HP Hell

Here’s a mail I received from my colleague, friend (and soon my boss) Laurent. I hope HP is monitoring the blogosphere as efficiently as Dell does.

Computer : 2.5 years old HP Presario 2500 laptop, bought on Ebay when it was only 2y old
I bought this for my girlfriend during her maternity leave so she could stay connected, even while “emprisoned” home
I took the opportunity to initiate her to the joy of  instant Messaging and she pulled her mother and half her family – living far in the countryside – to it 😉 I also showed her how to use Ebay and she spend half my salary in baby clothes in a month

A few weeks ago, the “h” touch died. I checked the web and apparently it’s a common problem with this model (or at least, people have been vocal about the “h” touch)
But, ok, she could live wit tat, h is not tat important is it?
Yesterday night the whole keyboard stopped working. “e” gives “w”, backspace, delete and enter don’t work… She was really sad

Soooo, arriving at the office today, with all the references in my pocket, I surf to the HP website to find an after-sales/customer service number I could call to solve this asap. It’s not critical, she does not need the computer for work matters, but it has become really important in her life and I don’t want to let her without that.
Ok, number found..doh, a 0900 billed 0.74€/min…?? Ok, the computer is probably not guaranteed anymore, but still.
First call, robot voice spelling me a huuuuuuge (this is stupid by the way, who can possibly remember that?) url I could check to read about HP privacy policy, press 2 to get someone answering, wait wait wait, at least, a friendly human voice.
The guy asks for my postal code so he could give me phone numbers of companies that could repair my laptop.
I hung up the phone with 3 numbers.
1st number : number does not exist
2nd number : yess!! It rings!! Bad luck for me, that company works only in B2B
3rd number : number doesn’t exist

Hmmm, ok, I have an issue there. Back to my 0900 overtaxed number (again 2 minutes waiting time to get that humongous url spelled), press 2 to get someone answering, a lady now.
Postal code thing and she gives me a 03 phone number. I kindly ask her to give me a number close to my place (why asking for the postal code otherwise?) and she tells me that’s the only one she has (??) The number? : 03.382223366. For those of you who don’t know, Belgian phone numbers do not contain 8 digits. That’s what I told her of course. She puts me on hold “to check sir”… the line was cut after 10 minutes waiting time

Back to the HP website, a bit angry and bored, I see a small link allowing to estimate what the repair price could be. If I can not get the contact of someone who can help me, maybe at least I could figure out how much it would cost. Click, click, click, my computer model? of course I have the reference, click click again : 389€ estimated repair price…but nowhere I could type what type of reparation I needed, so how can that estimation be right?

HP? Are you listening?