My Computer Saga
Rant/Rave
Sorry it’s been so long since I’ve written here. It’s been nothing but overwork for three weeks at my job. By the time I get home, I don’t want to even think about looking at a computer screen. Which brings me to my newest rant. I was in the market for a new laptop. My boyfriend (yay for him!) looked up a couple of different companies and said that the best deal I would probably get is with Compaq. He even helped me get the model I wanted (a Presario, the newest model they had). So I ordered the laptop. I had to go through the financing process to get a card. So I go through the process, which was necessary, since I couldn’t afford it on any of my credit cards. This was the beginning of May.
I was busy at work (when am I not?) so I wasn’t really paying attention to how much time was passing until my boyfriend reminded me that I hadn’t gotten my new card, and therefore my new account number (thanks again!) Anyway, about three weeks after the original order, I called the Compaq financing people and asked for a replacement card. I got a card a couple of weeks after that. It is now the beginning of June.
My boyfriend and I went back to the Compaq website to order the same laptop. I was able to get $100 off through a discount offer. I didn’t get an order number right then and there, but that didn’t worry me because I believed I would be getting it in an e-mail soon after I placed the order. A couple of days went by and I didn’t get the e-mail. I looked at the Compaq website, which now looks like this (UPDATE 12/2/02 - this site is what the link below was at first). Apparently, the day after I put in my order, Compaq had merged with Hewlett-Packard. This is what I get for not looking at the business pages. The only way I could look at my order was to type in the order number, which I couldn’t do since, if you remember, I never got the number. I called Household Bank, the financing company, and asked if they could give me any idea. The automated “Press 1…” menu gave me the runaround. I couldn’t get a customer representative. It was impossible to speak to a human being. I tried pressing “0″, like you usually do when you want to speak to someone, and all it did was send me back to the main menu. Another thing: my account had only $211 on it, although I didn’t owe anything. I’m supposed to have $2000 on the card.
I tried calling again, and the menu was different. I started pressing buttons and spoke to a person. She started asking me all these questions, assuming I was a business. I told her I was confused and then she asked me what company I was trying to get (since they take care of a lot of accounts). I told her that I wanted Compaq, to which she responded (very nicely, she wasn’t rude at all) that I had called the wrong number, and I should call 1-800-xxx-xxxx, the number I had just called. Apparently, if you push the right sequence of numbers, you don’t reach the Compaq reps, but another company’s. I hung up and tried again, and this time I was able to talk to a Compaq customer rep. This was June 26 (I wrote down the date when I got some results, as any good consumer should.) The customer rep I spoke to was very understanding and offered to reinstate my credit (this is where the Rave comes in.) He said it would take 2-3 business days to take affect, and when I called three days later, the credit was back. Back to the website. Order #2 (with the financing. Same laptop. This time I was able to get a $150 discount. So I thought, good for me, I get more money in my pocket.
Guess what happens? Long story short, Compaq “loses” my order…again. I tried ordering yet again, but found I couldn’t. Take a wild guess why. That’s right, the money had been taken off my card…again. I found this out by calling Household Bank and having that perky voice tell me that while I don’t owe anything, I didn’t have any money on my card. You would think that it would send up some sort of flag, but it didn’t, so my third order didn’t go through. As you might guess, I was getting just a *little* pissed. I spoke to another customer rep and asked to have my credit reinstated once again. She replied that she couldn’t do that, but if there was any trouble, there was a number to call which would explain that my credit was good. I wondered why my credit couldn’t be reinstated now, but I figured, tongue-in-cheek, what could go wrong? This was the first week of July.
During all this, we realized that the actual Compaq site, the one where I could find out where my order was, is athome.compaq.com (UPDATE 12/2/02 - this site has been changed), something everyone neglected to mention. *Tangent*: Earlier I had called the Compaq costumer service number and asked if they knew anything about their website. I could have been asking if they knew the way to San Jose, since I got the phone equivalent of a blank stare. You would think a customer rep would be at least be familiar with his or her company’s website. Another assumption I shouldn’t have made. *End Of Tangent* I really should give my boyfriend a lot of credit for helping me with this, as without him, I probably still wouldn’t have my laptop. He e-mailed Compaq, told them my situation, and complained about the website, which is really difficult to get around. He got a response from a sales rep, who told him to call his direct number and we’ll get it straightened out.
So we went to the website and went through the ordering process without really ordering it, just so that we would know all the particulars we wanted when we called this sales rep. **Rave Time!** My boyfriend called the sales rep (since he was the one who e-mailed) and they spoke for a while. It was about 15 minutes before the rep was supposed to leave, so we were trying to be as brief as possible, and knew that he probably wanted to get out of there soon. We got the order through, and then my boyfriend gave me the phone to talk to the rep. I gave him all the personal info (where to ship the computer, my Compaq account number, etc.) and he said there was a problem with my credit. Surprise, surprise! I told him what had happened, he called a number, and said everything was fine. After four orders of the same computer, I finally got an order number! We asked if we could get the $150 off that we would have if we were able to buy it during the discount period. He said sure, and he’d throw in an extra $50 off because of everything we went through. It wouldn’t show up on the order form, but if I called Household Bank, the discount would be reflected on their database.
But wait, there’s more! Around the middle of July, I got a letter from the Fraud department at Compaq saying that they had tried to get a hold of me and couldn’t get through (This is complete bull, as I gave my cell phone number, and had the number confirmed many times by the Customer Service department.) About this time I had received another Compaq card, whether it was the first one or the second one, I’m not sure. I called the direct number of one of the reps there (so many reps, so little time) and couldn’t get a hold of her until the afternoon. She sounded as if she couldn’t care less. Anyway, she asked me if I had an account with Compaq, and I answered in the affirmative. She asked if I had asked for a replacement card, and again I answered yes. That was all. As I hung up, I realized that it took them six weeks from the time I called for a replacement card till now to inquire me about it. Someone could have charged $2000 worth of computer parts to me and they figure it out now? The rave is that they were doing their job, but the rant is that it took them forever to do anything about it. The thing that scares me is that it could have taken six weeks for each card to come to my door. I’m hoping that the first card got lost in the mail and had just come to me, while Compaq was good in sending the second card as fast as they could. If not, the shortest time it would take to get financing and order a computer is a month and a half.
I finally got my computer shipped to my work address in the beginning of August, three months after I had first placed an order with Compaq. The moral of the story is, make sure not to do business with a company that is just about to merge with another company. Representatives of all kinds are just doing their jobs, and unless one is rude to you, don’t be rude to him or her. If you’re angry, ask the rep for a manager’s name, and tell the rep that he or she is not to blame, you just want to get to the bottom of the matter. Make a note of all correspondence you receive, and if anything happens on the phone, make note of the rep’s name and what occurred during the conversation. Do all this, and you’re ass will be covered. Of course, I don’t wish this on anyone, it a major pain in the tuckus to have to deal with 20 different people just to get what you want.