrote:
My new Compaq laptop developed a serious problem in March, and I ended
up sending it back for repairs after hours on the phone. They
replaced the M-board, and when they returned it, they had removed my
RAM upgrade. I e-mailed them about it and was told "the right amount
of RAM is installed." Then I e-mailed and got no response. Then I
called and we've spoken over the phone repeatedly ever since. Compaq
has spent way more than the $100 I spent on the RAM on phone calls!

I was just advised that their repair facility says they "did return
the RAM to the customer" and closed their case and they refuse to
discuss it further! I still do not have my RAM! I would tell anyone
seriously considering buying a Compaq or HP to buy a Dell. We have
had excellent service from Dell with our desktop. Compaq has taken my
property and apparently has no intention of returning it. I suspect
small claims court is my only recourse at this point.

Anyone have any other ideas?

Thanks.

Lesson learned: remove all components not on the original invoice before
shipping. Mirror your hard drive. Reinstall the original OS. The
warranty covers the unit in the state it was sold, even if the unit
contains after market equipment sold by the vendor, and in some cases
the vendor will not do warranty work with an OS different than the
invoice specifies.

In this case, Compaq should have retained and returned the RAM, and they
were a little short on ethics in your case by not doing so. The reality
is that the service center does their job on the basis of the OEM state
of the computer, and had to strip the RAM in order to QA their work
according to the state at time of sale. The person on the end of the
line has no knowledge of what the person at the front of the line is
doing, and the original invoice is the final arbiter.

Small claims court will be difficult since the vendor is out of state in
all likelyhood. You can get a judgement from court. The next
difficulty is collecting it.

Q

"Martian" wrote in message
om...
My new Compaq laptop developed a serious problem in March, and I ended
up sending it back for repairs after hours on the phone. They
replaced the M-board, and when they returned it, they had removed my
RAM upgrade. I e-mailed them about it and was told "the right amount
of RAM is installed." Then I e-mailed and got no response. Then I
called and we've spoken over the phone repeatedly ever since. Compaq
has spent way more than the $100 I spent on the RAM on phone calls!

I was just advised that their repair facility says they "did return
the RAM to the customer" and closed their case and they refuse to
discuss it further! I still do not have my RAM! I would tell anyone
seriously considering buying a Compaq or HP to buy a Dell. We have
had excellent service from Dell with our desktop. Compaq has taken my
property and apparently has no intention of returning it. I suspect
small claims court is my only recourse at this point.

Anyone have any other ideas?

Thanks.

I think SCC, would be flogging a dead horse, as it were, you would have to
prove that you sent the laptop with the extra ram in it, and I don't think
your word would stand in court, have you any solid evidence that the ram was
there?, if you think about, you could have court fees on top of what you
have already lost, or got stolen from you, so I think you should just stay
away from compaq from now on, and tell as many people to stay away from them
as you can, I'm sure you can stop 5 or 6 people from buying a compaq brand
laptop/home computer.

Eddy



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since your laptop required such extensive work, it's very possible they
simply shipped you back a reconditioned laptop of the same model to save
time, perhaps swapping your hard drive into the "new" one, but not thinking
to check for extra RAM and such. I doubt they would go to the bother of
intentionally stealing you RAM, they can get it much cheaper than you or I
can! Most likely it was an honest mistake, but now there's no way either of
you can prove to the other what happened. An expensive lesson, but I'm not
sure it's fair to fault their service center. Frankly, I think it would have
been easier in the long run for them to just ship you a strip of RAM and be
done with it!....

Marvin, in Atlanta
m9876c at yahoo dot com

Small claims court will be difficult since the vendor is out of state in
all likelyhood. You can get a judgement from court. The next
difficulty is collecting it.

And its $40-$60 to file in Small Claims Court...

Dale

I wrote:
My new Compaq laptop developed a serious problem in March (snip about Compaq-HP keeping the RAM from my laptop)

I think SCC, would be flogging a dead horse, as it were, you would have to
prove that you sent the laptop with the extra ram in it, and I don't think
your word would stand in court, have you any solid evidence that the ram was
there?, if you think about, you could have court fees on top of what you
have already lost, or got stolen from you, so I think you should just stay
away from compaq from now on, and tell as many people to stay away from them
as you can, I'm sure you can stop 5 or 6 people from buying a compaq brand
laptop/home computer.

Eddy

I have evidence that they received the e-mail I sent when the unit was
first returned, and I sent that to them, since this morning they
claimed that they were denying my claim because I hadn't told them it
was missing in time (their phone message says to hang up and e-mail,
which, like a trained rat, I did)!!! I'll probably even write a
letter to someone higher in the organization to try to get it
resolved.

