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Submitted by DemosthenesOkay, for those of you who have missed my rants on this, here is the entire story.
I have a Toshiba Satellite laptop I bought in January of 2003. It's a nice laptop, never had any problems with it until recently.
Back in February I started having some serious keyboard problems. Now, when I pay $2000 for something, I take care of it; my laptop is scrupulously clean, including the keyboard.
The problem was, when certain keys were pressed, I'd get a random string of characters out of the result, but always the SAME characters for certain keys. For example, I'd press the "y" key, and I'd get "~~7gh=", every time.
I'd press the left arrow key, and I'd get "zz---". Same thing all the time. It got to be so bad that it made it nearly impossible to do anything.
In my experience with laptops, that's usually a short somewhere in the keyboard. It's not a particularly difficult thing to fix with most laptops... ordinarily all one has to do is open the top, disconnect the old keyboard, and connect the replacement.
I checked with Toshiba and found that I could get a brand new replacement keyboard for my laptop for $80. On ebay, I found some for between $20 and $30 (thanks FOO).
However, when I purchased this laptop, I paid $249 for their extended Product Service Plan (PSP). Why should I spend any out-of-pocket money on something like this when this would be covered under that? Since I paid so much for the PSP coverage, I figured I might as well have them do it so I wouldn't end up paying anything more.
So on February 19th, I backed up all my stuff, you know, just in case, and brought my laptop in to the local Best Buy store and demonstrated the issue to the tech behind the service counter. He agreed with me that it was a short and that (as I had found in researching my issue online) Toshiba Satellites are notorious for keyboard problems but are otherwise solid laptops.
Then he got to the rough part... he said it would be
two to three WEEKS to repair. I really didn't understand this, because swapping a keyboard on a laptop like this one has never taken me more than five or ten minutes, and if Best Buy sells and services so many of these, they're bound to have replacement keyboards at least reasonably available.
But there was no arguing with the guy. Two to three weeks it is. Because of my skepticism and inherent paranoia about letting someone else handle my $2000 laptop, I told him to make sure that when it was ready to call me immediately so I could come and pick it up and check it out. He said he'd make sure and do that.
Cut to the first week of March (over two weeks later), and I get home from work that evening to find a sticky note on my door from UPS. Wondering what the heck it could be from, I look a little more closely to see that it's from Best Buy.
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The next day I lucked out because my wife got home early and just managed to catch the UPS guy, so I got my laptop back.
I looked at the work order paper that was in the box with it, and it said nothing about replacing the keyboard. It just said "CLEANED KEYBOARD".
Well, hell... I ALREADY DID THAT.
I fired it up and it seemed fine, but the problem I was having with the keyboard wasn't something that always manifested itself right away. During the month of February, I had been using my laptop pretty heavily because I was doing a lot of writing.
I didn't have time right away to test it extensively, so I gave them the benefit of the doubt and didn't worry about it.
Well, life gets in the way of a lot of things, and needless to say, I didn't really have a chance to sit down and do any serious writing on my laptop until March 20th, a couple of weeks later.
After ten minutes of typing, it was clear that the problems I had been having were still present. No difference at all.
Pissed off, I drove back to Best Buy with it, waited 20 minutes in line at their service desk, and told the person that finally asked "can I help you?" that I had brought my laptop in for a keyboard replacement because of a faulty keyboard, only to get it back over two weeks later, shipped to the wrong address, and still having the same problem. And guess what? Nobody replaced the keyboard.
The tech behind the counter told me he was very sorry, but he'd put this through as a rework, and those are "expedited" so that they are worked on with the highest priority. When asked how long that would take, he said "one to two weeks."
I told him he was mistaken. "Expedited" to me means I'll be picking this up in a week, no more.
He said there was nothing he could do. I suggested he swap the keyboard with a replacement, for starters, but he just laughed at me and said they can't do anything like that there.
I made a point to put my work address down on the form they made me sign and insisted that my laptop be shipped to my work address if it was going to be shipped to me at all, and they assured me that it was.
Frustrated, I left it with them, dubious of ever getting it back in working order.
I was right.
On Wednesday, March 30th, I called my local Best Buy store and talked to one of the techs there named Adam. I told Adam that it had been almost two weeks and I still had no word on my laptop, and I wanted to know what he could find out for me.
He told me that it was "received" by the service center on March 24th, and that was the only note. It had been received. Not worked on, not completed, just
received.
I laughed. "So you're telling me that you guys have had it for almost two weeks now, and nobody has even LOOKED at it yet?" I asked him.
"No, it doesn't look like it. There's nothing else here on it."
"Unbelievable," I said. "Just out of curiosity, how far away did this get shipped, for them to only have received it on March 24th?"
He said "Texas."
I laughed even harder. "TEXAS?" I asked. "Your idea of 'expedited' is to ship my laptop to TEXAS for something that will likely only take five or ten minutes to fix? You've got to be joking."
He wasn't. He was completely serious. And to make matters worse, he seemed confused as to why I was so upset about it.
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"So," I began, "who do I need to talk to next to get this moving along?"
"Nobody," was his reply.
