Ever buy something that never worked? (vent warning)

Joe Nerve · #1 06-21-2011, 11:58 PM

Bought a Toshiba laptop about a year and a half ago. Used it for a trip I was going on and had some minor problems I thought were common to new PCs. Figured they'd work themselves out. Packed it away till next trip a few months later and I kept getting blue screen crashes. Got a return authorizaion and they "fixed" it. Worked for a couple of days, so I put it away again. Coupla months later, another trip, same blue screen crap. I call them, but now it's out of warranty and they say they'll do me the BIG favor of "fixing" it again. I send it back. I get it back 2 weeks later. It works. Like an idiot, I pack it away again for a few months. Going to get married in Hawaii in 2 days, I take the computer out for the trip... and it's still doing the thing they fixed 2X.

I wrote them a letter and I'm hoping for a resolution, but last time was like pulling teeth. I'm not entirely hopeful but we'll see tomorrow if they get back to me.

Has this ever happened to you and if or if not, how would you handle it? I have about 40 hrs use on this (if that much) and the freaking thing never worked. Basically threw away close to $600. I'm pissed.

Absentia · #2 06-22-2011, 04:09 AM

Here's my suggestion, when you take it in all they are doing is re-imaging it (reloading the OS) but it's terribly obvious that the hard drive is bad there is no other possible way the install would be failing this often if the drive didn't have bad sectors.
Buy a new hard drive for it (50$) it's simple enough to change out your self and learn how to install windows or better yet install a distro of linux (ubuntu is good).

Be in the habit to actually shut the computer down when not in use and steer clear of browsing unknown websites and programs.

"Techs" at repair places and big box stores are retarded and have no troubleshooting skills and really aren't trained for the job. They are only there to give you a false sense of security and over charge you for very basic services.

Yes this sort of thing has happened to me HP sent me 95 PCs with bad sata cables, which I had to replace myself instead of pay the shipping to send them back.

It happens, toshiba makes one hell of a laptop, you should have many problems after this.

TJ55 · #3 06-22-2011, 05:20 AM

Yeah man. I bought this little remote control golfer to whack balls around my house. It was garbage from the first "swing". Not a $600 laptop but I was still pretty disappointed.

Joe Nerve · #4 06-22-2011, 07:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Absentia

Here's my suggestion, when you take it in all they are doing is re-imaging it (reloading the OS) but it's terribly obvious that the hard drive is bad there is no other possible way the install would be failing this often if the drive didn't have bad sectors.
Buy a new hard drive for it (50$) it's simple enough to change out your self and learn how to install windows or better yet install a distro of linux (ubuntu is good).

Be in the habit to actually shut the computer down when not in use and steer clear of browsing unknown websites and programs.

"Techs" at repair places and big box stores are retarded and have no troubleshooting skills and really aren't trained for the job. They are only there to give you a false sense of security and over charge you for very basic services.

Yes this sort of thing has happened to me HP sent me 95 PCs with bad sata cables, which I had to replace myself instead of pay the shipping to send them back.

It happens, toshiba makes one hell of a laptop, you should have many problems after this.

Thanks.

First time I sent it back they put in a new hard drive. The only websites I've gone to are talkbass, aol, and norton antivirius.

They responded to my email saying I sent it to the wrong department, and gave me a phone number. About to start seeing what might be done...

dbhokie · #5 06-22-2011, 07:41 AM

Yeah, I took this one girl out and bought her stuff, and she never worked. *****

Anyways,

I typically handle that type of situation with an escalation of attempts.

1.) Contact tech support and ask to speak to a manager
2.) ask to speak to the manager's manager (now you are getting somewhere)
3.) If the next person seems like a douche ask to speak to their manager too.
4.) calmly explain your situation, and your unfortunate experiences with how the company has handled your issue.
5.) If the response still is not good, due to your extreme trouble with the product, ask them to swap it, or completely refurbish it.
6.) Tell the manager that you were expecting a better response from such a well-known company, and as such you will be filing complaints with the FTC and BBB for the lemon product you have received and the lack of customer service despite your repeated attempts, and that you will also post your experiences in other available internet forums especially those reviewing tech hardware and consumer reports.

