Letter to HP CEO, Mark Hurd

I found an "Email the CEO" section on the HP website. Here's my email:


To Mr. Mark Hurd:

I am writing to express my frustrations with the support I have received in regards to my HP Pavilion DV2415NR laptop.

Around June 18, 2008, my laptop ceased to boot up. I located technical support on the HP website and submitted a repair request. Arrangements were made and I shipped my laptop to the HP repair center. There was a delay, but I received my laptop July 14. After taking it out of the box, my laptop still did not function. In fact, it was as if nothing was performed. I tried to read the paper that was included, but all it said was "replaced mlb" followed by gibberish which I assumed HP support would understand.

I located the number for support and called. I spent an hour on the phone explaining my situation to three HP representatives. Each seemed only specialized in one area, so I spend much of the time on hold for someone that could help me. Eventually, another trip to the repair center was arranged and my laptop went out again.

I received my laptop pretty quick this time on July 25. To my surprise, it booted up. However, it was slow. After it finished booting, I clicked on computer properties out of curiosity and noticed I now had 512MB of RAM. I shipped it to HP with 1GB! I reluctantly called HP support again and explained myself to three separate HP representatives again. This time I spent less time on hold. I spent a total of 10 minutes on hold, 2-5 minutes of talking, and 43 minutes of listening to silence while the representative "documented my case". I'm not quite sure how long it takes to type out "customer laptop was shipped to HP with 1GB RAM, but was returned with 512MB RAM", but I think 43 minutes is unreasonably long.

At the end of the call the representative told me a supervisor would call me within 24 hours, even though he told me earlier he would have a hardware representative to ship out the RAM. The call was on July 28, 2008. It is now August 5. I have not received a call, nor have I received my 512MB of RAM. This experience has left me with a slower system, and an overall lack of confidence in HP or my HP laptop.

It is to the point where I will no longer recommend HP to any of my friends and family anymore. I came from Dell systems thinking that HP is good too. I liked what HP did with they laptops and their emphasis on the entertainment experience. I even defended HP when my company IT consultant stated that "HP sucks...except for their printers...and maybe their servers". Now I'm not so sure I would do the same anymore. How can I recommend a company whose systems fail so much in one year? My friends' Dell systems are 3+ years old with no issues! How can I defend a company whose support is horrendous and slow? Each time I call, I reference the case number on the paper that was shipped with my laptop only to be chastised by the staff that it was not a case number. I spend an hour on each call and speak with multiple representatives. Why can't a technical support representative serve more than one area?

All I ask now is to be made whole. I want my 512MB of RAM back. I want another year of product support as I don't trust my laptop to survive another year. That's it. I won't ask for a refund, though my friends have suggested I do. I made a mistake in purchasing an HP, I will live with it. But I won't sit idle if something has been taken from me.

I hope other HP consumers have had better experience.

Sincerely,


[Dan]




I even had to shorten it because the form would only allow 3500 characters. I wonder if this would even do anything?

For all posts relating to this wonderful HP experience, go here.