Dear HP,
I would like to share my story of buying an HP laptop direct from HP, I intend to share this story so others may consider what happened to me when theyare considering a purchase of a product from HP. I find it odd that companies in this world still seem think there is an endless supply of customers to buy there products and can contiune to function with treating there customers like trash. Well here is my story, it is truthful and factual I hope it helps in your decision on how to adjust your customer service model and so other people who read this when I post is everywhere possible can understand what will happen if they recieve a defective product from HP.
I recently decided to buy a new laptop and began shopping, since my last laptop was a dell (crashed, failed mother board) I decided to try a new company and avoid a company that uses cheap components. I heard that HPs were reliable and nice from some friends who had HP laptops and I decided to give them a try. The purchase of this product was simple and very efficient, much like you would expect it to be when buying a product. I am web savvy and like many who are I prefer to do most of my shopping online as it tends to be cheaper and you can customize the product that you want. After much research, looking through different models and the customer reviews of such models I decided on the Pavilion DV4t.
The DV4T-1300 to be specific, I customized it upgrading the memory, adding BlueRay, WirelessN, WebCam etc... I was satisfied with my model I paid for it from my Paypal account where I shifted the money to from another bank account. After I purchase this product I checked the order status and noticed it would taker 4 business days to build before shipping I thought this was a little long, but I could understand since I wanted a customized build. I was so excited for my new laptop that I went to the FedEx location to pick it up as soon as it arrived. I get home and start it up. Everything looks nice, from the glossy black finish to the stainless steel mouse pad. I start it up and my stomach drops.... An order I placed on May 4Th and received on May 11Th. was defective. The screen on the bottom right corner was damaged, like someone poking it too hard with there finger yet permanently. It is a minor blemish that is only seen when the laptop is on. There is no physical damage to the laptop other wise. Still I don't want to pay a $1000 for a laptop with a blemish! So I call HP to find out how to fix it. I figured they could just send me a new screen and I could replace it and send back the old screen. I am tech talented and capable of doing so.
I call tech line and explain the problem to the first Rep I talk to he transfers me telling me that I need to talk to another group. I get transfered to customer service where I tell my story again and then she proceeds to put on hold to figure out what to do. She comes back and tells me she will exchange it, send me a label to ship it back and they will send a new one doesn't sound to bad. She tells me to hold on while she sets things up. She also tells me that there is a survey I can take to provide feedback to HP on the call and the product and to ask for the survey at the end of the call. She puts me on hold while she sets up the exchange... Now I don't have problems with any foreigners but one problem I found is that she had an Indian accent and it was difficult for me to follow along with what she was saying. She comes back on the line after holding and tells me that its actually a different process. That they will have to credit me the money back to my Pay Pal account and then they can process the purchase of an entirely new unit and deduct it again from my Pay Pal account... Seems excessive but whatever it takes for me to get my new laptop ASAP right? She then proceeded to tell me that they could get a new one out to me ASAP without a wait for a build if I was to settle for a unit that did not have my customizations. She tried convincing me that I did not need a Blue Ray player and that a normal DVD player should suffice. If I customized it to have a BR player then there was a reason and I tell her I want an exact same build as what I originally ordered, she tells me this will take 5-7 business days to build and send sense it was another customized build. At this point I am about 1 hour into this call and getting frustrated, I mean anytime someone has to sit on a phone for an hour so a rep can figure out how to help you "the customer" exchange a defective product that obviously came defective from the manufacturer (no damage to the box, not even a crease) is going to drive you crazy. I try suggesting that to save time on all sides she just send me a new screen and I can replace it myself and send it back. This is obviously not possible because logic seems to escape all major corporations these days. I give in and say OK what ever it takes send me the label and I will send it back. So she starts putting together the build for the new laptop and and then at the end it becomes clear what she is doing, she wants to debit from my Pay pal account another $1000 for a new laptop that they will start to build, then when they receive the defective one they will credit back to my pay pal account what I owe. This can take any where from 7-10 business days to see a refund... This is absurd. Basically HP wants me to Float another $1000 for their defective product and mistake? You have to be kidding me, not that I don't have another $1000 but that is a huge pain in the ass. I have to transfer money around from various institutions to make it available in Pay pal (sense pay pal is not a primary bank of mine) then I have to put up $1000 dollars for there mistake? I would understand if they would not mail the new laptop until the old is received but to not allow an exchange unless I buy a new laptop from them is crazy. So I say no, let me speak to your supervisor, her supervisor Amber comes on the line and tells me that is the process and there is no other way.