"There has to be SOMEBODY. Give me the number of that service center so I can find out what is taking so long."
"I can't give that number out, sorry," he said. "And even if I did, they wouldn't talk to you. They simply don't take calls from customers."
"Okay. In that case, since you won't give me access to the people I need to abuse for this, I have no choice but to abuse the people I DO have access to. So here's what I want you to do for me, Adam. You call that service center and you find out what the heck is going on with this, because this is the SECOND time I've handed my laptop over to you guys for the SAME problem, and I expected to have it back by now."
He said he'd call them and call me right back on my cell phone number.
He didn't.
Life caught up with me again and it was this Monday (April 4th now) before I got a chance to call Best Buy again and harrangue them.
I ended up talking to Adam again.
Me: Hi Adam. I don't know if you remember me, but I talked to you last week about my laptop. My name is Trent.
Adam: Oh yeah. Yep, I remember you. What can I do for you?
Me: Well, for starters, you can return phone calls when you say you're going to. But it's a little too late for that now, because you're already pretty much on my list.
Adam: Didn't I call you back?
Me: No. You did not. Otherwise I wouldn't be calling you right now.
Adam: Oh.
Me: So. I would like to know why it takes over two weeks to swap a keyboard on a laptop.
Adam: I don't know... let me check. Do you have the case number?
Me: Yup. It's [case number].
several minutes laterAdam: Okay, they finished it, and it's marked as "shipped out" on March 31st. I would expect you to receive it pretty quick here in that case.
Me: Well great! That's a tremendous improvement. Incidentally, does it happen to say what they did on it? Did they replace any hardware?
Adam: Yes... there are two codes here. One is for "hardware replacement", and "KEYBOARD" is listed next to it. So it looks like they did in fact replace the keyboard.
Me: Even better! Great. So what's the other code you said they put on it?
Adam: This one means "reload OS".
Me: http://www.guildhaven.org/images/smilies/huh.gif">
Adam: Hello?
Me: RELOAD OS? That had BETTER not mean what I THINK it means.
Adam: Uh... it means they resored the operating system to what it was when you bought it.
Me: For A KEYBOARD SWAP? Are you NUTS?
Adam: Well, sometimes they do that, in order to test---
Me: NO THEY DO NOT.
Adam: Well---
Me: You had BETTER be mistaken about that. That had better be incorrect, or a mistake, or a typo. Because there is NO reason to wipe out everything on the hard drive just to do a simple keyboard module swap.
Adam: Do you want me to call down there and find out?
Me: Yes. And this time call me back. This is my cell number, since you apparently forgot it last time. It is 4:30 now. You have 30 minutes. If I don't get a phone call back from you by 5:00 TODAY, you will be seeing me in person at 5:05 and we'll both be talking to your supervisor AND the idiots at that service center in Texas that seem so interested in aggravating customers.
*CLICK*
I was so steamed. I watched the clock, and sure enough, in about 10 minutes, the toadie called me back to tell me that yes, they had indeed blown away my partitions and loaded Windows XP Home Edition on my laptop.
Me: All right then. You guys are going to make this right for me.
Adam: I'm not sure what you mean.
Me: When I receive my laptop, I will be bringing it in that same day. You will then have someone put my laptop back the way it was when I left it with you.
Adam: Meaning?
Me: Meaning you will install Windows 2000 and Slackware Linux, partitioned to my specifications.
Adam: You signed a waiver when you dropped your laptop off that says that Best Buy is not responsible for lost data---
Me: I didn't lose any data. My data is backed up and safe. What I lost was several hours' worth of configurations on my laptop because someone decided to
unnecessarily wipe it all out.
Adam: You don't know that it was unnecessar---
Me: DON'T TELL ME WHAT I DON'T KNOW. I
do know that blowing away my partitions and installing Windows XP is IN NO WAY necessary to swap out a simple keyboard module on a laptop. Period. That argument is finished. What I would like to know now from you is whether this was done out of incompetence, or malice?
Adam: Excuse me?
Me: Incompetence. That means that the person who conducted the repairs on my computer was inept. Unskilled. Incapable of handling simple tasks or doing his or her job. It's either that, or malice. Malice means that the person that did this just decided to be an ass and do it just to further complicate a situation that ALREADY had me pretty upset.
Adam: Oh I'm sure it was that. There are all sorts of conspiracy theories about our technicians wrecking things on purpose---
Me: I don't need your sarcasm. What I need right now is your understanding. As I said before, when this laptop arrives, I will be bringing it in so that it can be corrected. This isn't a request, this is what's going to happen.
Adam: I can tell you right now, there's no way that's going to happen.
Me: You're mistaken. Let me talk to your boss.
Adam's Boss: Hi. I'm Aaron. What can I do for you?
Me: Hi Aaron. I'm expecting to get my laptop back tomorrow. A tech at the service center in Texas decided to either incompetently or maliciously wipe out my OS and load XP. I was just telling your flunkie Adam here that someone on your end is going to be reloading my operating systems the way I had them once I get that laptop back.
Aaron: What operating system did you have on it?
