One man's incredible problems with Gateway

[MplsBob]

This article on ZDNet details the guy's story.

The article itself says: "It's a tale of lies, vandalism, and outright thievery--and it doesn't have a happy ending."

They would have been miles ahead if they had long ago refunded his money with the agreement he would go buy a Dell!

Here's the article: "Gateway to customer: Want a refund? Sue us!"

 

[InlineFive]

Wow, that's pretty pathetic customer service. Unfortunately for him going to Dell is no better since the home divisions are still outsourced to India. And that has the added problem of language barriers.

-Por

 

[AWhackWhiteBoy]

gateway recently announced its going to close all of their gateway country stores.

i certainly wouldn't trust that article, reguardless. theres always two sides to the story. what if the guy really was just a nagging asshole that took parts out of the computer then demanded a new one?

 

[Gagabiji]

And THAT is why if I ever bought a computer pre-built I would only buy it from Dell.

 

[dnuggett]

Sounds to me like the guy is an ass and Gateway offered tone of ways to resolve his probs.

 

[Regs]

$3500 for a P3 lmao! And that doesnt include the extra ram and CD-RW. Had the times changed since the year of 2000.

 

[GTaudiophile]

He should just come here and learn how to build his own!

From the looks of it, they replaced everything but the CPU. That was probably the problem. I even received a DOA retail Intel Pentium III 866Mhz (via newegg). Intel replaced it within a week.

 

[Regs]

I also think that customer was a nut case. A regular old drama queen trying to take advantage of the juridical system.

A respectable company like Gateway would not ship the computer back to him in parts after a lawsuit. Its just unbelievable. That was just a bad lie. He likely forgot how to turn the computer on, and just made the rest up from there. (<--exaggeration--)

 

[Kaieye]

I remember I had a hard drive problem with a Gateway(less than four months old at the time) and they asked all these questions and it was a waste of time. I told him basically that I will exchange the drive and to just give me a RMA for the defective one. A song and a dance later, I just shook my head and said forget the whole thing and told the hispanic sounding person to start looking for another job because Gateway is going down with this kind of attitude and responsibility.

This was two years ago - too!

 

[bluemax]

I recall E-Machines being much, much worse..... :disgust: :frown:

 

[AWhackWhiteBoy]

Originally posted by: Kaieye
I remember I had a hard drive problem with a Gateway(less than four months old at the time) and they asked all these questions and it was a waste of time. I told him basically that I will exchange the drive and to just give me a RMA for the defective one. A song and a dance later, I just shook my head and said forget the whole thing and told the hispanic sounding person to start looking for another job because Gateway is going down with this kind of attitude and responsibility.

This was two years ago - too!

You were being inconsiderate to the fact that thousands of morons call them everyday, he was doing his job and following procedure to make sure he wasn't* going to RMA a perfectly usable hard drive.

 

[MercenaryForHire]

Over the next two years, the machine was in and out of Gateway service centers for malfunctions ranging from freeze-ups and software glitches to power and hard drive failures. Though the stores replaced everything from the hard drive to the motherboard to the power supply, Immermann contends the problems persisted.

Wow, the hard drive, the motherboard, and the power supply. Don't even bother with the CPU or RAM, they never fail or come dead from the factory. And those two are really resiliant to ESD as well. I rub my DIMMs over the carpet a half dozen times just to get them pre-volted before plugging them in.

This sounds like a case of PICNIC.

- M4H

 

[Acanthus]

Im just glad gateways going under.

Now we just need emachines and ECS and ill be happy with the computer world again.

 

[Cerb]

Originally posted by: Acanthus
Im just glad gateways going under.

Now we just need emachines and ECS and ill be happy with the computer world again.

I hope ECS stays around. All the companies that get boards made by them (got a board with AMP connectors and sockets? That's ECS) would suffer tremendously, including Shuttle and Abit.

