When a Warranty Repair becomes a Hostage Situation

It has been a few weeks since I told my tale of woe and broken laptop screens.

In summary, for those of you who missed it, my wife contacted me on my mobile while I was out shopping and told me the screen on my 13″ HP Elitebook was broken — she had adjusted the screen while using it in bed, and through some combination of pressure or torsion due to a slipped thumb, the substrate underneath the glass ruptured and the LCD was damaged. We contacted HP technical support, sent them a digital photograph of the broken screen, and the tech in India made the call to have us send it in as it was deemed to be a warranty repair and it would be no problem.

Click to read the rest of this article at ZDNet Tech Broiler.

In Honor of the Deceased, We’ll be Serving Bagels and Rugelach

My laptop’s screen died during 4th of July weekend. I sent it back to HP for warranty repair, but then they wanted either $89.00 to send it back without repair, or $440.00 to replace a $99.00 OEM part due to “Accidental Damage”.

I love the 4th of July. Hot dogs, fireworks, and destroyed LCD screens.

So I’m out food shopping on the 4th of July, when my cell phone rings. It’s my wife.

“Jason…. don’t kill me.”

“What did you do now?”

“I think I killed the laptop”

“What do you mean you killed the laptop?”

“I was using it in the bedroom on my laptop desk, I moved it, and now the screen is all messed up.”

Suffice to say that the stream of obscenities that left my mouth in the middle of the condiment and sauces aisle at King Fung Asian Supermarket made even the most salty of Chinese stock keepers blush. I was royally pissed, and my shopping experience trying to determine which unreadable brand of Taiwanese chili black bean sauce was the best for my purposes was now completely disrupted.

Click to read the rest of this article at ZDNet Tech Broiler