"Deskjet 3820 purchased in March 2003 and failed in October 2003. HP cutomer "support" is an exercise in phone menu do-loops. HP warrants its products for a year after purchase, but try to get a claim settled. Four calls have not put me into contact with anyone who authorize a refund or repair.

This the fourth HP deskjet that has failed in the last five years. The normal failure is two months after the year is over. Somehow, the "failure timer" didn't wait until the year was over.

I think I will switch to Epson or Canon for the replacement."

"When trying to order upgrades for my HP notebooks, I was sent desktop DIMM memory modules rather than notebook SODIMM memory modules. Incompetant."

"HP is no doubt the worst of the worst company I have dealt with in the world. The brand new laptop I bought from HP died suddenly in two months. I spent more than two hours to reach the technical support. HP promised to pick up the laptop on 9/10/03. Nobody showed up. Then I had to emailed them lots of times, and got meaningless reply from their customer supoort. I faxed them, no reply.

Finally, I decided to call again. The phone call was transfered from one department to another, and was hanged up four times. After 6 transfers and two hours's waiting, it was returned to the first department I called!

I gave up and my wife decided to call them. After more than three hours painful calling, finally get somebody can say something about it. He said that he will arrange to pick up the laptop again. Now what? I am still waiting!!!!!!!!

Which company in the world can treat customers like that?
"

"MAIL IN REBATE WARNING:

This complaint is directed to the Attorney General for the State of Washington, The Attorney General for the State of California, The better business bureau of Cupertino, CA and The Federal Trade Commission of the United States.

I am writing regarding HP Shopping.com and their mail-in rebate program.

In December of 2002 I purchased an HP Pavilion ze4000 series note book PC from HP Shopping.com, the terms of purchase include a $100 mail-in rebate. I have come to believe that there is a deliberate and systematic attempt on the part of HP to frustrate the rebate redemption process by making the process as difficult and convoluted as possible and then by denying legitimate claims that are submitted correctly and are complete.

I believe these tactics fraudulently induce a substantial number (perhaps hundreds of thousands) of consumers to purchase HP’s products by offering attractive discounts, with HP knowing full well that most consumers will not be able to benefit from them as they are not able to fulfill the unreasonable requirements for obtaining the rebate, and even if they do their rebate applications will still be rejected.

The tactics I refer to include:

The requirement to return a copy of the original “invoice” along with a rebate application form. However, the product is shipped without an invoice and there is no mention made of the specific requirements and procedures for obtaining the rebate. I contacted HP shopping customer service several times regarding the rebate before I learned that I had to find and download the rebate application form myself from an obscure place on their web site. They referred me to HP shopping’s policy, available on their site’s rebate FAQs section, which specifically permits the use of an “HP transaction record”, which can be printed from their web site, to satisfy the invoice requirement for rebate submissions. However, they then reject rebate applications as incomplete when the “transaction record” is included as the proof of purchase.

There is a requirements to return the ORIGINAL UPC bar code for the product which is glued to the front of the shipping box with the paper perforated in such a way that any attempt to remove it would result in the destruction of the document – therefore the UPC must be carefully cut off the box. I would imagine that many consumers inadvertently destroy the document while attempting to remove it, not realizing that it is specifically designed NOT TO BE REMOVED. Additionally, I believe most consumers likely do not keep their boxes for weeks afterwards – which is exactly when they realize they need them having located the rebate request form. (HP explicitly notes on their site that they will not replace or accept rebates that are missing the UPC codes.)

The rebate claim form and accompanying documentation must be submitted within 45 days of the date of purchase. Although the product is often not actually received for several weeks from the “date of purchase” as it is made to order. Therefore the consumer could not submit the required documentation at time of purchase, which is when most people are aware of the rebate, as it requires receipt of the product. This strategy serves to further diminish the already small time window available for redemption and the likelihood that a consumer would again discover a rebate was available.

In my case, I submitted my rebate request, along with the required “transaction record” showing the invoice detail, to the HP rebate center by registered mail on January 21st, 2003. I received a rejection letter, dated March 3rd, 2003, along with the return of my rebate application and supporting documentation. The letter advised me that the rebate request was incomplete and could not be processed due to my failure to enclose an “invoice” for the purchase.

I have contacted a supervisor at the company and at their request have resubmitted the originally filed “transaction record”. They are unable to confirm that this will be acceptable or if they will even process my rebate request. I am filing a dispute with my credit card company and am prepared to pursue redress in small claims court should HP fail to satisfy their obligations under the rebate program.

