Hewlett Packard

I have to give HP a bad review also. I don't have a problem with the product itself, but with the way HP implements warranty service. I purchased a netbook (smaller laptop) from them last December, I am still using and enjoying it, and feel it's a great product. The problem was that the hard drive was defective right out of the box. Basically the unit would try to boot, then shut down. I suppose I could complain about a lack of quality control and that the unit should have been caught before it was sold, but my real issue is that I had to pay expensive shipping, handling and insurance charges to ship it back to them for the repair. It cost me nearly $35. (not to mention my time and trouble) to ship it back to them for the privilege of having a working computer. I know there are some con artists out there that will try to return damaged or abused products for a refund they don't deserve. No company should have to put up with that, and pass the cost onto it's honest customers. But I feel that they should at THE VERY LEAST refund your shipping charges once they receive the product and determine for themselves that it is a warranty repair. Making the customer pay when it is not their fault seems unfair. I also have to comment on their customer service reps. It was obvious they use one of the notorious "outsourced" customer service centers. Although they were extremely professional and polite to me, I'm not sure they would really be much good at helping you solve a problem. I still can't understand how companies feel they are saving money like this.

HP gets a pretty bad rep on this web site, which I think is unfair, because I've dealt with HP for the past 6 years, and I've never really had a problem with them.  
 
Back in January, I was about to order a dm3t w/ a 160GB SSD on-line because I had a $350 stackable coupon, going on top of the $150 discount that was going on at the time. However, I wanted to adjust a config item before submitting the order. When I was about to punch my credit card through, the site said that the coupon had expired! $1350 is too much to pay, so I called HP up.  
 
The customer service guy was really efficient and fast, and American too. Talking to him was a breeze. I walked him through the config options and gave him the coupon code and told him it had expired in the past 10 minutes and that I needed the discount because I'm a grad student. He said he understood and put me on hold for a few minutes. He came back on and said that he was able to apply a $350 discount even though the coupon had expired and said that he could get the price down to $999. All he needed was the credit card info. I was really happy, and he didn't force on me any upgrades or warranty crap. My computer got to me exactly when HP predicted it would.  
 
Eight months later, the computer still works and still is really fast. I will definitely consider ordering from HP again. They're definitely not bad at all.

I see a lot of negative reviews about their customer service. Just thought I'm mention that I had no problem getting through to cancel my order even though the web site said it was too late to cancel. Yes, the operators had accents but communication was fine and there was no run-around and they were very polite. BTW, they pay the shipping on their 21 day return guarantee if it comes to that.

The worst company to order from. I placed 2 items in 1 order. Received email about shipment for one item as they would be shipped separately. I did receive that one. For the other item, i had no clue if they shipped it or not as i didn't receive any info regarding that shipment. After sometime without receiving the item or shipment notification, i called them and they said they already shipped it, contact the post office to get the item. HOW THE HELL AM I SUPPOSED TO CONTACT THE P.O TO GET MY PACKAGE IF I DON'T HAVE ANY INFORMATION ABOUT IT? and that was all they can do. They acted like it's not their responsibility if the consumer do not receive the order. Would you like to do business with a company like that? Not me, im done with this.

Don't buy HP laptops! The firm I work for has 4 elitebooks and they are the most unreliable laptops I have ever run across. Just recently I had to replace a hard drive, display and motherboard in an elitebook that was 15 months old. Dealing with HP support (based obviously in India) was a nightmare! I told them that it was extremely important to have these problems fixed ASAP so they said that they would send out a tech with the parts to replace them. Later that afternoon I received the quote from HP for the parts and labor to fix the machine that was still under the parts warranty and it came out to $2400. That's right $2400 to fix a $2300 machine! Needless to say the appointment with the tech was canceled, and it is now four days later and HP has still not come up with a reasonable fix to my problem. Stay away from all HP laptops! Hardware is cheap and unreliable, and customer service is a joke!! You have been warned.

After I contacted HP about a flaky network printer still under warranty,they agreed to replace it with an upgraded model as they had no replacement stock.  
 
