This is long, and I apologize in advance.
Purchased an eMachines computer for my son this morning from Costco. Purchased a wireless card at Best Buy so we can do all the cool Internet things with the computer included in the "Starter Guide." The sparse documentation didn't reveal how to open the case to install the card, so I went on emachines.com and found live chat tech support. Here's where things take a strange turn.
First the tech guy tries to get me to call their telephone tech support, where there's a charge. When I object, he says I'm welcome to use the three empty slots in the computer, but if I open the tower, I'll void the warranty. (And there's a sticker marked "QA" across the hatch so if I try to get service, eMachines crack repair service (if such a thing exists) will know I disrupted their Quality Assurance Force Field.
Next call is to Costco. Woman gets an eMachines rep on the phone, who tersely says it won't void the warranty. Costco says the conversation was recorded and noted in a file so if indeed there's a warranty issue, it'll be resolved. Happy ending.
Except:
1) You could say I just got a bonehead in tech support. Other companies must have boneheads too who pass on bad info. Probably, but this sucker was first a shill and second a liar. That's about as bad as it gets in tech support.
2) You could say I should have expected a problem like this since eMachines sells the cheapest pieces of crap on the market. Except the whole point of Microsoft's Laptop Hunter ads is to convince people that cheap POS computers should be compared against machines costing twice as much.
Or you could say that no matter what eMachines has to do to keep its costs low, pissing off its customers doesn't make sense. Ugh.
mt
Purchased an eMachines computer for my son this morning from Costco. Purchased a wireless card at Best Buy so we can do all the cool Internet things with the computer included in the "Starter Guide." The sparse documentation didn't reveal how to open the case to install the card, so I went on emachines.com and found live chat tech support. Here's where things take a strange turn.
First the tech guy tries to get me to call their telephone tech support, where there's a charge. When I object, he says I'm welcome to use the three empty slots in the computer, but if I open the tower, I'll void the warranty. (And there's a sticker marked "QA" across the hatch so if I try to get service, eMachines crack repair service (if such a thing exists) will know I disrupted their Quality Assurance Force Field.
Next call is to Costco. Woman gets an eMachines rep on the phone, who tersely says it won't void the warranty. Costco says the conversation was recorded and noted in a file so if indeed there's a warranty issue, it'll be resolved. Happy ending.
Except:
1) You could say I just got a bonehead in tech support. Other companies must have boneheads too who pass on bad info. Probably, but this sucker was first a shill and second a liar. That's about as bad as it gets in tech support.
2) You could say I should have expected a problem like this since eMachines sells the cheapest pieces of crap on the market. Except the whole point of Microsoft's Laptop Hunter ads is to convince people that cheap POS computers should be compared against machines costing twice as much.
Or you could say that no matter what eMachines has to do to keep its costs low, pissing off its customers doesn't make sense. Ugh.
mt