Extended Worries

17th October, 2007     WTF,

At the beginning of 2006, I purchased a Acer Aspire 1694, and an extended warranty for 2 years, thru Dick Smith Electronics, which is handled by Prestige Protection.

I had to put in a claim once before, within a few months of owning the laptop, about a faulty fan, which was rectified in no time, as it was under the manufacturers warranty. This was repaired by their approved repairer, Highpoint. At the end of it all, I was impressed with the turn around and service, to fix a small problem.

Now of late, the fun has started to have the same symptoms as before (I'm guessed that the fan isn't as great as it should be), and has started making a lot of noise when it spins up.

So the other day, I rang the extended warranty company and filed a claim. They gave me a claim reference, and noted that all I had to do, was to drop it off at the same company again, Highpoint, and quote the claim and it would be taken and inspected and they would get back to me if it would be covered.

Well today, leaving the organising of dropping it off to my mum, she rang them just to find out what time they were open, as to not miss them.

On calling, the number provided by Prestige, it was a number for Highpoint, but more so someone's desk phone. They were great and transferred her to the right place, where she spoke to a person who noted that in order to lodge the laptop, that a Job ID would need to be obtained, and this can be obtained via Acer Technical Support. After explaining that the Claim ID had been provided by the Extended Warranty company, and that the laptop was more than 1 year old, it wasn't covered by the manufactueres warranty, the CSR representative agreed to create a Job ID for her, but would not be covered under any warranty, instead would be charged and invoiced to her. Knowing that this is not the case, with the notes that I had left her. She rang me to ring them. After I spoke to them, no one else was none the wiser, and I suggested that with the Extended Warranty documents in hand, ring Highpoint again, and note which company had provided it, and get them to look it up, as they must have some information about that companies extended warranty account. Again, she was told that it was irrelevant, and that she should ring Prestige.

On phoning prestige again, they reiterated what had originally been told. That the Claim ID was all that was needed, and just note that it was a claim from Prestige under extended warranty.

Fed up of being tossing back and forth on the phone, she went down, with warranty, laptop and all other details to Highpoint, to find out what the matter was. The staff member on the desk, again, had no clue what this Claim ID was, and how it related to the them, and was unwilling to deal with anything. So while, at Highpoint, Prestige was called again, to note that Highpoint was refusing to accept the laptop with that Claim ID, because it had no Job No. In the end, on my mum's mobile, the Highpoint staff member spoke to Prestige, and they worked out in the end, that while the documents from Prestige were sent to the right place email address, Highpoint had no reference, because the email address in question, could not be addressed, or seen by anyone except service staff. And thus, they would not accept the laptop, because they had no indication of who would be paying for the laptop service, or where to send the invoice.

Finally thinking they had made a breakthrough, the Highpoint staff member created a Job ID, relevant to the Claim from Prestige, and started to process.

Now, I should note that before I sent the laptop off, I backed up and wiped any files that I had on there, formatted, and installed Ubuntu on the laptop. When I did so, I created a user/pass combination that I couldn't remember. I was under the full expectation that when I got the laptop back, I would be formatting and reinstalling again in any case, because I really don't trust my documents or that with anyone else.

And this is where it gets interesting. Highpoint who by now had the computer turned on to see what the problem was, and that, noted that the screen was "black" for a long time during boot, and considered that this may be a problem with the laptop (It's actually unrelated to anything, I noticed this as soon as I installed the latest Ubuntu, that it wouldn't display the fancy graphics on boot, but instead nothing - Gentoo didn't do this). But this is a fair point. It can easily be misconstrued.

It was about this time that I got a phone call from my mum again, who shocked me with the information that they are after. They wanted to know the username and password to log into the system. Now, sure, if the error was software, I could understand that they would want to log into the system. But no, it was the fan. Part of the Hardware. Part that had been replaced already once! After nothing this to her, they were still ademant they wanted the password. And as noted before, I cannot recall what password I put on the system, but the laptop will make the noise without the need. I said if they really want, format the computer and install something else - there is nothing on it that needs to be - but there is nothing wrong with the software.

The only valid reason I can see they need to get into the system, is so run some intensive application, to cause the CPU to heat and the fan to activate. But then this isn't even neccesary, as the system still gets warm, even without going much.

Finally they took the system in, to be looked at, and in their benefit, said that they may even replace the case near the hinge, as it is starting to crack (go plastic). But that was only after forms were signed that it was okay to format the HDD and that, so they dont get into shit.

For some reason I can see that they are going to charge for the format/installation of Windows or whatever crap they put on. Which will then cause me to go down and complain a bit more myself.

It's times like this, that Dell actually look good when it comes to after sales service/warranty issues.