Me: I had two. I had Windows 2000 installed on the first partition, and Slackware Linux 10.1 on one of the other partitions.
Aaron: Well if you bring it in, I can have someone throw Windows 2000 back on it for you, but you're on your own for the Linux.
Me: Oh I don't think so. You're going to have someone put that back too. I'm pretty sure of it.
Aaron: I don't have anyone that can do that here.
Me: That's quite all right. I'll be right there to walk that person through it. It's not hard.
Aaron: (laughs) You don't think we're going to do this
while you wait?
Me: Well I'm CERTAINLY NOT GOING TO LEAVE IT WITH YOU MORONS AGAIN. The first time I left it with you guys, I got it back over two weeks later and nothing had been fixed. The second time I left it with you, your idea of "expediting" the rework was to SHIP IT TO TEXAS. And now Adam here tells me that just to add insult to injury, they decided to blow away my setup and throw an operating system on it that I have NO USE FOR. So yes, Aaron. You are going to do it while I wait. We'll have a nice little operating system loading party, right there in your store. Won't that be fun?
Aaron: Don't you think that's a little excessive?
Me: No, what's excessive is reloading an OS when all that was needed was to do a simple hardware replacement.
Aaron: You signed a waiver that said that Best Buy is not responsible---
Me: You know Aaron, when I go to a restaurant and leave my coat in their closet, there's always a sign there that says "WE ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR LOST OR STOLEN ITEMS". I don't generally take that to mean that if I leave my coat there, the restaurant owner is going to have one of his people go in there and methodically take all the coats people hang in there. You people went OUT OF YOUR WAY to UNNECESSARILY and MALICIOUSLY destroy the contents of my hard drive, and now I'm telling you that you're going to put it back the way it was, or you're going to have to get used to seeing me in there.
Aaron: What are you going to do, bring it in every day for something?
Me: Aaron, don't ever underestimate how petty and immature I can be on issues such as these. I'm far more sadistic than you could possibly know when it comes to people that screw with me, and right now I'm about as screwed with as anyone's ever dared to.
Aaron: Hold on a sec, I wasn't aware that this was a rework.
(papers shuffling)
Aaron: Okay, look... I apologize for taking such a hard line against this, but we get some pretty crazy demands from customers sometimes, and I didn't realize how much you had been jerked around on this.
Me: (surprised) Reaaaally.
Aaron: All right... you said you're expecting this to arrive tomorrow?
Me: Yeah, most likely. I told them to ship it to my work address. Can you see what address it was shipped to?
Aaron: Yes. It says [my work address]. Is that right?
Me: That's the one. So yes, I expect to get it tomorrow. When I do, once I get off work, I'll be bringing it in. Do you have someone you can dedicate to this tomorrow night? It's going to be a few hours.
Aaron: Let's see... I think Curt has used Linux, though I'm not sure if he's ever set it up before.
Me: No problem. I can walk him through it. Linux isn't going to be the hard part on this. Windows 2000 doesn't cooperate well with this particular laptop. That's what is going to be the challenging part.
Aaron: Okay. So bring it in tomorrow after you get it, and I'll talk to Curt and have him set to do this. If you don't get it tomorrow, bring it in when you do and I'll pull someone. Will that work?
Me: Yes.
Aaron: Good. Again, I'm sorry about all this... I can understand why you'd be frustrated on something like this.
Me: You know, this won't make things all better. This is a real pain. I'd be loading all this stuff again myself, so I'm really only doing this to make sure I'm getting my $249 worth.
Aaron: $249?
Me: Yes. For the service plan. The replacement keyboard couldn't possibly cost you guys more than $80... and face it, since you're a reseller, Toshiba likely lets you guys have them for half that. But paying a technician for three to four hours' worth of unnecessary work I think should bring Best Buy's costs on this up to past the $250 mark, and that's what I'm going for.
Aaron: Uh. Why?
Me: You wasted $250 of my money. I'm going to ensure that I waste AT LEAST that much of yours, more if I can, for my trouble.
Aaron: Fair enough, I guess.
So, I waited all day at work for the UPS man to show, but he never did. At 5:00 I went home, pissed off that I didn't get my laptop, but hey, that just means it'll probably arrive the next day.
I walked into our house and my wife smiles at me and says "If you were pissed at them before, you're REALLY going to love them now," as she's pointing to a box on the table.
The fuckers shipped it TO MY HOUSE.
AGAIN.
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Livid, I grabbed the box, told my wife "I'll call you when I'm done there", and wasted 17 miles' worth of gas driving back into town to Best Buy.
Curt indeed knew Linux. He was surprisingly useful. He knew exactly why I was doing this, and he was actually pretty enthusiastic about the whole thing because, as he put it, "when else am I going to have someone walk me through a Slackware setup?" and "if Aaron hadn't assigned me this tonight, I'd just be spending all evening doing virus scans and removing spyware, as usual".
So at 9:00 last night, I left Best Buy with my laptop set up to dual boot just as I had had it.
And I learned something from all this.
1) I will never, EVER pay for a service plan from Best Buy again.
2) I will never, EVER,
EVER trust them with any piece of computer hardware for any reason without my presence.
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