They said for $20 bucks extra ,they would ship it 2nd day air and it would be here in 2 days.  
That was the 19th of May and I have received notification that it will be here today.  
 
That 6 days longer than the 2 days they promised (8 days in all)that they charged me 20 bucks extra for.  
 
I called the HP service center and got the usual oh ,so sorry,but I will make a note of it from a Bangalore minion who,as usual,couldn't help.  
 
I have quit recommending HP because of just this type of poor customer service.  
 
This,along with the poor software driver support for their printers and ultra quick obsolescence for hardware,makes their products a very poor buy.  
 
Stick with Lexmark,Brother or Xerox.  
At least those work.

This review was modified by its author, pgm554, on 5/27/10 11:45 AM.

I will never buy another HP product. My Pavilion DV8T arrived with several problems, the most obvious that there was no ?/ key and a duplicate :; key. After about 10 days of use I had compiled a page long list of software problems most of which related to video freezing; Display driver not responding and recovering for no apparent reason; during start-up requiring a check of the file system but never able to complete the task; etc., etc. I called HP before the 21 day return timeframe lapsed and was told to send it in for repair. I highly regret not sending it in for a refund. However, I sent the laptop in for repair and after 10 days received my newly damaged laptop back. Somehow the technician seems to have used a hammer or some other object when repairing the keyboard since I now have several dents in the frame of my laptop just above the keyboard. I'm not sure what other damage may have been done but quality control at HP is clearly non-existent. I called HP and got the run around, finally talking to a case manager who said I could send it in for repair. I said I wanted my money back and I would give them their damaged laptop or I wanted a new laptop. I have no intention of waiting another 10 or more days while they further damage my laptop. Customer Service is a joke - they tell you several times to wait while they check on something and then come back and say the same thing over again. For a company as large as HP I would expect better quality control and better Customer Service.

Awful, rude and unhelpful... I ordered an HP Touchsmart desktop PC, found it was missing some screws right out of the box, and called tech support about it.  
 
I was told that there was nothing that could be done, and that I needed to go to the hardware store and purchase the missing screws myself.  
 
I called back again and reached a different support rep who seemed to be more helpful, and told me that it would be no problem to send the missing screws. He gave me another phone number to call, and also transferred me over to it. The man who answered at this new number asked me what the problem was - I explained the missing screws and he hung up on me.  
 
I called back using the number I was given and was told again that there was no way they could help me with missing screws. I said that this was not an acceptable answer and the rep put me on hold. After 30 minutes, another rep picked up who had no idea what my case was so I had to re-explain everything.  
 
After taking down all of my information, this new rep told me that it would be no problem to send the missing screws. Then he hung up on me.

This review was modified by its author, s2in2l, on 7/15/10 7:04 PM.

I received a HP Photosmart 8150 printer as a gift some time ago. During a move, I lost the box & all of its contents, but I kept the printer, as I had taken it out of the packaging & set it aside. I simply had never gotten around to setting it up.  
 
So, of course, unable to find the remaining cables with which to connect the printer, I viewed HP's website, found their toll-free sales phone number, and called in to talk to someone. I was bounced around 4 times, from sales agents to parts store agents, but I had no problem with this. The 2 different departments each had access to information on 2 different cables that I needed. So far, so good.  
 
I found the parts numbers for everything I needed, but I had one more technical question: Would I BE ABLE TO USE a 3rd cable to enable the USB port on the front of of the printer for print functions, or is data transfer of print documents ONLY possible with the Mini USB port on the rear of the printer? As sales & parts departments weren't "qualified" to answer this question, I was forwarded TO THEIR "TECHNICAL SUPPORT" staff IN INDIA.  
 
Once connected with a man identifying himself as "RAUL"/"RAOUL", I repeatedly tried to ask this very simple question, but was interrupted repeatedly: Name, email address, mailing address, daytime & nighttime phone numbers. Fine. That all took WAY TOO LONG FOR THE OBVIOUSLY SCRIPT-PROMPTED READER to ask.  
 