You're right, though. I already lost them one sale (I just bought a
Dell desktop for my family specifically because I was having a hard
time dealing with Compaq-HP on this) and I control computer
procurements at work, so I can make sure we go with another brand for
an entire roll-out. I guess it's best to just hit them where it hurts
most -- their pocketbook. Thanks for listening to my rant. I'm much
calmer than when I received mistreatment earlier today.

I have had issues with large new purchases recently--I had a Toyota
salesman hand me a card and tell me to call him in a couple of days
because he was busy (so I went next door and bought a new Honda). I
guess that's how capitalism works.

You can get a judgment from court. The next
difficulty is collecting it.

We obtained a small claims court judgment in Texas.
That was nearly 15 years ago and we still haven't seen a penny.

From others I have talked to, if the other individual involved is fairly
honest and possesses some ethics, you will get payment, however there is, in
most states, no way to force payment of the judgment.



"DEJ57" wrote in message
...
Small claims court will be difficult since the vendor is out of state in
all likelyhood. You can get a judgement from court. The next
difficulty is collecting it.

And its $40-$60 to file in Small Claims Court...

Dale

I'm afraid that you are battling a lost cause. Every OEM service facility
that we have dealt with has told us the same thing. We must remove any added
hardware, BEFORE the will even begin to work on the computer.

If you weren't told this, you probably should have been; but that is going
to be tough to prove.

I think that I would just chalk it up to a lesson learned and remember
Compaq's attitude when it comes time to buy another computer. I would most
certainly remember it and not make the same mistake twice, should you ever
have to have another computer sent or taken in for service.

"Martian" wrote in message
om...
My new Compaq laptop developed a serious problem in March, and I ended
up sending it back for repairs after hours on the phone. They
replaced the M-board, and when they returned it, they had removed my
RAM upgrade. I e-mailed them about it and was told "the right amount
of RAM is installed." Then I e-mailed and got no response. Then I
called and we've spoken over the phone repeatedly ever since. Compaq
has spent way more than the $100 I spent on the RAM on phone calls!

I was just advised that their repair facility says they "did return
the RAM to the customer" and closed their case and they refuse to
discuss it further! I still do not have my RAM! I would tell anyone
seriously considering buying a Compaq or HP to buy a Dell. We have
had excellent service from Dell with our desktop. Compaq has taken my
property and apparently has no intention of returning it. I suspect
small claims court is my only recourse at this point.

Anyone have any other ideas?

Thanks.

Just heard from HP / Compaq, that they are still working to resolve this
customer's issue.

Mike in Houston


"Martian" wrote in message
om...
My new Compaq laptop developed a serious problem in March, and I ended
up sending it back for repairs after hours on the phone. They
replaced the M-board, and when they returned it, they had removed my
RAM upgrade. I e-mailed them about it and was told "the right amount
of RAM is installed." Then I e-mailed and got no response. Then I
called and we've spoken over the phone repeatedly ever since. Compaq
has spent way more than the $100 I spent on the RAM on phone calls!

I was just advised that their repair facility says they "did return
the RAM to the customer" and closed their case and they refuse to
discuss it further! I still do not have my RAM! I would tell anyone
seriously considering buying a Compaq or HP to buy a Dell. We have
had excellent service from Dell with our desktop. Compaq has taken my
property and apparently has no intention of returning it. I suspect
small claims court is my only recourse at this point.

Anyone have any other ideas?

Thanks.

Try to send this info on you problem to PC World magazine On Your Side at
the following
"Martian" wrote in message
om...
My new Compaq laptop developed a serious problem in March, and I ended
up sending it back for repairs after hours on the phone. They
replaced the M-board, and when they returned it, they had removed my
RAM upgrade. I e-mailed them about it and was told "the right amount
of RAM is installed." Then I e-mailed and got no response. Then I
called and we've spoken over the phone repeatedly ever since. Compaq
has spent way more than the $100 I spent on the RAM on phone calls!

I was just advised that their repair facility says they "did return
the RAM to the customer" and closed their case and they refuse to
discuss it further! I still do not have my RAM! I would tell anyone
seriously considering buying a Compaq or HP to buy a Dell. We have
had excellent service from Dell with our desktop. Compaq has taken my
property and apparently has no intention of returning it. I suspect
small claims court is my only recourse at this point.

Anyone have any other ideas?

Thanks.