Screwed By Toshiba

[Borg81]

Im here to warn all of you against buying Toshiba. I purchased a Satellite M35 for school a little less than a year ago. After just three months the laptop stopped working and refused to boot up. I called their tech support, which is based in some country besides the U.S, and the operator told me that he beleived it was a bad hard drive. I took it in to a local Toshiba authorized repair shop, which they instructed me to do, and awaited for my hard drive to arrive. Three weeks later the shop told me that they still ahdnt recieved my hard drive and that applying a little pressure to Toshiba might speed things up a bit. I called Toshiba three times that week and my hard drive finally arrived. I got my computer back, but it still wouldnt boot up. I angrily called Toshiba who told me tat it was probably a motherboard problem and that I should send it back to them. They told me the lead times on the motherbaord were about a month, which a unwittingly accepted. A month later hwoever, i called them up and they told me they were still awaiting the part from overseas and it would still be another month. This same routine has been repeated five times already and i have been wihtout a computer for nearly six months. This is outrageous. I have never encountered a company that just tosses their customers around like this. I have reletlessly complained to everly level of mananger i could manage to speak with and have gotten nowhere. THey are clearly making no atempt to repair my computer. I am suing them in small claims court, but meanwhile I am here to spread the word about Toshiba. They do not care at all about their customers and their tech support is cr%p. DO NOT BUY TOSHIBA.

 

[IEC]

Isolated incident? I've heard of many satisfied Toshiba customers. Looks like your dealer/service agent doesn't know what he's doing. Another thing: just because one person has a bad experience with a company doesn't mean you should "warn everyone not to buy company x's products because they are xxxx". You can generalize all you want, but if they treated every customer like they apparently did to you, then they would have no customers at all.

 

[crabbyman]

My gf had the same experience as borg81. Her laptop HDD went kapoot a day after the warranty was up. They wouldnt have anything to do with it. They wouldnt even acknowledge anything happened. This happened right as I was getting together with her or I would have done the work. The replaced HDD cost her ~$200 and all her data was lost. The laptop still acts like crap. I share this guys sentiments toward the company. Others may have had good luck..but I still have a bitter taste in my mouth.

 

[IEC]

Originally posted by: crabbyman
My gf had the same experience as borg81. Her laptop HDD went kapoot a day after the warranty was up. They wouldnt have anything to do with it. They wouldnt even acknowledge anything happened. This happened right as I was getting together with her or I would have done the work. The replaced HDD cost her ~$200 and all her data was lost. The laptop still acts like crap. I share this guys sentiments toward the company. Others may have had good luck..but I still have a bitter taste in my mouth.

Hmmm.... looks like I'll stay away from Toshiba then. Thanks for the info.

 

[Octave]

Why has Toshiba gone down the crap hole lately? My father has had 3 Toshiba laptops and they all worked ok for about 3 months and then crapped out..then got himself an HP and then later a Dell...and he's been fine ever since.

 

[fbrdphreak]

These are the reasons why I always buy an extended warranty with a laptop.

I've heard similar things about Toshiba. At the same time, I wouldn't leave any company to its own devices w/my laptop; I'm in the loop at every step and if something takes longer than it should, I'm on the phone.

And in regards to crabbyman's gf's laptop: you were out of warranty. Something broke, you didn't have a warranty. Not their fault, its yours (or your gf's technically 😛)

 

[Keyvan]

i find toshiba has really been using their brand and image instead of quality to sell laptops for about the last year... case in point: the satellite A70-KL1. that model had many issues, and not isolated cases. we had so many come back with problems (HDD would act up, and like OP's case, HDD replacement wouldn't actually fix the problem), that for a limited time, when it was almost the KL1's EOL, toshiba just asked us to send them back any remaining stock from that model.

 

[crabbyman]

I agree fbrdphreak. It was out of warranty...it just seems strange that it happened like that. I mean..they didn't give two shakes of a sh!t to even point her in the right direction. BTW...just thought of this..doesn't the drive have a 3 yr. warranty or is that just when it is bought seperate?

 

[fbrdphreak]

Originally posted by: crabbyman
I agree fbrdphreak. It was out of warranty...it just seems strange that it happened like that. I mean..they didn't give two shakes of a sh!t to even point her in the right direction. BTW...just thought of this..doesn't the drive have a 3 yr. warranty or is that just when it is bought seperate?

Just separately unfortunately; most drives have a 3 year if you buy them separate or with barebones, but not OEM unfortunately 🙁

You could always try calling the company who made it and looking it up by serial #

 

[Pr0d1gy]

Originally posted by: fbrdphreak
These are the reasons why I always buy an extended warranty with a laptop.

I've heard similar things about Toshiba. At the same time, I wouldn't leave any company to its own devices w/my laptop; I'm in the loop at every step and if something takes longer than it should, I'm on the phone.

And in regards to crabbyman's gf's laptop: you were out of warranty. Something broke, you didn't have a warranty. Not their fault, its yours (or your gf's technically 😛)

Exactly. I know Clark Howard & consumer investigators tell everyone that "extended warranties" are total BS, but the fact is you almost have to have them for new technology. HDTV's, laptops, etc. are all touch & go so the customer benefits greatly by following fbrdphreak's advice. Usually, you will get your laptop back in less than half the time or have it replaced by the company providing the warranty.

I know CompUSA's Platinum warranty provides free training with your new computer, free phone based technical support, in-home repairs (if possible), screen replacement, battery replacement, and other advantages.

The same can be said for most HDTV extended warranties as they will replace the bulb when it burns out ($200-400 bulb that goes out every 1000 or so hours on LCD, DLP, etc.) & fix any problems.

 

[crabbyman]

Originally posted by: fbrdphreak

Originally posted by: crabbyman
I agree fbrdphreak. It was out of warranty...it just seems strange that it happened like that. I mean..they didn't give two shakes of a sh!t to even point her in the right direction. BTW...just thought of this..doesn't the drive have a 3 yr. warranty or is that just when it is bought seperate?

Just separately unfortunately; most drives have a 3 year if you buy them separate or with barebones, but not OEM unfortunately 🙁

You could always try calling the company who made it and looking it up by serial #

Haha..its too late. She did it last year about this time. They said the HDD was not rescuable (sp?). So they ditched it.