TechJunky · #6 06-22-2011, 07:50 AM

I bought an Acer desktop a few years ago. Real nice, at the time had one of the faster processors, tv tuner, large hard drive...exactly what I thought I wanted! Got it home, super excited to get it set up, go through the whole initial setup...and it crashes. Reboot the computer, seems to work ok, try to use the tv tuner....and it crashes. Reboot the computer again, it just gets started up...and it crashes. I think it crashed a total of 6-7 times in the first afternoon I owned it. Very disappointed, I repackaged it and took it back to where I bought it the next day. Told them it didn't work and I wanted a refund, and they proceed to grab any of their nerd herd that was available to try and "fix" it. Didn't matter how many times I told them I just wanted a refund, they insisted on trying to make it work. Lucky me, it had two VGA connections...one was for the video card, but I really don't know what the other was for. Everyone of their tech people tried the other connection, which didn't work so nothing would come up on the screen. Maybe it truly was broken on that part too, but I wasn't about to let them know that I was using the actual video card with the other VGA connection that DID show a screen. They finally said "yup, there's no video. Must be broken. Do you want an exchange or just a refund?"....for the last time told them refund, and finally got my money back. I just stuck with my at the time current computer for a while longer, and only bought one more computer from them since (and never will again). Note to self- avoid Acer products at all costs!

Popbumper · #7 06-22-2011, 07:50 AM

Back in the 80's, when I was a car stereo nut, I bought a Kenwood active EQ for my setup. It worked for about a week, then crapped out. Having no desire to fart around with returning it, and being an electronics guy, I opened up the case and found a burned/opened trace on the circuit board. No worries. Band-aided it and went on my way.

That worked for about two weeks. Then it died again....same issue. Took it back to the store and got a refund, it was not worth haggling over, obviously had a more serious issue, and I did not want to mess with it.

Truly though, my favorite electronics are those that crap out the day after the warranty expires. With all the programmable microcontrollers on the market today, I sometimes wonder if there's not rogue programming in these beauties.....watching....waiting.....

Chris

Joe Nerve · #8 06-22-2011, 08:04 AM

They won't do anything.

They claim I had 30 days after the last repair to return it if it still didn't work. I was never informed of this. The 30 days are up and they pretty much told me, "too bad". There's nothing they can do.

This POS never worked. Toshiba stole $600 from me. My only mistake is that I trusted they actually fixed it and if not would do the right thing to stand by their company... but when a company is as big as they are, they really don't give much of a crap if they screw someone over.

I am wicked efffffing pissed right now. Wound up cursing them and hanging up, which I know won't help anything, but I lost it.

dbhokie · #9 06-22-2011, 08:34 AM

Before even speaking to someone about the situation at Toshiba you need to work your way up 3-4 tiers in the phones. Noone can do anything for you until that point. I really do use BBB and the FTC on a regular basis too, works rather well many times.

Joe Nerve · #10 06-22-2011, 08:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dbhokie

I really do use BBB and the FTC on a regular basis too, works rather well many times.

Don't know what that is.

Called Toshiba again to speak with someone else. They connected me with the same person. Tried calm cool reasoning this time.

Going out to buy a netbook.

Anyone want to buy a great toshiba laptop, with 4 gigs of memory dirt cheap? Has blue screen crashes.

**Thor** · #11 06-22-2011, 09:20 AM

Congrats on the nuptials, Joe!

Yeah, my wife and her Dell laptop. Crashed from the day she bought it. 2 new video cards. 1 new master board. 2 new harddrives. A new fan. Total POS. She got an Acer netbook that works perfectly for 1/3 the price. Both have Ubuntu intalled on them. The Dell is still not really right.