It absolutely amazes me that these rebates are only available for consumers purchasing products through HP’s web site, HP already has in their possession all the information they require a consumer to submit in order to obtain the rebate. I can see no business reason for them to impose these requirements and therefore must conclude that this is a deliberate and calculated attempt to defraud their customers.
"

"Motherboard failure on hp Pavilion 531w at 11 months. Hp sent replecement, but not without me providing them with my credit card number. They sent me a "remanufactured" computer that has the A drive installed in sideways. They couldn't have checked this computer out or "remanufactured" it without seeing the problem before they sent it to me! Now they want me to give them my credit card number again before they will agree to send me another computer. In the mean time, I am out of a computer and who knows how much they will charge my card for a defective computer. Calling them only gets me to someone who doesn't speak English very well and sounds like a pre-recorded tape stating they can do nothing (even though my computer is under warranty) until I give them my credit card number again. I will never buy another hp product and will discourage everyone I meet from purchasing their products!"

"I have tried to place an order for laptop online and it generated an error. When I called to place an order through the customer service, their system bounced the order again. After 2 weeks and many hours on the phone with HP and credit card company verifying my information on a three-party calls, several attempts to replace the order and HP promises to compensate the inconvenience with a free carrying case it became clear that their system would not let my order through and they have no control over it. In the end, a manager (Mike C., 18889994747, extension 63562) told me to go shop elsewhere. It was the most offensive customer service I have ever experienced in my life. In addition, a payment of over $1500 has been charged to my credit card account for over a week. "

"In October of 2000, I drove to visited my local CompUSA, in need of a computer. Their advertisements that day included a Hewlett-Packard 6745c Desktop computer with the following specifications: 700mhz Celeron, 64mb RAM, 20gb HD, Integrated AGP GFX. I thought this would be a good deal and good idea for a computer. Unfortunately, this has been one of the worst mistakes I have ever made. The purchasing price came to a total of about $1300 with the only upgrade being a Viewsonic monitor (BTW, this monitor has given me NO problems whatsoever, highly recommended). Of course after about 200 bucks in mail-in rebates, the price in the end SHOULD have been 1100. Well guess what? I sent off my rebates and I called them up about 4 months later and ask them where the hell my rebate is. The only thing they told me was "Sorry, but we can't send it out after July 28." The day I called was around August 2nd. Still haven't received any rebates from them. As for the computer itself, it has been nothing but trouble. The Celeron contains a 66mhz FSB (That's slower than a Pentium II), the RAM is extremely low, and worst of all, the mobo doesn't have an AGP slot. After a few months of having the computer, I decided maybe I should try an overclock, since I heard Celerons are very good with overclocking. Overclocking however requires a mobo manual or at least knowledge of where the jumper cables are for your CPU. What a suprise, there is no motherboard manual for my comp, so I contact HP. They reply by telling me that I can't get a motherboard manual. So I asked them what kind of motherboard I have. They tell me I have Cognac mobo. Never heard of Cognac before, maybe that's why it sucks so much? Well I ended up having to ask them where my jumper cables are. It turns out my computer doesn't have jumper cables, it has an internal CPU clock, so the overclocking is out of the question. Now for the upgrades. That christmas (2000) my brother purchased me a 32meg TNT2 M64 PCI card due to my uber slow "Integrated AGP graphics". I get a nice increase in FPS in most games, but it is still nearly impossible to run the games I want to. Then in May I bought 128megs of RAM which rounded out to 192megs. Nice improvement, but still not a nice computer. Installing both of these was rathers simple. OK, now I've got all my upgrades, but I continue to have problems. The power supply is 100 watts...yes...100 watts. The power supply broke 1 year after purchase, so I had to run my computer with my case open (Not very good, lets dust get inside the computer), but I had to do it because I couldn't afford a power supply at the time. Also a major problem was sudden shut downs of my comp during hardware consuming use. I.E: Gaming. Then I purchased Grand Theft Auto III, but it wouldn't run so I went out and bought me a GeForce4 MX420 PCI. It ran, but runs very slowly. Then people tell me to upgrade my RAM. I bought 512megs of RAM in one stick and wow, it doesnt work! Suprised? Didn't think so. I returned the RAM, figuring out that the problem was I needed two 256 meg sticks instead of 1 512. So I bought 1 256meg stick to upgrade to 384. Hardly any difference whatsoever. And this is crucial.com memory (Top of the line). And now a new problem has arose, my computer now loves the idea of sudden lock-ups. Some last as short as 3 seconds, some completely lock up my computer.

Within the end of the year, I will take this computer and most likely burn it, throw it out my window, throw it out my trunk when driving down the interstate, all due to the fact that this damn thing gave me SO MANY HEADACHES.

So end specs are as follows:

384mb RAM 256+128
700mhz Celeron 66mhz FSB
64meg GeForce4 MX420 PCI (Upgraded from a 32meg TNT2 M64 PCI, which also was upgraded from an intergrated AGP card.)
20GB HD.

I can barely run Battlefield 1942.
I can barely run GTAIII
I get 30fps in Half-life online in 800x600. Sometimes slows down to 15.

Flight Simulator 2002: 10fps fastest, 4-6 fps normally. Detials turned to medium.

In other words: Plese take a hint from this review, and DONT get ONE!"

"Very reliable seller and product, however, ordering off the website is somewhat inconvenient."