FINALLY, HE GOT TO THE ONLY QUESTION THAT MATTERS FOR THEIR "TECH SUPPORT" DEPARTMENT: WHAT IS THE SERIAL NUMBER OF THE PRINTER? HE ASKED THIS TO DETERMINE IF THE PRINTER WAS STILL UNDER THE 1 YEAR WARRANTY. WHEN HE FOUND OUT THAT IT WAS OVER 1 YEAR OLD, HE PROMPTLY ENDED THE CONVERSATION, SAYING THAT HE COULD NOT HELP ME, BUT THAT I WOULD "HAVE TO" CONTACT THE ONLINE TECH SUPPORT VIA CHAT INTERFACE. He wasted 10 minutes of my life following moronic prompts, only to refuse EVEN CONSIDERING MY VERY BASIC QUESTION. I hung up, as "ASSISTANCE" was clearly not forthcoming.  
 
I called again, and was lucky enough to speak with THE ONLY SYMPATHETIC "CUSTOMER SERVICE AGENT", who was in their CENTRAL AMERICAN PARTS SHOP DEPARTMENT. This agent did not know the answer to my question of port functionality, but she had me hold FOR 30 SECONDS, asked her supervisor, & GOT THE ANSWER I NEEDED WITH VERY LITTLE FUSS. THAT DEPARTMENT ALSO APOLOGIZED FOR THE LACK OF SYMPATHY, PERTINENCE, & STUPIDITY OF THE INDIAN "TECH SUPPORT" DEPARTMENT, AND HELPED ME FILE A COMPLAINT WITH THE TECH SUPPORT SUPERVISOR. According to the parts shop agents, supervisors from different departments have the authority to do so. Who knows if that will lead anywhere?  
 
BUT THE POINT OF MY STORY IS: TECH SUPPORT WILL MAKE YOU JUMP THROUGH HOOPS, WITH THE PURPOSE OF DETERMINING IF YOU ARE COVERED UNDER WARRANTY. IF YOU ARE PAST WARRANTY COVERAGE, DO NOT EVEN BOTHER CALLING THOSE USELESS SCRIPT-PROMPTED READERS IN INDIA.

This review was modified by its author, FuggHP-TechSuprt, on 4/22/10 7:57 PM.

My HDX16 came with a fre upgrade to Windows 7, one of the reasons I selected it. When it came time to install the upgrade, I ran into a wall. Many of the instructions during the installation simply didn't work. First there was the product key. The instructions said if there was a product code on the underside of the case I should use that one. Didn't work. So I emailed HP tech support. They wrote back that I should enter "the product key which is on the flyer". So, I searched the inserts that came with the disc - no code. Finally found it on the disc sleeve. That is not a "flyer". They just didn't know.  
At the start of the installation process, the install program instructed me to make sure there was a hard-wired network connection. The HP website said to make sure there was NO connection to the web.  
Step 15 told me to "double click the HP Upgrade Assistant icon" which it said was on my desktop. There was no such icon. A message to HP brought back the response that I should load the "HP Manager" disc first. There was no such disc. There was an HP Assistant disc. Their tech support didn't know enough English to know that a "manager" was not an "assistant". In any case, I had already run the disc - it did NOT place ANY icons on my desktop.  
Step 17 said to "Go to www.hp.com/support and install all the HP SoftPaqs for Windows 7". But that page contains a complete list of ALL the drivers available for the HDX going back to 2008! Even though you are required to enter your exact model number to get to the page, there is no way to find out just which updates are needed, nor is there any way to download them as a batch.  
If you search for "SoftPaqs" on the HP site, all you find are numerous references to a BUSINESS version of an automatic updater designed for office installation. There is no other definition of "SoftPaqs" anywhere I could find it.  
My repeated inquiries to tech support for clarification about which updates I needed were met with repeated instructions to go back to the same page of downloads containing every conceivable driver on every HP model. There is apparantly no one at HP tech support and no where written any description of the actual hardware included with the computer and which upgrades are required for smooth operation. There are on the same page downloads for different versions of the SAME drivers!  
And I was not going to just blindly download ALL the drivers (a painstaking process in itself) and try loading all of them, after I had already had trouble with a recommended update to the fingerprint reader that caused it to stop working!  
HP tech support is the worst I've encountered in all my years working with computers, going back to the days of CP/M and 8080 processors and including some 15 years as a systems analyst.  
AVOID HP!!!

