"I am very frustrated with HP," wrote one reader. "I purchased a $300-plus accidental damage protection plan along with my new HP Pavilion laptop about a year ago. A few weeks ago the backlight on my screen died, so I called HP and was told to send it in." The reader was pleased that they would agree so readily to fix the problem, but was less than happy when the machine was returned with a crack in the casing and a distorted display. After calling a series of increasingly unsympathetic techs, he was finally told that HP considered the laptop repaired and would not fix it again. "I asked why, as I had the accidental damage protection plan, they wouldn't fix it and he simply told me that it was in fine condition and rushed to get me off the line. How does he know what condition - he can't see it."

The reader ultimately had to contact HP corporate headquarters in order to get his laptop repaired a second time. "I called there and explained that I had a bad customer service experience and they connected me with a senior technician," the reader wrote. "I finally got to talk to speak with someone who was helpful and, unlike the previous technicians, would actually share his name." The reader sent the laptop in again and received it back in a week. "When I powered it up, however, I was greeted by a blue screen. Not a Windows error screen but rather just a blue screen."

Finally, the reader was referred to a "special" number where it was arranged for him to have the laptop display replaced. "Don't you think that HP should invest some more money in making sure their service center does things right the first time?" the reader wondered after he finally got his laptop fixed. "Just for their own good, because they have sure wasted a whole lot of money on the overnight shipping they've had to pay for three times, not to mention all the time their call centers have wasted trying, or not trying, to help me."

Another reader who had paid for an accidental damage protection plan had a problem of a very different sort. "I purchased a Compaq Presario laptop in April 2004 and also an HP Care Pack with an accidental damage warranty," the reader wrote. "This warranty was due to expire in mid April this year, so before it expired I went the HPshopping.com and purchased a new Care Pack for $99. Three weeks later, I received the card back in the mail with a post-it note attached reading 'Only One Care Pack per unit - please return for credit.' I thought OK, my mistake, and returned the card. That was in early May. Three months later I still have not received the credit."

The reader just wanted HP to either credit him back the $99 or give him the warranty he had paid for, but he was completely unable to get them to do either. "I placed a call to HP Total Care inquiring about the credit," the reader wrote. "They told me that HPshopping.com would have to issue it. I called HPshopping.com and was told that since this was an issue with a warranty, HP Total Care was the only authority who could provide a refund." In late July the reader managed to break through this circle by getting his case escalated to a customer service case manager who said he would iron out the problem and call him back.

By the end of August, the case manager had still not called back or responded to the reader's messages. At that point, I contacted an HP public relations representative and asked if someone could please look into the reader's situation. He was soon contacted by HP Corporate and told that they would re-issue the Care Pack and he'd have a full year starting from September 1. While he was pleased to finally get his warranty, he certainly hopes after this experience that he won't have to use it. "In the last few weeks I had made a dozen calls to the case office and left half a dozen messages, sometimes having to wait 25 minutes before even getting connected to a voice mail box. So thanks for your assistance, because it seems I literally couldn't have done this without you."

A third reader got even more experience with HP's hold times. "I have a Compaq desktop that is less than two years old, bought after Carly made it an HP product," the reader wrote. "The motherboard recently went bad, so I ordered a replacement from HP Parts. I was assured the part was in stock and would ship the next business day." When there was no order update by the next week, he called HP Parts and had the first of many spent-ten-minutes-on-hold-due-to-high-call-volume experiences while trying to find out when the motherboard would ship. By the next week, the order status showed that the unit had shipped and his credit card charged, but no unit arrived and the tracking number proved invalid. "When I called HP Parts, the rep said I would have to call to 'post-shipping' and transferred me to another number where I got to wait on hold," the reader wrote. "The post-shippping rep said the part had been scanned but not shipped, but he was going to ship it over night. Yeah, right. It didn't arrive."

The reader alternately called HP Parts and the post-shipping department over the coming days, always having to wait at least the requisite ten minutes and often getting disconnected. When he did get through, some of the discussions were surreal. "One time the post-shipping rep said the part had been overnighted, but hadn't shipped," the reader said. "The HP Parts rep then tried to tell me the motherboard was being custom built for me." Finally, three weeks after he'd ordered the motherboard for overnight shipment, his request was escalated to someone who actually shipped it.

The reader sums up well what all the HP gripers feel about the runaround they received. "HP is a company that apparently is no longer in control of its various pieces," he wrote. "The right hand can't talk to the left, and if it does, the other hand may be lying. The inventory system is obviously broken, and when the broken high-tech doesn't work, there doesn't seem to be anyone who can actually call up a warehouse and ask what the heck the problem is. Instead of dealing honestly with customers, HP is paying for all those people on hold on their 800 lines and then using all that time from their customer service reps. What a sad situation for a once great company."

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