Gateway: Poor Customer Service
Mar 20 '00
Please read this if you are considering purchasing from Gateway...
My father decided to upgrade his computer (he had a 386 which may have well been from 1986), after much pushing and prodding by my brother and myself. We got him very excited about being able to connect to the Web, sending e-mail, and being able to conduct more of his business via the Internet. He's over 60 and risk-averse, so this was no easy feat.
So...after much fanfare and price comparison shopping, he selected Gateway.
The computer arrived, and the problems began:
First off, the computer monitor was not electrically grounded, meaning, that when we plugged it in, it sparked and smoked and ruined the CPU, and everything else we had plugged into that circuit (fax/printer machine and cordless phone). We called Gateway and they were actually quite rude about it. "Did you try plugging it into another outlet?" (Um...did I not just say that it was smoking?) My husband, in an attempt to help my father, politely got on the phone with them and explained that he is a tech consultant and had never seen anything like this, and that clearly the equipment was faulty. The customer service rep said "I don't really care to hear about your background..." in a very rude voice and then actually HUNG UP THE PHONE. Unbelievable. Of course, we called back and talked to a supervisor. I don't know if this was because of the holidays and lots of orders coming in from customers or what -- but clearly the customer service people were not in a good mood. As for the fax and the cordless phone that I mentioned, they have a small legal line on their invoice and materials that state that if anything is damaged when it's plugged in that they are not liable for it. So we kissed our $400 goodbye on my dad's business equipment.
So...you would think that we sent the computer back and a nice, working one would show up in its place. Well, you're half right. We sent the CPU and monitor back and new materials arrived. This new monitor was also not electrically grounded (Gateway does NOT manufacture the monitors, by the way -- they are manufactured by a third party). Rather than destroy the CPU again, we plugged it in and there was a weird hum and then it stopped. We plugged it into another outlet and nothing happened. We called customer service and left a message for them since it was after hours. They never called back. So, we called again. More time on our part trying to track these people down...
They finally got it right the third time, but took forever to send us UPS labels to ship back the bad monitor. We called at least two times about getting the UPS labels so that we could return THEIR equipment. And rather than send us the UPS labels, they sent us a nasty note about returning the goods on time. Also very obnoxious.
For the most part, a person could look at my experience and say, that's an isolated incident. But poor customer service, lack of follow through, and damaged goods to me say "Buyer Beware".
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Epinions.com ID:
serinsilva
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Member: Serin Silva
Reviews written: 1
Trusted by: 0 members
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