I bought an HP laptop through Fry's in the summer of 2007. Although it was refurbished, I was assured that it had been passed through numerous quality tests and was as good as new.
Within a week of bringing it home, the primary hard drive began clicking, a sign of hard drive failure. I took it back to Fry's, where they told me they'd send it back to HP for repairs. I got it back a week or two later, with them telling me that there was nothing wrong and attempted to charge me $99 for diagnostics (I refused to pay; they did not disclose the fee on the paperwork given to me).
Over the last three years, I had to replace the hard drive (which had a loose piece inside!), the battery lasts no longer than ten minutes, the optical drive only works intermittently, and it's constantly overheating.
However, the straw that broke the camel's back was in May 2010 when I went to unplug the cord from the laptop. The rubber part stayed in my hand, but the metal plug stayed in the computer. There was melted solder all over the metal plug, and the inside of the rubber where the plug once was had visible damage.
Although out of HP's paltry 90 day warranty, I contacted HP seeing if they would offer me some sort of discounted adapter (retail through HP is $90). After dealing with support for three hours and getting disconnected numerous times, I was finally given a case number and told a case manager would call me within 24 hours. I let them know the hours I would be available. The tech also told me that the case manager would most likely issue me a free adapter.
The next day, I received a call from HP, but outside of my availability time. Perplexed as to why they would call at a time I distinctly said I wasn't available. I called back later and was forced to slog through the entire phone tree, give my s/n and p/n to two representatives, even though I had an existing case number, and found that they had entered some of my information wrong the night before.
I finally got another call from a case manager later that day. Roy (who would not give me an ID number, but said he was the "end of the line…there is nobody above me") called me, and I explained my issue, saying that I was displeased that HP had sold me a product that had parts melting.
Roy interrupted me several times to tell me that "HP did not sell [me] that laptop", that Fry's did. I said "Okay, but HP made it." Roy responded, "no, HP did not make it, an outside company did". I asked him why my laptop had HP branding, logo, and software, and he repeated "HP did not make it". He told me I could buy an adapter for $90 but they could do nothing else for me.
I mentioned to Roy that the previous tech had said it was likely I would get a free adapter, and Roy said that that didn't surprise him and the CSR most likely lied to get me off the phone. I asked why HP CSRs would lie and why he was okay with that, and he said that the CSRs are wont to do that. His lack of surprise at this was disturbing.
He then proceeded to say that what I had bought was "garbage", and then when I expressed dismay at that, he insisted that I was the one that had called it garbage, and not him. He said "those were YOUR words, ma'am". I had said my laptop was useless to me now since the power adapter was melted, but I never called it garbage.
Again, Roy absolved himself and HP of any responsibility for the laptop, going so far as to say that HP did not make it, even though they have the serial number stored in their system.
I ended up buying an adapter from Buy.com. I got another call today from Mary at "Executive Customer Relations" who left a message saying that HP did not carry the part (untrue) and she recommended I google for it.
I am the computer go-to person in my circle of family and friends, and while I really loved HP products before, the quality of the products has gone severely downhill, and the CSR quality is absolutely horrible. I will never recommend another HP product. I am disgusted with their shoddy service and their complete inability to take accountability for their product.