originally posted july 01, 2004

1-800-not-ok-compaq, part 2

I can't believe it, but it seems like Compaq's support actually got worse.

For the second time in three months, my old Compaq laptop was acting up. The "z" key was flaking out. Since the laptop is still in warranty, I called Compaq. They ran some diagnostics and pronounced it worthy of repair. The support rep confirmed my address and placed an order for an empty box to be shipped to me. I'd return the laptop and have it back within a couple of weeks.

A week passed and no box arrived. I received no tracking number, either. I called back and they said that my order was cancelled for some reason. They shipped a second box. A week passed. No box.

I called back again. The rep said that the previous two operators had "failed to log in properly" to Compaq's database, so the orders were cancelled. He placed another order. A week passed. No box.

On the fourth attempt, I gave the support rep my case number. He put me on hold for a while, then said that my laptop is "still being repaired." They would ship it back to me when repairs were done. "That's funny," I replied, "because the laptop is still here with me. You never sent me a box to ship it to you." Embarrassed, the rep placed another order. Three days passed. The FedEx second-day air package never arrived.

I called back today. It turns out that the first four orders were sent to Carnegie Mellon's mail room -- my old address as of the end of 2002! The representative apologized for the misunderstanding. He took down and confirmed my current shipping address. He gave me a new order number.

I checked the order number today. The box was shipped -- to the same CMU address. I called the CMU mail room and told them to sign for the package; I'd drive down there tomorrow afternoon to pick it up.

Twice before, Compaq shipped repair boxes to the correct address. It took them five tries to send a box for this incident, and even after confirming the address with me, they still couldn't get it right!

Now this whole thing wouldn't be so bad if they didn't lie directly to me. To try and put customers at ease, the support reps make up stories like "it's still in our repair depot." They claim to take down my new address, then file an order that goes to the old address five times in a row.

The worst part about all this is that there is no satisfactory resolution. I wrote a letter to CEO Carly Fiorina via Compaq/HP's web interface and got a form-letter reply. They're going to ship a box to the wrong address. I'm going to pack up my laptop along with a very clear notice about where the fixed laptop should go. They'll ignore my notice and ship the fixed laptop to CMU instead. No amount of apologizing will save them. I will never, ever buy or support any more consumer-grade HP hardware. For a company to neglect its customers this badly is beyond reproach.

Back to July 2004, or to the year 2004.

Where am I?

This is Weill Aspects, the official news archive of Jason Weill Web Productions. All articles posted to the front page end up here. This page was generated automatically by a series of Perl scripts.

Articles in Weill Aspects are organized solely by date. You may find the Google search in the left column to be useful if you are looking for an article but do not know the date on which it was posted.

Weill Aspects is composed of static web pages generated as appropriate when a new article is posted. It was developed in May 2001 as a way of managing the content on this site. I also used it extensively while in Japan, during which time I did not have continuous access to the Internet. I was able to write daily updates during July and August 2002, pack the files onto a CD-R or memory device, and upload them from the Internet-connected computers at school.

These scripts are all hacked together in less than elegant fashion, and I don't plan to release them. Some of the design that went into Aspects also was used to develop Livestat, a suite of Perl scripts to process statistics for academic competition tournaments. Livestat is available freely.