This summer I got a job at a company that sells computer networks and tech support to businesses, my job was fixing the PCs that weren't worth their time to talk to tech support about. Over the summer I called Compaq and many other OEMs several times under the business partner account, all of them quickly ending with them sending me replacment parts under warranty.

Then today I go over to a friend's house. She has a Compaq Presario 6000 with an Athlon XP processor. The computer wouldn't boot and the HDD made a very loud clunking noise, so I thought "easy fix, I'll just have her call and get a new HDD from Compaq. They got the computer in June so it's still under the 1-year hardware warranty."

Wrong.

She calls them, gets a guy that hardly speaks english, and tells them the problem. They have her read off the serial number, then the guy tells her that it isn't under the 1-year warranty! I'm sitting next to her, and hearing this I pick up the phone. I state my name, and then explain the problem. He tells me he can't help because it is out of warranty.

At this point I'm pretty angry, and tell him that I can't be out of warranty because the Athlon XP processor has hardly been AVAILABLE for a year! After hearing this the guy asks "You know computers?", and I respond "Yes, that's my job". He then gives up on the warranty issue and had me run through the regular hardware tests.

The computer won't boot becasue of the bad HDD, so he has me go into the BIOS. The BIOS takes a few minutes to load because it is trying to communicate with the broken HDD. The tech support guy cannot grasp this concept and insists that it is a software problem and therefor not under warranty. Then the BIOS loads, proving the guy wrong once again. It says that there is no HDD present, which I then tell the tech support guy.

He is finally satisfied that it is a HDD problem, and tells me that I have to take it to Radio Shack to get fixed.

Now, I explain that usually they just send me parts and I install them. He says that I have to bring it to Radio Shack. Then I explain that the warranty booklet specifically says that they can send me parts to install. He says that I have to take it to Radio Shack and have them fix it. I agree and hang up the phone.

I hope you enjoyed my rant, please feel free to comment or add your own experiences. If your going to ask why I didn't ask to speak with a supervisor, then please, read this: http://www.bbspot.com/News/2002/10/supervisor.html