okayTwo weeks later, I still had not received a call, the CD-ROM drive was getting worse and the sound card was going out. So, I called again. Got their voice mail and left a slightly more irritated message.
Over the next two weeks, I called twice more. I finally had enough, called, and demanded a supervisor.
"Hold, please," the clerk said, and I got put on hold. Two minutes later, I was disconnected.
I dialed again. Asked for the supervisor.
"Hold, please," the clerk said, and I got put on hold. Two minutes later, I was disconnected.
I dialed again. "Get me a manager. NOW!" I hated losing my temper and going into suck mode, but really, I was very angry at this point.
"Hang on," the clerk said and thirty seconds later, this guy named "Joe" came on the line.
"Whassa problem?" he said.
I laid out the entire issue for him of how I was having trouble, but that I could get no response from tech support and since my machine was under warranty, I had wanted some help before everything just went tits up.
"Oh, well, they probably called you, but you weren't in."
"I do have an answering machine," I said.
"Oh, well, you know, it's our policy to not leave messages on answering machines. Otherwise, that's all we'd be doing."
"Soooo, you let your customers feel like they're being ignored?"
"Sorry, dude, it's just the way we do things here."
"Okay. Well, is it possible that someone could call me when I'm actually home? I mean, your outgoing message states to say when the best callback time is."
"Oh, well, you know, that's just what the outgoing message says. That isn't actually how we do things."
Now, I'd worked at a place that had customers leave messages if no tech was available and we would call people at home, and at the times they requested. Also, if we got a machine, we'd state that we called just so that they knew that we tried and that if they wished to try again, they could tell us when they'd like to be reached.
"So what about my machine?"
"Oh, well, you know, you'll just have to bring it in here. We can have a tech look at it sometime."
"Sometime?" I said, stunned.
"Yeah, we're a little backed up, so it may take a few weeks before we can get to you, if we get to you."
"If you get to me?"
"Yeah, well, you know..."
I hung up. My hubby (then boyfriend) came over the next weekend with replacement parts he bought and installed them for me so that my machine worked, and I filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau of Seattle stating that even though I was promised a warranty with phone tech support, they weren't giving it to me.
A month later, "Ted" from CompuCare called, saying that Joe had been terminated as well as most of his staff and they wanted to refund me for the cost of the replacement parts. Apparently, they'd had multiple complaints via the BBB on Joe.