10ninox/_posts/2008-06-19-shopping-at-hpshoppingcom-experience.markdown

layout	status	published	title	author	wordpress_id	wordpress_url	date	date_gmt	categories	tags
post	publish	true	shopping experience @HP Home Store	[{display_name } {login } {email } {url }]	178	http://blog.10ninox.com/2008/06/19/shopping-at-hpshoppingcom-experience/	2008-06-19 14:28:05 +0700	2008-06-19 19:28:05 +0700	[service]	[]

You may wonder why I have to write (or complaint? or comment?) about this; please keep reading you'll know why eventually. I was going to place an order for HP Pavillion tx2500z with a $500 off coupon; The deal was eventually $903 free shipping with max out everything possible but RAM which I can grab somewhere else. For this machine, I expected so high after very good comment from almost everywhere to its predecessor--tx2000, we'll see how good it is soon. At least I could use this one while my Thinkpad X61 Tablet is gone in a wild (sadly to think about that :'() if it comes before X61T can find the way home. Well [get back to the topic], the problem that shouldn't happen start right after I clicked SUBMIT this order.

Everyone who use PayPal debit card might encounter this problem--card declined--as regular basis. There is no reason underneath and PayPal folk couldn't give me a good answer as well since it was randomly. Yes, fortunately it happened on this order. HP had sent me an notification e-mail letting me know that I had to drop them a line solving the issue. Sounds normal, doesn't it? Yes. I called them and gave them a new card which is not PayPal one. Then it shouldn't be any problem anymore. Basically, I used to call Dell many times solving exactly the same problem; Dell rep could give me a result right away whether a card was approved or not. But, oddly HP rep couldn't give me that info, just told me to wait for a further info via e-mail. At that time, I usually say goodbye and hang up. Luckily, I had a doubt about this order, so that I asked him how much the total was, just for sake of confirmation. His answer made me really pissed, "$14xx."

Well, I suddenly asked how it could be like that? since my order was only $903. He answered without hesitation that he couldn't use the coupon repeatedly in the same account. Dude? I asked him why you had to create a new order then? because I called to fix the problem, not created a new problem. Thus, I asked him for a solution. He answered that I had to wait for the item arrived, then call HP customer care to credit $500 back. It shouldn't be a problem. {In my mind, surely it's not yours, but it's definitely MY PROBLEM.} I again asked him to cancel the order right away. He rejected mine momentarily and gave a non-sense answer that since he pressed SUBMIT an order, he couldn't change anything before the credit card validation was over. {How sucking is the process!!} So I decided to let it go and wait for refund credit later..

With a frustrating mood, I had to double-check in HPshopping.com how my order was. It was $1442!!! I never thought if this amount at all. At the time I was listening to what he said, only fourteen... it made me very pissed already. This was not only does he place a new order w/o coupon, but he decided making this order two business days shipping instead of free shipping without any permission also. I couldn't even understand how HP rep was so ****. I picked the phone calling them immediately and needed a clarification so badly. It was a lady that picked my call; when I told her about my problem, instead of telling me about the solution, she talked about "HP Pavillion tx2500z was the newest one HP really recommended.. blah blah blah." I ask her I knew that and what about my problem. She asked me back whether I would like to answer the survey blah blah blah.. {Sometimes too much like this made customer very angry, do you realize this HP?} I repeated my question again, and this time it worked. Her answer was the same as previous rep, but she told that $39 shipping was not refundable. Thus she recommended that if I insisted to cancel the order I had to wait until the credit validation was over, then I could do cancellation. This made me a bit happier that I could cancel. So I decided to make another order--for $903 via the web with another account again and would cancel the $1442 order on the first moment I could.

a day later, $1442 order was canceled and the last order seemed to be processing smoothly. But maybe I really had a bad luck recently. HP called me to verify my phone number on billing address; {I never had this problem before since I had 2 phones on my family plan which I and my girlfriend use} probably I put the one that HP doesn't like since I put my phone number randomly every time I purchased stuffs online and surely there is no problem ever. {perhaps NewEgg is the only place that all processes are soo fast, smoooth, and flawless.} However, HP rep couldn't give me an answer if the order went thru or not again. HP rep just told me to wait for a notification e-mail later. Next few hours, they called me again {yet no e-mail} to verify the shipping address if it was right since my shipping and billing address are not the same. This time rep could give me that my order was accepted and would ship soon. It likes taking a trouble out of my head completely when I listened to that.

Ultimately, all problems were solved while it in fact should never be a problem at all. I don't know if your experience purchasing with HP was like mine or not. But one thing I could tell, buying from HPshopping.com & HP tel are such a mess. I probably avoid as much as possible. Don't get me wrong that I don't like them to double-check everything, but about placing a new order with different price and configuration (+shipping) themselves (not customer's one) is what I really concerned. In other words, some HP rep sucks indeed, please be aware.

note: I really don't expect 10ninox blog to be like a place to complaint any bad service, but sometimes I can't resist writing it.