That is when I decide to tell them to forget the new product, I will no longer support HP products and she can just send me an Overnight shipping label so I can get it back to HP ASAP for my full refund. She says OK, ill email it to you and have a nice day. I told her that I would like the opportunity to complete the survey that was offered in the beginning of the call and Amber tells me that is fine and to hold. I hold for a minute or so to only be disconnected.
There customer service is the worst I have experienced, I had a defective dell product once and they sent me the new item and a shipping label to send the old one back once the new one was received. I am completely confused on HP and I officially do not support any of their products due to the way I was treated. If one thing this economic crisis should do is show companies that customer are more important, obviously HP doesn't think so.
Monday, May 11, 2009
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Cash Management
Cash management refers to how you manage your cash or other liquid assets; liquid assets are assets that are immediately accessible. Are there risks to poorly managing your cash? How does one properly manage their cash investments? The first thing we should look at is the risks associated with cash investments.
Cash investing can carry more risks then most understand, 1st is inflationary risk. Inflationary risk is the risk that your money today will be worth less tomorrow with real value. Did you ever hear your grandfather tell you how when he was a child it cost $.05 for a loaf of bread? But today it costs on average $1.59? This is inflation! What you could buy with your money in 1940, bread being $.08 a loaf at the time, now cost 80% more! The historical average inflation in the US is around 3%, while the average cash position returned historically a 3.8% this means that over time if you maintain a cash portfolio your inflation adjusted return would be .8% annually. This truly is terrible for any money that has a long term goal, so make sure that your long term investments are well diversified with a mix of stocks, bonds, and cash.
Another risk with cash investments is the ease at which it can be spent. Since these funds are extremely accessible; being accessible means that it is easy to spend, and when it is easy to spend it can be easy to over spend. Did you know that banks hope you overspend? Most banks will incorporate an overdraft protection on your account. This means that if you accidentally spend more then you have in your account they don't mind covering it on the short term, but they smack you with an average fee of $27 per overdraft. An FDIC study recently released (http://www.fdic.gov/bank/analytical/overdraft/) shows that on average the APR of overdraft loans is 3,520%!! This brought in $37 Billion in revenue for the banking system in 2008!! Some banks will even reorder your transactions from largest to smallest to maximize these returns from there members. For example, lets say you have $100 in your checking account, and you, in this order spend out of your checking account with your debit card; $10, $10, $20 and $80. The $80 put you over your spending limit and if you have a good bank that values its customers this would cost you, $27 on average. If you're using a bank that reorders the day's transactions from largest to smallest, these same transactions would show up on your statement as $80, $20, $10, and $10. This means that your first 2 transactions would hit your spending limit and you would see an overdraft fee of $27 on each of the following 2 more transactions!! Yikes, keeping track of how you spend, when you spend it should eliminate this fee altogether if not teach you about your banks accounting methods. In general if you have a short term cash position, the more liquid the investment, the lower the rate; the less liquid the investment, the higher the rate.
Another risk of cash management is default risk; default risk is the risk that the institution accepting your money, promising to give it back at a rate stated, fails. When a banking institution fails this brings the risk of default as you are relying on this banking institutions ability to pay you back. In general banks, credit unions and brokerage firms are insured by a government sponsored company, to protect you from this type of default, but there are limits to this coverage and not all institutions are members of these guarantee companies. It is important to learn what these limits are at the time of investing, as they can change, and make sure your cash is properly diversified amongst different institutions, in general try to keep less then $100k in cash, per institution.
After looking at some of the major risks associated with cash management, it becomes clear that discipline and organization can save you a lot of money. Learning simple tasks such as balancing your checkbook or using a money management software like, Microsoft Money or Intuit QuickBooks to do it for you will not only save you a lot of your time in managing your cash, but will help keep you organized in knowing what you do spend to help you in avoiding these outrageous fees. When looking at banking institutions you should make sure to review there overdraft policies, this could save you the extra $27 when you accidentally do go over. Try establishing a checking account that is linked to a saving account that way you can cover your own overdrafts without paying the extra fees to the bank if the bank has to cover it for you. When looking to invest your cash, always remember that the higher the rate, the higher the risk and the only truly guaranteed investment currently is considered US treasury investments; try comparing your banks current rate to the national average on bankrate.com. If your bank offers rates below the average it may be more conservative with your money, if wildly over the national average one would question what that bank is investing in to achieve these wild returns. Checking the financial stability of your financial institution can help you in avoiding a default headache (bauerfinancial.com rates banks on an easy 5 star setting).
If you don't know how to balance your checkbook, here is a site I found that gives the basic steps. http://www.ehow.com/how_2299584_balance-checkbook.html
Resources used for this Article.
http://blog.thinkcashfinancial.com/2008/12/fdic-study-highlights-true-cost-bank-overdraft-programs/
http://www.fdic.gov/bank/analytical/overdraft/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Americas Debt-Will we learn?
American Debt. So here we are with Obama in office, looking to pass a stimulus bill for $825 Billion, and as much as I think a stimulus is necessary for the economy to turn around, I just don't feel this type of stimulus is the way to "right the ship". I feel that debt in this country is what leads to this down cycle, and that printing more money and creating more debt is supporting that, which flawed us to begin with! I feel that the volatility we have seen over the past ten years in our markets is due to over-inflation of product (US GDP) with the 2 systematic failures that we witnessed from 99-09 being the prime examples, i.e. the dot-com (“.com”) bubble and the "credit" crises of 2008. These crashes were created by over-inflation of product. The dot-com crash was caused by a few things: super-liquidity creating the illusion of the growth of wealth.
Low interest rates and the liquidity in the financial markets made it easy for "would be .com companies" to "Borrow" money in order to finance ventures that ultimately failed. Most people had good ideas and intentions but lacked important characteristics to be successful entrepreneurs.
see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dot-com_bubble
This is a great article written in 1987 on the subject of debt and economics… Why didn’t we learn here? http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,146120,00.html
Of course, when you have no product or an over-inflated product, the inevitable happens; things collapse eventually. That’s all that debt does... it over-inflates wealth, wealth undeserved. Let’s say you go to a store to buy a $3000 TV but you have no money; so, you sign your name on a line promising on your name to pay it back over-time. Yet, after the 30 days with the TV you lose your job and are unable to continue payments... but you don’t want to give the TV back. So you ignore the calls from the collector and tell yourself it’s going to be OK! Well it’s not going to be OK, you’re about to smash your credit, making it hard for you in the future to do anything that requires a financial loan, because the trust you have built up on your name has been crushed. Hopefully nobody does loan to you again until you rebuild that trust, yet you walk into your local WAMU Bank, and your banker tells you, "You could own a nice house; we'll approve you." You buy a giant house that you can barely afford, and you miss one payment by accident and the bank instantly hikes your rate as a penalty. Then, you can’t keep up with the payments at all, so you start balancing your mortgage and living bills on your credits cards to keep up... This only lasts for so long, then Foreclosure! Here we are in 2009 after the "Mortgage Bubble" popped in 2007, and we witnessed a decline in our economy that was steeper than the great depression from 1929-1939. All because inflation of wealth, wealth that is not there!! Yet, we didn’t learn our lessons; here we are again borrowing money in order to try to rescue this economy from a 20's esq- depression. Come on!! How many times are we going to bang our heads against the wall before we stop!
Ill tell you what is going to happen, they will pass this stimulus bill, maybe a few more, and one of two things will happen. The economy will not correct and our industrialized world will fall into a 10+ year depression. 20-40% unemployment rate, with the majority of people going to their local town halls for food... Sleeping in local schools and buildings set up as shelters to help the entire newly poor survive to survive. This will continue until the government shrinks, becomes smaller and manages its budget properly. Over time as we balance our budget and deficit, things will right themselves and our economy will crawl out of the gutter and back to prominence... This will take decades. The sooner we learn to build on our nation’s strongest natural resource, (INTELLIGENCE-needs better EDUCATION!!) the faster we will return to prominence. There is a reason that financial analysts feel that the Chinese economy is going to overtake the US economy; most feel that will happen by 2020 and some even thought it would happen after the 2008 economic crash, most unlikely. Obama is trying to give hope to people with his charisma; the problem is you can’t give hope to people, you need to inspire it within people, so people achieve greatness on their own … What is hope when not earned? The other thing that could happen is that we do see job losses to job creations balance out a bit, housing prices stop their decline and the debt we put our nation into declines, and we shrug it off! “It’s OK! We’ll pay it off eventually” we say to ourselves. With more tax revenue, possibly, we manage debt slightly better. What happens if this new growth is built on false wealth once again though? So the market turns around in response to the stimulus and we once again get comfortable in our habits as Americans. We don’t learn our lessons and once again we will have to deal with another market crash, maybe a few more; they will happen with more frequency, until the eventual depression happens and we respond responsibly.
So what do we need to learn? What do we do? How do we fix things? We start with basics! We educate, we teach people to be more responsible with their money, learn the risks of credit, when is it ok to use credit and not ok to use it. We teach people how to save and not chase the fancy cars, or nice luxuries. The truth is that only the top % can afford luxury, and we should keep it to the top 10%. Is this unfair? No. You don’t earn it; don’t buy it on false hope. These are the things we need to teach our kids. Yes, this means a slower growing economy at first as we adjust from the pop and crash cycle that we are used to. It will take longer to build up our market economy again, but at the end we would have a more consistent and ultimately more stable economy that is grounded in reality, not fantasy. In another direction, there is no escaping that the government needs to shrink. Spending $3trillion a year needs to be cut by 50%, with the focus of the money that is spent on government directed towards the development of our best natural resource, education! The money that was being spent by our government ultimately gets into the hands of our people and thus the cycle of prosperity begins again but without the deceits of debt! This is our solution whether we like it or not…Now, or later it will happen, because we will learn, because society is progressive.
I’m going to do my part and try to help. I am going to make a push for educating our kids in high school on how to be financially responsible. How to manage cash and balance a check book, how to manage credit and learn about the risks of poor credit management. I am going to try to teach our kids to spend within their means!! I want to inspire a generation of kids to seek to achieve what they want rather than skip on to false hope. I am starting a non-profit that will seek to do this, so that schools will create a specific class that will address what is missing and maybe inspire a stronger focus on education..
Low interest rates and the liquidity in the financial markets made it easy for "would be .com companies" to "Borrow" money in order to finance ventures that ultimately failed. Most people had good ideas and intentions but lacked important characteristics to be successful entrepreneurs.
