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Wednesday, 07 November 2007 |
 (Click to enlarge)About 1 Year ago, on Vista's launch date, I bought a new laptop for college, the HP dv9205us. The laptop was great after I added another gigabyte of RAM, removed Vista, and installed Kubuntu. Although it came with a 1 year warranty from HP, I bought a 3 year warranty from Staples for $199.
Wouldn't you know that about a year after purchase, the LCD gets cracked on a bus as I traveled with my choir. I don't know how it happened, but I do know that it wasn't intentional. So, I call up HP (rather, I chat with them), and they tell me my warranty has however much time left. Then they say that they don't cover "accidental damage." I made the case that the pads that hold the LCD above the keyboard are too thin for a 17in laptop, but they wouldn't listen. (My friends have the same model of laptop I do, only 15in, and the pads are twice as thick..) That got me nowhere. HP pretty much told me to screw off on getting it fixed free. They offered to fix it for the low, low price of $698. I payed $800 for the freaking laptop.
Then, I go to the local Staples that I purchased the laptop from. They tell me to call this "StaplesESP" phone number. I call, hear the welcome message, and then a bunch of stuff in Spanish. Finally, it asks me if contract number BLAHBLAHBLAH is mine. I say no, because I don't know. After trying pretty much every option, I find there is no freaking way to talk to a real person, and I read on the StaplesESP site that "accidental damage" is not covered, as well. I still claim that this is a manufacturer's defect - the pads haven't even done the job before the cracks, the keyboard scratched a line like the Grand Canyon across the middle of the LCD. I will try not to get started about how the LCD was too thin in a place and I could actually see the backlight - cheaply manufactured BS...
What course of action do I take now? I go the DIY route. I just purchased an LCD brand new on eBay from a reputable seller for about $200. That's quite a bit better than $698, isn't it.
Freaking warranties aren't worth the paper they're printed on. When accidental isn't covered, you can only claim manufacturer's defect, and when you do something like that, they can still spin it to make it "accidental." Freaking evil corporations. I'm buying a Mac next time.
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