Monday, April 24, 2006

Continuing saga of the computer

I received a postcard a week ago telling me my computer was ready at Frys. Why they didn't call me, they had two phone numbers listed for me, both had answering machines. Anyway I drove to Garland on Wednesday to pick up the computer. California had taken all the programs off so I couldn't see if the computer would even work. Yes it turned on and off but that was about it. I brought it home and it worked pretty good on Wednesday night for about 45 minutes. I got Quicken on and netzero. Checked my e-mailes and some of the blogs. Thursday morning I decided to pay all the bills I could find. I got on line and paid bills, when I started checking blogs computer crashed. I never could get it to turn on again. I spend most of Thursday on the phone trying to find out what options I had.

Frys and California had the computer 3 times over 5 months. I made 8 round trips to Frys that is a 150 miles round trip. I finally got to talk to the Customer Service Store Manager after I had to scream obscenities at the telephone operator. The only option they gave me was to return the computer to the store so they could see it. Now they have had this computer 3 different times over a period of 5 months. The only thing Frys did was ship it to California. Now they want to look at it, what good was that going to do.

Friday we went back to Frys with the computer Customer Service Manager looked at all my paper work and tried to turn it on. I woudn't turn on. Another man was there trying to talk to the Customer Service Manager, he was a upset as I was. He had brought a $5,000.00 big screen TV and had a service agreement just like the one I had. Something was wrong with it and the repair company was refusing to go out to his house to fix it. His service contract said they would go to the home to repair within 40 miles. He had a map and could prove he lived 21 miles from the store. They were having to call California to try to reconcil his problem.

After a hour and a half of standing around while they decided what to do. The east indian guy in charge of the repair department came and and now the Customer Service Manager turned it over to him. They told me they would replace it with a new computer of equal something. As it turned out it was not financial value. They were trying to say it was really an upgrade as the computer was newer and had more hard drive space. But quess what it was a Compaq the pits of computers. I paid 1,300.00 for my computer in January of 2005. The new one they gave me, sticker price on the box 780.00. I had also paid 300.00 for a 5 year service contract. Now the servce contract is fulfilled with a new computer. The new computer does not have a service contract. So I really paid 1,600.00 for a computer that is worth 780.00. And I didn't even get kissed.

No comments: