If you purchased this with a credit card, you may be able to use the card's warranty. Many credit cards come with an extended warranty service and dispute resolution/fraud protection as a customer incentive (in addition to their points/frequent flier miles/whatever). Even if this is not covered under your card's extended warranty, talking with your credit card company may allow you get the charges reversed.
Toshiba says they made a mistake but they still cannot help me
61–70 of 200 posts
Re: Toshiba says they made a mistake but they still cannot help me
#62Manuel Diaz is the head of Toshiba Sales & Marketing for Latin America: https://plus.google.com/105717227635873644097/about http://www.linkedin.com/pub/manuel-diaz/4/862/644 Make a nice polite blog post with all of your documentation (including your sales receipt) and then send the link to him.
how about that, a contributor to Google Buzz
Re: Toshiba says they made a mistake but they still cannot help me
#63You probably aren't familiar with how "guarantees" work here in South America, ugh. See companies like Samsung and Toshiba have "certified" stores that "take guarantees" but they are not tied by their parent company, they are privately owned stores that just negotiated with the parent company to use their "sticker". I bought a Phillips shaver and under warranty, the Phillips station wanted me to pay 70% of the cost o…
Yup, that's the case in both Argentina and Brazil too. But then, customer service sucks pretty much at every level. In the US you can buy a product from Walmart, use it for a couple weeks and if you aren't happy with it just return/exchange it (and yes, you get your money back, not some store credit.) Coming from Argentina, I was amazed the first time it worked and felt like I was ripping someone off. After a while I…
Some people do abuse this to rip companies off, to varying degrees; I know some people who treat returns as free rentals, buying something, using it without ever intending to keep it, and then returning it. Some people go even further and steal things and then return them for cash.
But I guess that on the whole, the good customer experience for the honest customers outweighs the cost of fraud.
Re: Toshiba says they made a mistake but they still cannot help me
#64Yet another bad-after-sale-support story. Why is this on HN? If you go stand at any laptop brand service centre, you'll hear 50 such stories everyday.
Because it's good for people to know that Toshiba sucks, so that they can avoid buying their products.
Re: Toshiba says they made a mistake but they still cannot help me
#65I'm sorry to hear that you are having this problem. After buying/selling 10,000+ used laptops (every brand imaginable) over many years, I personally purchase and recommend only Toshiba laptops. Take it for what it's worth.
Really? They consistently seem, in my experience, to have thew worst build quality, and parts die regularly. Ive never seen a single one that had a solid hinge on it after 6 months of use.
My last three laptops, going back to 2004 or so, have all been Toshiba. By and large I've been pleased with the quality and support on all of them. I'm typing this now on super-cheap, low-end Toshiba that I bought as an emergency replacement a year ago (I dropped my other one and busted the screen) and it has been fine. Well, as "fine" as you get when you're running Linux anyway. Almost everything "just worked" out of the box with the only big exception being suspend. If you try to suspend this machine, it bricks it (but you can unbrick it by taking the battery our for a couple of minutes). But hibernate works OK, so I get by with that. Still, for < $400.00 for a 17" widescreen, I'm not complaining.
Re: Toshiba says they made a mistake but they still cannot help me
#66You probably aren't familiar with how "guarantees" work here in South America, ugh. See companies like Samsung and Toshiba have "certified" stores that "take guarantees" but they are not tied by their parent company, they are privately owned stores that just negotiated with the parent company to use their "sticker". I bought a Phillips shaver and under warranty, the Phillips station wanted me to pay 70% of the cost o…
Yup, that's the case in both Argentina and Brazil too. But then, customer service sucks pretty much at every level. In the US you can buy a product from Walmart, use it for a couple weeks and if you aren't happy with it just return/exchange it (and yes, you get your money back, not some store credit.) Coming from Argentina, I was amazed the first time it worked and felt like I was ripping someone off. After a while I…
Not to take Toshiba or the service center in Guatemala's side, but I think you highlight what I would guess is the problem here, which is that when you felt like you were ripping someone off to be able to make such a return, there are many people who would in fact actually rip the store off if they could get away with it. I believe stores in the US have done a good job of putting mechanisms in place to help counter such scammers, but this is likely not true in many other countries. Thus, it's hard for the manufacturer to offer warranties in these other countries.