Flaky hardware, flaky support.  
 
My HP Envy 15 Notebook computer purchased in December, 2009 developed keyboard problems after one month. HP botched the repair job, damaging the keyboard and a thermal cable and scratched up the nice shiny case. (Doesn't anybody check their work before they ship?) After a month and a half it's on its third trip back. They've already used up 10% of my 1 year warranty with their bungling, and I've barely gotten the software set up.  
 
Calling customer support is an exercise in frustration. They recently stalled a repair because they couldn't reproduce the latest problem (loose touchpad -- how hard can it be?), but they didn't tell me that until I called to find out the status. Did they put me through to the confused technician? No, they routed me to India, where someone wrote down the original problem description again.  
 
Bottom line, the best you can hope to get from HP is the minimum guaranteed by their warranty, which isn't much. Heaven help you if anything goes wrong with an HP product.  
 
Do yourself a favor: avoid HP.  

the worst of the worst, i wish i had seen their very low rating before trying to make a purchase. i have their computer in my home that hasn't been fully operational for even one full 24 hour period. i have spent over 30 hours on the phone with them, i even tried to help them repair it over the phone but to no avail. they have lied repeatedly to me and AMEX and seem to be operating worse than a typical bait and switch electronics store with all of the headgames that they have played! DO NOT buy anything at HP. if you choose to not heed this warning you will be sorry. i am not the typical nitpicky purchaser that is trying out for revenge, i have been abused, lied to, lied about and ripped off. my next step is to file a civil action against them.

Appallingly BAD. I will never order ANYTHING FROM HP ever again! I was on the phone to India for 2 hours and 45 minutes just to get a very simple dead power supply on my desktop rectified. I was ready to pull my hair out at the end of the conversation. Any other company could have solved this problem in 5 minutes. Last time I spent 1 hour and 50 minutes to get a dead hard drive returned and they messed up the return. TRULY TRULY TRULY AWFUL COMPANY! If they pay you to buy their products run for your life.

HP never fails to disappoint. I bought a 4890 about five years ago to work with ab XP Pro computer. I upgraded to a Windows 7 computer but HP doesn't plan to update or upgrade the driver.  
 
In other words, the only thing HP has is a generic driver which disables the main functions and fails to let the original software work for scanning documents, photos, negatives and making copies.  
 
They want you to buy a new scanner. Do much for supporting green computing/technology.  
 
Call tech support or look for help on the HP Web site and you get nada.

This review was modified by its author, newsguygeorge, on 2/4/10 10:57 PM.

They are absolutely HORRIBLE! I ordered a computer online for my husband. There was a mistake in the order (the wrong shipping method was checked). I IMMEDIATELY called them to correct it - imagine my surpise when I was told that a COMPUTER company did not have the capability to correct an order. I would have to cancel the first order and place a new one. They transferred me to the cancellation dept where I was told the 1st order had been canceled. I placed a second - correct - order (big mistake!) The next morning I received ane mail saying that the first oder had been shipped!!!. I called tight away and was assured that I would recieve it in time for Christmas (yeah right - I'm not holding my breath!). However, they would absolutely canel the second order - and they were SO sorry Ihad been inconvenienced. Well, you guessed it - about 3 hours later I get an email telling me that the 2nd order had been shipped! And of course both orders have been charged to my account.  
As I type this - I am on hold waiting to speak to custmer service a 5th time! I can only imagine what their service is like when you need technical help with your computer. - Actually I just hung up on them!