Gateway PC's

[Colrenea]

A friend of mine bought a Gateway about 3 or 4 years ago. At the time they bought it, Gateway was running an upgrade program, we think it was called Gold Plus. I remember them advertising this. You bought a Gateway and paid for this Gold Plus plan, then after 2 years, you could trade in the tower for a new pc and keep making the same payments. Well, now Gateway is saying they never heard of this plan and act like they don't know what he is talking about. Did anyone here take advantage of this or know someone who did? I think he lost his paperwork that came with the pc.

 

[NikPreviousAcct]

Indeed, many companies were running the same thing. You're basically leasing a system from the company in which the lease included the stipulation that the company would replace the system every set period of time with a new system that was more up to date. I dunno if anyone's still doing it, but I know for a fact that Gateway was doing it. My cousin still has their computer which is the third upgrade from that program He chose to opt out of the program a while back, so I dunno if they're still doing it. Best of luck, though. Keeping paperwork for such an important (and potentially costly!) purchase might have been a good idea.

nik

 

[Colrenea]

I'm going to have him look again for the paperwork. He and his wife have moved a few times since they got the pc, so I think they lost it in one of the moves.

 

[Amused]

It was called "Your Ware." Not "Gold Plus."

here

 

[Zebo]

E.

 

[Colrenea]

Thanks AmusedOne.

 

[HomeBrewerDude]

yeah, what he said.


your ware... silly program...

i thought it was where they would give the market value of your 2 year pc and apply it your new pc purchase. so something like 200 bucks....big whoopie.

your friend doesn't have any claim.

 

[Vic]

Originally posted by: yamahaXS
yeah, what he said.


your ware... silly program...

i thought it was where they would give the market value of your 2 year pc and apply it your new pc purchase. so something like 200 bucks....big whoopie.

your friend doesn't have any claim.

Yep, that was it. I wouldn't bother with it. The only thing worth less than a new Gateway is an old Gateway. I doubt they'd even pay $200 bucks, more likely $50 bucks to take back an old P2-400 or what-not. Tell your friend to ebay his old computer (or whatever) and build/buy a new custom. OEMs are for suckers and their sales policies/practices are all the proof of that I ever need.

 

[Zim Hosein]

Colrenea, tell your friend to keep the PC and run SETI on it for the TeAm

 

[eLiTeGoodGuy]

WARNING: Gateway computers rant from an employee below. Read at own discretion.


My roomate and I both work for gateway (my roomate quit a few months back) so I think I can shed some light into this.

The program that you're thinking of was called the Your:')Ware program (yes, the stupid smiley face is part of the name)
Basically Gateway would give you what they thought was fair market value for your system. The stipulation was that the system had to be more than 2 years old... and we all know how much 2 year old systems are worth

I think the most I was ever able to give to a single person was like $250 on a system that they had paid over 3k for just 2 years earlier. Just for sh!ts and grins one day we decided to see how much the brand new systems were worth (not that you could trade them in since you had to wait the 2 years). A brand new P4 system, priced at $2500 that day was in the system giving "fair" retail value of $800. The Your:'(Ware program was a load of BS. It was a way to get customers to come back and be ripped off for even more money. (Can you tell I'm jaded by the company? The higher ups actually force you to lie to people to make money in the stores, so only buy online. And if you actually go into a store and they say they've got a package for you and you're getting a training class or 5 with the system tell them to fsck off and go check the price online... Guaranteed they've snuck 300-400 dollars worth of training in there.) Gateway was actually nailed by the SEC (I think it was the SEC, may have been someone else) multiple times for cheating customers. That program was one of them, so was the whole sneaking in training to systems for customers.

In the end every single person in the store told customers to sell the system to a neighbor or friend, or give it to goodwill. The funny thing was that 90% of the time you got a bigger tax writeoff for donating a system to charity rather than cash for selling it back to Gateway. Gateway has since stopped the program since they lost so many customers in the process.
"What do you mean you can only give me $10 for the system I paid 3k for 2.5 years ago?!?!?!"

The reason people seem to not know about the program anymore is because of all the cost-cutting changes Gateway is going through. Forcing people to cold-call, lowering comissions more and more every month, dropping insurance, and everything else they are doing (of course, you never hear about the management taking a small pay cut from 1.2 mil a year to 1.1 mil) has jaded a large group of the company. My roomate was the first to quit from the Roanoke store a few months back when everything hit the fan. Since then every single person who was a sales rep from the beginning has also left aside from me (I'm looking for a new job before I quit). Everyone has been there since the store opened but over the course of about 3 months the store has lost everyone. Apparently this is the same all over the US. My roomate used to work at the Columbia, MD store before he moved down here and the same happened up there. Reports from other states show the same thing. Everyone is jumping ship to be replaced by new lackeys. So I'd expect that the employees really didn't know about the program since they are more than likely new.

The program that really does fulfill it's promise is only for buisness customers (Gateway has taken on a "screw the customer, we only care about buisnesses" approach since December). It's called the Gateway Tech Refresh program. Basically, you don't own the computers... you lease them. There is a set period of 2 years where Gateway comes in and replaces your system for one of equal value every 2 years while still keeping the same lease payment. Basically... if you bought a medium priced computer back 2 years ago you'll get a medium priced computer now. The ripoff in the program is... Do you remember how much more expensive computers were 2 years ago? If you began a lease back then with mid-range computers (assuming ~$1500 per system) when they replace your systems now you'll still only get mid-range tech (~$1000 computers in the current economy) but you'll be paying the same lease as a $1500 computer! Gateway takes more money out of your pocket because they can. The only benefit to the program is the warranty service is great, as opposed to average customers getting work done... a little hint: don't bother if you only own 1 computer. Fix it yourself and save being without a system for 2 months.

Wow... I guess I'm done ranting. I didn't mean for that to be a Gateway rant... it just kinda slipped out. But yes. The company sucks. I think I'll go put a warning at the top of this post.