HP Pavilion dv2500 and poor HP customer service
10/06/2008
HP Pavilion dv2500

I'll start with the 'good points' section because it's much shorter than my negative remarks. The good: The computer ran very well. I was happy with its performance, having recently upgraded from a very outdated Compaq notebook that gave me trouble o­n just about everything I did. The processor was 2 GHz and it had 512MB of RAM, hard drive was 80GB if I remember correctly.

There were a few compatibility problems caused by Windows Vista, but overall it was a good operating system in my opinion. I wanted a computer that would perform well and hold up well for my entire college career, but because it was a graduation gift I didn't want to go overboard-- the total price came to around $1400, which was within the range of what my dad wanted to spend. I thought the value was pretty good, and the computer did an excellent job with everything I did o­n it, from work to games to music composition and web design. The bad: I should amend the first sentence of the above paragraph to say this: the computer ran very well for four months.

I got it in June of 2007 and had no problems for a while. I was working o­n a paper o­ne day in October, saved my work and closed the computer. I came back about half an hour later to find the computer off. I was confused to say the least, and when I tried to reboot the computer it froze at the HP logo screen. I tried a few more times, and nothing happened. I made an appointment to have a box delivered to my dorm room so I could ship the box in for repairs. Here's where it gets even worse. I originally sent the computer in o­n October 28 and had a projected return date of mid-November.
I got a call from a service rep saying that there would be a delay and that the computer would be delivered o­n December 11. I got the computer back o­n that day (which happened to be my birthday) and I was very relieved to have it back. I turned the computer o­n, left for a minute and came back. I couldn't believe it when I saw that the computer was still stuck o­n the HP logo screen. After trying a few more times and cursing at the computer, I made another appointment. I was also annoyed because the problem was a boot-up issue; clearly nobody had double-checked to see that the problem was resolved, or else they would have seen that the problem persisted. I sent the computer back again o­n December 24 with a projected return date of January 9.

Within a week, this was backed up to January 23 (the day that I am writing this.) I got a call today at 3 p.m., the day I was supposed to RECEIVE the computer to tell me that the computer HAD NOT EVEN BEEN REPAIRED and therefore was not shipped. The customer service rep read off the same script that had been read to me before; clearly these people do not care about customer service, just following the scripts they're given.

Slightly less than pleased, I called HP this evening. After being redirected a total of 9 times (sometimes to the same department) I finally got directed to a person in the correct department. I told her that I needed the computer by Saturday because I am going back to school, and have been without a computer for three and a half months. All she could say was that she couldn't give me a new computer because they "don't follow that kind of policy, it takes three repair tries before we replace the notebook"; my o­nly option was to get the computer back unrepaired.

I asked for a case manager, and should be getting a call within two days. I have to say I'm not optimistic. The customer service reps know nothing; they don't speak conversational English, so if you mention something that hasn't been written o­n their little response script, they automatically ask you for your serial number or service ticket number again. The product was pretty good, but the customer service is abhorrent and will take months to even come close to resolving anything; case managers are rarely in and regular customer service reps have no power to do anything. You won't get anywhere trying to get help for the products that the company won't stand behind. Bottom line. Avoid this company like the plague.