Poor Products, Poor Service
Jun 15 '00
When going off to college, I decided I needed a new computer, and decided to go with a laptop. I also decided to go with a Gateway, hearing that they were superior machines, and the company was known for excellent Customer Service.
So, off to the Gateway Country Store I went, and put $3000 down on a new laptop. I recieved the laptop, went off to school, and the first few weeks went by fine, with no problems at all. Then, my first problem occurred, a minor problem with the screen locking up. To fix it, I had to disable all power settings for when the machine ran on batteries. No biggie, but I had to spend a couple of hours on hold and talking to tech support to fix it.
The second problem was much more drastic. My hard drive crashed. Completely. I had to send the laptop to Texas to have it fixed, which meant I was out a computer for 2-3 weeks, right during midterms. Again, an annoyance, but so far, it had all been free, so no huge worries. I figured such things can go wrong.
Then, the service took a turn for the worst. After having my laptop back from repairs for not even a month, Windows stopped recognizing my CD-ROM drive. Gateway told me to reformat my hard drive. I did, but the same problem continued. I spent several months, e-mailing and talking to Gateway representatives, but none seemed to understand what was going on. I was finally told that my machine was messed up big time, and that I needed to send it in for repairs. This was ridiculous, I could not be without a laptop _again_ and I said, screw it, I'll deal without a CD-ROM drive. 2 weeks later, a software fix was posted on Gateway's website. Was I informed of this? No, certainly not.
The real killer came when, 11 months after having the hard drive replaced the first time, the hard drive crashed again. This time, I was told it was no longer under warranty. It cost me $400 to have the entire thing fixed. Is this normal practice? Should I expect a reputable company to sell me faulty equipment, replace it, and charge me when the replacement equipment goes bad too? I don't think I'm being too unreasonable, as I know that the life span of computer components can be limited, but I think this is ridiculous. Never again will I buy Gateway, and I would advise all who read this to try and stay away.
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Epinions.com ID:
Celesj
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Reviews written: 20
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