Selkie on 23/11/2006 at 21:49

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Now I'm sorry for this long post, but I'm in a bit of a fix, and I'd like to hear if anyone has any advice to give me on this topic.
Again, please bear with me:

About 6 weeks ago my laptop, a Fujistu Siemens Amilo M1437G, the one I spent all last summer working to pay for, started to overheat and crash. I called up, arranged a pickup, and was told that the pickup would occur on the 8th of November, a wednesday. The girl on the phone said they couldn't supply me with a box, so she suggested I "just find a cardboard box" to package it.
Now this is £1000 or so of my property, so I packaged it up nice and tight, using 50 or so sheets of balled-up newspaper as padding. Wrote "Fragile" on every side, too. So, I waited at home for 6 hours, no sign of the courier. Called, was told he'd be along in an hour. It gets to 6:30, no sign. Anyway, next day, after several more hours, he finally shows, signs for the parcel with no objections and takes it away.

And here the fun starts.

10 days later, I've heard nothing. I call the number I've been given, wait for 25 mins on hold, and finally get through to a surly and obstructive woman who informs me that my laptop has arrived with a smashed screen and a smashed corner. I react, as you may imagine, with some disbelief. I explain to her that as far as I was concerned, the package was their liability after it left me. Ah, she says, but not if the packaging was insufficient. I dispute this, get nowhere, and ask that she looks into it further.

Now, I'd followed their instructions to the letter, the courier hadn't said anything, and I'd packed it up tighter than Fort Knox. This is my baby; I used Duck Tape, for christ's sake.

As of today, I've now spent a total of 5 afternoons off lectures, and approximately 6 hours on the phone (costs, too), waiting at home to be called, or sitting on hold. I've been invited to pay £275 for a new screen, I've tried to explain that the only reason this is necessary is because the chimp who was driving the van obviously dropped the damn thing, that the liability lies with them, that they arranged the collection, that I followed their instructions exactly, that if it's been handled correctly (ie not thrown around) the packaging is irrelevant, that for any number of reasons THIS IS NOT MY FAULT. All I'm met with is derision and disinterest.

And the punchline? That I paid £150 extra for an extended warranty.

It gets better: I've looked around and found on forums that the repair company (not actually FS, it's a 3rd party outsourced) has a record of trying to pull this stunt. It's sounding like a tacitly-approved scam by the technical department.

I feel like I'm being penalised for even arguing. I feel betrayed and ignored by FS, and I've completely lost patience with these imbeciles.

The only possible light at the end of the tunnel is that I've finally called FS directly; to their credit they sounded appaled at my treatment, and I'm just hoping that someone there actually cares about what their customers think of them. If that doesn't work, it's Watchdog, a lawyer, and letters to the editors of every PC magazine, watchdog, consumer institution and website I can find.


So, if you've made it this far, and if so my thanks to you:

Does anyone have any suggestions as to how to deal with this sort of situation, or who else to contact, or any other ideas that might help me get my laptop back? I'm not very experienced with dealing with this kind of deliberate fraud, and any help or tips would be immensely helpful.

[NAUC]Chief on 23/11/2006 at 22:37

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Laptops sure are fun (I'm not gonna even tell you all the "fun" I had with my first one.

Anyway firstly I would check all the documentation regarding pickup. In some cases the driver who picks it up is meant to inspect the contents of the box, make sure they're packaged correctly and so forth so maybe you could claim he didn't check the item before taking delivery and thus had no idea what was in the box (thus putting the courier at fault for failure to comply with the company regulations). Though please don't read that as your not packaging it properly, i'm just pointing out the check before accepting delivery that many couriers now have.

You might be able to get your household insurance to pay the costs of screen repair etc (I know that's not what you really want but it's something at any rate that may (hopefully) mean you don't foot the bill for their mistakes.

Another thing would be if you had to pay for the delivery, if you did it by credit card you could ring up your credit card company and cancel the transaction, that would of course mean the credit card would want to know all about, and this may cause them to back down on their claims that you didn't package it properly.

Finally the only other thing I could currently think of would be to ring Trading Standards and ask them as to what consumer rights you have over this business. There's a uk gov site you can find using google.

Oh, have you tried emailing Fujitsu UK directly? Better than wasting your money on hold listening to bad music.

I don't know how useful or useless my suggestions are, but I do hope you get it sorted :)

piano-sam on 23/11/2006 at 23:28

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Sorry. I misread the topic post. :)

henke on 24/11/2006 at 06:38

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You actually save all those big-ass styrofoam chunks?

Most people simply aint got room to save all that crap.

rachel on 24/11/2006 at 12:26

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If you want warranty or exchange, at least in France and as far as I know in Spain as well, you have to keep that packaging for a year (the duration of warranty)
I have about six boxes myself, with complete padding, to store them, you just put the smallest ones in the largest and you're set. It's the safest way to ensure your goods travel safely.