But that's just a guess, why else would they stop supporting a warranty in Guatemala (at least if their line is true that they actually removed the warranty for this country) other than they'd gotten ripped off there more than their bottom line could handle?
Re: Toshiba says they made a mistake but they still cannot help me
#67You probably aren't familiar with how "guarantees" work here in South America, ugh. See companies like Samsung and Toshiba have "certified" stores that "take guarantees" but they are not tied by their parent company, they are privately owned stores that just negotiated with the parent company to use their "sticker". I bought a Phillips shaver and under warranty, the Phillips station wanted me to pay 70% of the cost o…
Yup, that's the case in both Argentina and Brazil too. But then, customer service sucks pretty much at every level. In the US you can buy a product from Walmart, use it for a couple weeks and if you aren't happy with it just return/exchange it (and yes, you get your money back, not some store credit.) Coming from Argentina, I was amazed the first time it worked and felt like I was ripping someone off. After a while I…
Well honestly the US is too far in the opposite direction. 90 days no questions asked return is nice so you can buy something you -may- need for a project and then return it at your leisure (unopened, in new condition). But OTOH the idea that you can buy something, use it for a few months, and then return it because you're done with it is ridiculous. I know of people who've bought plants at Home Depot to decorate for guests, and then returned them after a month of not watering them! And when you return something that breaks in the middle of using it due to design flaw (so you don't want another), it's annoying to feel that there's no differentiation between you and someone who is scamming.
Re: Toshiba says they made a mistake but they still cannot help me
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yup, that's the case in both Argentina and Brazil too. But then, customer service sucks pretty much at every level. In the US you can buy a product from Walmart, use it for a couple weeks and if you aren't happy with it just return/exchange it (and yes, you get your money back, not some store credit.) Coming from Argentina, I was amazed the first time it worked and felt like I was ripping someone off. After a while I…
Some people do abuse this to rip companies off, to varying degrees; I know some people who treat returns as free rentals, buying something, using it without ever intending to keep it, and then returning it. Some people go even further and steal things and then return them for cash. But I guess that on the whole, the good customer experience for the honest customers outweighs the cost of fraud.
EDIT: My apologies. It looks like I'll need to have a discussion with my friend about this.
Re: Toshiba says they made a mistake but they still cannot help me
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
Some people do abuse this to rip companies off, to varying degrees; I know some people who treat returns as free rentals, buying something, using it without ever intending to keep it, and then returning it. Some people go even further and steal things and then return them for cash. But I guess that on the whole, the good customer experience for the honest customers outweighs the cost of fraud.
EDIT: My apologies. It looks like I'll need to have a discussion with my friend about this.
"This seems impossible. Returns require a receipt. I don't know what you're talking about."
Depends on the store. When I used to be behind a returns desk we'd give store credit (on a gift card) if they didn't have a receipt.
Re: Toshiba says they made a mistake but they still cannot help me
#70You probably aren't familiar with how "guarantees" work here in South America, ugh. See companies like Samsung and Toshiba have "certified" stores that "take guarantees" but they are not tied by their parent company, they are privately owned stores that just negotiated with the parent company to use their "sticker". I bought a Phillips shaver and under warranty, the Phillips station wanted me to pay 70% of the cost o…
Yup, that's the case in both Argentina and Brazil too. But then, customer service sucks pretty much at every level. In the US you can buy a product from Walmart, use it for a couple weeks and if you aren't happy with it just return/exchange it (and yes, you get your money back, not some store credit.) Coming from Argentina, I was amazed the first time it worked and felt like I was ripping someone off. After a while I…
"After a while I got used to the idea that that is how customer service should work."
You can build any system of service and policies you want as long as you account for it in the price of the product or service. Even if customers take advantage of you.
There is an exercise machine (some kind of wonder machine) that costs (from an ad I saw some time ago) about $17,000. [1] [2]
IIRC they give an iron clad mbg. Might even pay the shipping both ways (and actually so do many high end mattress companies). (Sorry don't have time to fully re-read the links that I am giving.
Bottom line is they are tying those consumer friendly policies into the price of the product. So since the cost of the equipment almost certainly pales in comparison to what they sell it for, even taking into account returns, in theory, they still will earn a profit.
[1] I think this is it but I'm not seeing any price info on the page. http://www.fastexercise.com/
[2] http://blog.cleveland.com/health/2009/03/rom_machine_worth_i...