Awful build quality and terrible customer support from HP

bearing in mind of course that it is the "higher levels" who set down the rules and procedures for the customer-facing staff to fob you off.

That's a very good point - I shouldn't have had the very bad response I initially had (which was the reason for my original post). It was not what I expected from HP and gave a very bad impression of HP. I got there in the end, but I really shouldn't have had to fight and struggle so much to have a perfectly justified warranty claim honoured.
 
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Nope. One bad individual does not set the company ethos unless he is right at the top.

Nope

The man right at the top can be un-aware of the day to day operation of the many departments in his or her company

The manager of a customer service department can set a poor standard of service and then keep his boss in the dark about the standards he has set.
 
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The man right at the top can be un-aware of the day to day operation of the many departments in his or her company .

As you say, a lazy or incompetent boss can fail to run the company properly, or to understand what it is doing.
 
As you say, a lazy or incompetent boss can fail to run the company properly, or to understand what it is doing

Some junior management people will create a good image of their poor management skill by withholding bad news from the top man, some even lie to the boss and cover up problems.
 
A top man who doesn't know what's going on in his company is not a top man.

he should have gone to a better business school.
 
I wonder how HP's case against Mike Lynch is going? (CBA to look it up) From the fairly little I've read seems like HP might have dropped a clanger, though IIRC there was some accounting shenanigans on the part of Autonomy too.
 
No, my experience of HP is of them being very generous and helpful.

When contacting HP on behalf of my customers, I have had a lot of excellent support from HP over the years. On one occasion they were complete muppets when reporting a faulty laptop MOBO but they did eventually replace the laptop. One afternoon a customer mentioned that the power brick on his new laptop was very hot. At 4pm I rang HP, giving them the laptop serial number. 8.30 the next morning a new power supply was delivered to his front door.
 
Nope. One bad individual does not set the company ethos unless he is right at the top.

Possibly a tad harsh. I have known people who work in customer services elsewhere who brag about being obtuse when the mood takes them.
 
Possibly a tad harsh. I have known people who work in customer services elsewhere who brag about being obtuse when the mood takes them.

Let me check

"I know the owner of a building firm. When his workers are feeling lazy, they don't bother nailing the floorboards down or putting mortar between the bricks"

Is it the owners fault for employing people who don't do the job he pays them for?

Has he isolated himself from customers by having a secret phone number and not being accessible on email?

Does he employ receptionists and managers whose duties include shielding him from what's going on?

Does he take care not to know whats going on?

Or is he on top of the business and dedicated to quality work?
 
Let me check

"I know the owner of a building firm. When his workers are feeling lazy, they don't bother nailing the floorboards down or putting mortar between the bricks"

Is it the owners fault for employing people who don't do the job he pays them for?

Has he isolated himself from customers by having a secret phone number and not being accessible on email?

Does he employ receptionists and managers whose duties include shielding him from what's going on?

Does he take care not to know whats going on?

Or is he on top of the business and dedicated to quality work?

I am not attempting to be combative, nor am I defending poor customer service but I do not understand why you have taken umbrage to my post. HP employs 59,000 people. I would not hold the head directly responsible for one "rogue" customer services agent. That said, yes I accept that they may well have a culture of reducing costs by blaming the customer whenever practically possible, and yes I agree that any such policy is driven from the very top down but, as the OP suggested, there are people out there who will try to take advantage of limited warranties.

IMO, HP should have phoned the customer and told them of their decision, thereby enabling the customer to stress that he had not abused the laptop before it was shipped back to them.
 
"HP printer owners may be able to take advantage of a $1.5 million class action settlement resolving claims that consumers who tried to use a non-HP ink cartridge would get a fake error message."

not just one rogue.

"HP inkjet printer lawsuit reaches $5 million settlement

Consumer Reports News: November 17, 2010 04:55 PM

Affected models include the HP Deskjet D1660

Got an HP inkjet printer that always seems to be running low on ink? It might not be your imagination. Hewlett-Packard has reached a settlement (HP Inkjet Printer Litigation, Case No. C05-3580 JF) that covers scores of HP models sold between September 2001 and September 2010.

The class action actually involved three separate suits. In one, the charge was that HP inkjet printers indicated they were low on ink even when they weren't. In another, plaintiffs claimed their printers used color ink in addition to black ink when printing. The final suit claimed that ink cartridges shut down even when ink clearly remained."
 
"HP printer owners may be able to take advantage of a $1.5 million class action settlement resolving claims that consumers who tried to use a non-HP ink cartridge would get a fake error message."

not just one rogue.

Class actions tend to be a US thing. Here similar actions tend to just fizzle out, consumers just move on.

There is one currently being advertised on TV, against Mercedes who it seems like VW, misled customers about the emissions of their vehicles.
 
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