The tech that came to the house told her on the sly that if you told them the battery and unit gets hot and you think it is going to start a fire is the best way to get them to do something.

gustobassman · #12 06-22-2011, 01:48 PM

Well, it wasn't a computer, but my lady and i got shafted on a $700 mattress set. The delivered mattress was 100% different from what we tried in-store, and the frame didn't even fit. We tried to return it THAT VERY AFTERNOON, but we only had a few hours before we had to be somewhere. We didn't sleep on it, and went to the store the next day. They lied over and over again to us on the phone, and i brought all my notes from calling other reputable mattress dealers to refute their numerous lies.

Their response? getting security to come tell us to "leave the store" and that they "were going to call the police". what?? we just spent $700 and were not satisfied, and they did nothing when we tried to have them take it back the day before. So we called the BBB and had Wells Fargo dispute the charge. We are not made of money, this was a huge purchase for us, and now we are stuck with a lousy bed that is full of pointy springs! you can't sit on the edge of the bed because it will tip over due to the incorrect frame. i have some back issues anyhow, this has done nothing but made it worse.

Fassa Albrecht · #13 06-22-2011, 02:09 PM

My last CD player was a piece of crap right from the off. It cost something like $50 which to me is a lot of money right now. It just didn't work right out the box. The thing skipped and jumped if it wasn't kept completely flat, which was a pain, and the shuffle button stopped working after I used it twice. The battery meter was also suspect as it showed the battery as being half-full despite being new batteries.

I ended up returning it because I just couldn't be bothered to deal with it, and then ended up using my smartphone's mp3 player anyway as my main music store.

aborgman · #14 06-22-2011, 02:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Joe Nerve

They won't do anything.

They claim I had 30 days after the last repair to return it if it still didn't work. I was never informed of this. The 30 days are up and they pretty much told me, "too bad". There's nothing they can do.

This is pretty standard.

A friend bought a laptop. It had a 2 week full replacement warranty.

It was dead on arrival. They sent a new one. It was dead on arrival. They sent a new one... it worked for about 5 days... but now his two weeks were up - because it's "two weeks from the initial purchase date".

jonathan_matos5 · #15 06-22-2011, 02:22 PM

hp desktop computer. it failed right out of the box. i took it back to the store and they said it was a software problem and i needed to call tech support. i had to pay an additional $50 for them to send me a recovery disk set to reload windows.

since then i switched to mac and the store closed due to lack of customer service.

Quickie · #16 06-22-2011, 02:24 PM

My wife?

ShredderMaximus · #17 06-22-2011, 02:28 PM

A few months ago when my my laptop battery was completely crapping out on me, I called HP about a replacement under the warranty, and after a bit of fanagling finally got some Indian rep on the line. After giving him all my info, which was hard because I could barely understand him, he said my warranty was out by 2 days, so he couldn't help me. When I asked to speak to his supervisor, he straight up refused, saying that a supervisor couldn't do anything to help me either, repeatedly. At that point I was getting fairly P.O. and handed the phone to my Mom, who bought the computer and just had more experience with this stuff. She had no better luck with this dingus, and got to the point where he pretty much told her she was stupid for having waited so long and hung up on her. (at that point I was ready to buy a ticket to India to lay down some whoop-@$$)

After that whole shenanigan, my Mom proceeded to e-mail HP HQ and told them about the horrendous customer service and that she was a Starbucks store manager and was going to be spreading the word of the event. HP promptly e-mailed and called us back, and in a very short amount of time deducted that we were indeed still in the warranty period and sent out a new battery for me ASAP, it arrived either the next day or the day after.

dbhokie · #18 06-22-2011, 02:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Joe Nerve

Don't know what that is.

Called Toshiba again to speak with someone else. They connected me with the same person. Tried calm cool reasoning this time.

Going out to buy a netbook.

Anyone want to buy a great toshiba laptop, with 4 gigs of memory dirt cheap? Has blue screen crashes.

Better Business Bureau and the Federal Trade Comission

chaseman · #19 06-22-2011, 03:12 PM

I bought an electric beyblade from a local market, and it never worked out the box. I was gutted, because the stall wasn't there the next week. I was only 7, and 5 pounds was a lot back then!