 

[Washoe]

Originally posted by: dnuggett
Sounds to me like the guy is an ass and Gateway offered tone of ways to resolve his probs.

But the Gateway spokesperson that ZDnet spoke to couldn't elaborate on what those offered resolutions were. Spokespeople are supposed to lie like that.

 

[Ilmater]

Gateway has ALWAYS made terrible computers at terrible prices backed by terrible customer support. This is no surprise. A friend and I said a long time ago when Gateway first opened stores that they were going to go under. No big surprise to me.

 

[Acanthus]

Originally posted by: Cerb

Originally posted by: Acanthus
Im just glad gateways going under.

Now we just need emachines and ECS and ill be happy with the computer world again.

I hope ECS stays around. All the companies that get boards made by them (got a board with AMP connectors and sockets? That's ECS) would suffer tremendously, including Shuttle and Abit.

I only use Epox, Asus, and Albatron. So it wouldnt effect me

However i do like shuttle and abit as companies. I just HATE almost every motherboard ever made by ECS.

 

[myocardia]

Haha, reason #312 why not to buy any pre-built computer!

 

[MplsBob]

A couple of people above thought that the man was an unpleasant individual. One even thought he was engaged in some sort of scam.

First, the man is entitled to a working computer.

Second, long before things got this bad Gateway should have flat out replaced his machine. Period. You take care of problems like this right away, even if you lose money and even if you think the customer is being a jerk. You offer him a brand new computer and make it an upgrade. If you think the problem is really unsolvable you refund all of his money and send him to one of your competitors. You do not let things like this fester. Gateway is having serious financial problems and they don't need stories like this being published.

Thirdly, the man is entitled to be damned upset at the way he was treated.

Fourth, Gateway needs to publish the fact, if that is their policy, that it's warranties will be in force only for people they deem to be "really nice".

Finally, it is inconceivable that the man is engaged in any sort of scam. He is out an awful lot of money and has had a non-working computer for literally years. What sort of scam is that? That doesn't even make any sense.

 

[AWhackWhiteBoy]

Originally posted by: Acanthus
Im just glad gateways going under.

Now we just need emachines and ECS and ill be happy with the computer world again.

Gateway just bought e-machines. whats so wrong with these companies? where are people suppose to buy a cheap pc?

 

[AWhackWhiteBoy]

Originally posted by: Ilmater
Gateway has ALWAYS made terrible computers at terrible prices backed by terrible customer support. This is no surprise. A friend and I said a long time ago when Gateway first opened stores that they were going to go under. No big surprise to me.

Tell that to my 7 year old pentium pro that still works to this day. Gateway used to make EXCELLENT computer.

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

People should build computers themselves or get a friend to do it to get a cheap computer. If your looking for a computer to have as a showpiece like my parents and many other people their age then you go to dell.

 

[Dug]

I rub my DIMMs over the carpet a half dozen times just to get them pre-volted before plugging them in.

LOL!

 

[MplsBob]

<FONT face=Verdana>Tell that to my 7 year old pentium pro that still works to this day. Gateway used to make EXCELLENT computer.

from above
==========================================

My entires here are on my brand new computer. It's predecesor is a Gateway 486-66 that got updated once to an AMD K6-200. I would have updated it again, but it's powersupply was woefully short of today's requirements. If I were a more mechanically inclined sort I would have jimmined a new power supply in somehow, and continued on. It could be said that shortcoming was in me and not the Gateway.</FONT>

 

[smahoney]

A long time ago (dating myself here) I went to a site to setup a number of computers(486 based machines) just purchased by a customer of the company I was working to load financial software on. 10 brand new Gateway machines that were supposed to be of the same configuration. Upon opening up the systems to install cards we discovered that the ten machines had six different configurations of hard drives, video cards, CD-ROMS and memory. Owner was so upset he sent them all back and bought Zeos PC's instead.

Bonus points for whoever remembers that name of the last Zeos computer line before they were bought by Micron...