see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dot-com_bubble
This is a great article written in 1987 on the subject of debt and economics… Why didn’t we learn here? http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,146120,00.html
Of course, when you have no product or an over-inflated product, the inevitable happens; things collapse eventually. That’s all that debt does... it over-inflates wealth, wealth undeserved. Let’s say you go to a store to buy a $3000 TV but you have no money; so, you sign your name on a line promising on your name to pay it back over-time. Yet, after the 30 days with the TV you lose your job and are unable to continue payments... but you don’t want to give the TV back. So you ignore the calls from the collector and tell yourself it’s going to be OK! Well it’s not going to be OK, you’re about to smash your credit, making it hard for you in the future to do anything that requires a financial loan, because the trust you have built up on your name has been crushed. Hopefully nobody does loan to you again until you rebuild that trust, yet you walk into your local WAMU Bank, and your banker tells you, "You could own a nice house; we'll approve you." You buy a giant house that you can barely afford, and you miss one payment by accident and the bank instantly hikes your rate as a penalty. Then, you can’t keep up with the payments at all, so you start balancing your mortgage and living bills on your credits cards to keep up... This only lasts for so long, then Foreclosure! Here we are in 2009 after the "Mortgage Bubble" popped in 2007, and we witnessed a decline in our economy that was steeper than the great depression from 1929-1939. All because inflation of wealth, wealth that is not there!! Yet, we didn’t learn our lessons; here we are again borrowing money in order to try to rescue this economy from a 20's esq- depression. Come on!! How many times are we going to bang our heads against the wall before we stop!
Ill tell you what is going to happen, they will pass this stimulus bill, maybe a few more, and one of two things will happen. The economy will not correct and our industrialized world will fall into a 10+ year depression. 20-40% unemployment rate, with the majority of people going to their local town halls for food... Sleeping in local schools and buildings set up as shelters to help the entire newly poor survive to survive. This will continue until the government shrinks, becomes smaller and manages its budget properly. Over time as we balance our budget and deficit, things will right themselves and our economy will crawl out of the gutter and back to prominence... This will take decades. The sooner we learn to build on our nation’s strongest natural resource, (INTELLIGENCE-needs better EDUCATION!!) the faster we will return to prominence. There is a reason that financial analysts feel that the Chinese economy is going to overtake the US economy; most feel that will happen by 2020 and some even thought it would happen after the 2008 economic crash, most unlikely. Obama is trying to give hope to people with his charisma; the problem is you can’t give hope to people, you need to inspire it within people, so people achieve greatness on their own … What is hope when not earned? The other thing that could happen is that we do see job losses to job creations balance out a bit, housing prices stop their decline and the debt we put our nation into declines, and we shrug it off! “It’s OK! We’ll pay it off eventually” we say to ourselves. With more tax revenue, possibly, we manage debt slightly better. What happens if this new growth is built on false wealth once again though? So the market turns around in response to the stimulus and we once again get comfortable in our habits as Americans. We don’t learn our lessons and once again we will have to deal with another market crash, maybe a few more; they will happen with more frequency, until the eventual depression happens and we respond responsibly.
So what do we need to learn? What do we do? How do we fix things? We start with basics! We educate, we teach people to be more responsible with their money, learn the risks of credit, when is it ok to use credit and not ok to use it. We teach people how to save and not chase the fancy cars, or nice luxuries. The truth is that only the top % can afford luxury, and we should keep it to the top 10%. Is this unfair? No. You don’t earn it; don’t buy it on false hope. These are the things we need to teach our kids. Yes, this means a slower growing economy at first as we adjust from the pop and crash cycle that we are used to. It will take longer to build up our market economy again, but at the end we would have a more consistent and ultimately more stable economy that is grounded in reality, not fantasy. In another direction, there is no escaping that the government needs to shrink. Spending $3trillion a year needs to be cut by 50%, with the focus of the money that is spent on government directed towards the development of our best natural resource, education! The money that was being spent by our government ultimately gets into the hands of our people and thus the cycle of prosperity begins again but without the deceits of debt! This is our solution whether we like it or not…Now, or later it will happen, because we will learn, because society is progressive.
I’m going to do my part and try to help. I am going to make a push for educating our kids in high school on how to be financially responsible. How to manage cash and balance a check book, how to manage credit and learn about the risks of poor credit management. I am going to try to teach our kids to spend within their means!! I want to inspire a generation of kids to seek to achieve what they want rather than skip on to false hope. I am starting a non-profit that will seek to do this, so that schools will create a specific class that will address what is missing and maybe inspire a stronger focus on education..
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