Slashdot Mirror
PC Superstore Admits Linux Hinge Repair Mistake
Erris writes "PC Superstore says their store manager was wrong to turn away a client with a broken hinge whose machine should have been repaired. 'El Reg put a call in to the DSGi-owned retail giant to get some clarification on PC World's Linux support policy. A spokesman told us that there had simply been a misunderstanding at the store and that, in fact, the normal procedure would be for the Tech Guys to provide a fix. [PC World] will provide a full repair once the firm has made contact with Tikka.'
that the manager didn't get the news.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
as twitter , just like the other ones. Avoid people who game Slashdot with multiple sockpuppets and open proxies.
We'd like to apologize for getting an unexpectedly large backlash due to our usual behavior of being dicks to the linux users. In the future we will strive to continue our inexcusable treatment of our linux based customers without attracting such public negative PR in the process. Thank you for your support in these difficult times!
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
And the question on everyone's mind is "Would this have happened had the plight not been so well discussed on the internet?"
Also, how many other people have already been turned away for hardware warranty repairs based on what software was on their machine?
The moral of this story is to stay away from PC World. They over price all their components and the machines they sell are crap by and large. They exist to take money from the ignorant and their attitude when their product inevitably breaks is dreadful. The anti-linux attitude is old news as I experienced similar treatment at the PC World in Edinburgh when I had a keyboard fail on my laptop with Linux installed. Fortunately I had XP on it too and was able to prove that the fault wasn't due to Linux.
Sadly, PC World has also put a lot of the good little computer stores out of business which is why they can behave so badly.
"I have the attention span of a strobe lit goldfish, please get to the point quickly!"
So PC World pissed off a geek. He told all his geek buddies. Word got around and now PC World has either changed their mind, or announced their mistake as loud as they can for fear of reprisal from tons of geeks. Why am I not surprised? I'm sure they want to stay in business, and even if that was their policy, i'm sure it changed VERY quickly because the community they target is the same community that's now talking bad about them. Change their policy or risk going out of business? Slashdot wins! PC World - 0 Slashdot - 1
Also, this is evidence that Linux systems are gaining ground -- issues like this are "growing pains."
Palm trees and 8
A mistake, that's it.
And I'm sure that there was some policy that they can quote to back up that "misunderstanding" and it was a totally isolated event.
Pretty cut and dry denial of warranty of hardware based on software. If the manager denies service it's not a misunderstanding it's policy. Unless they can show the documents that the manager specifically didn't follow, it's a case of consumer backlash changing a companies operating practices.
I'll believe the "misunderstanding" cop out for the responsibility when they can show policy documents that state that the OS doesn't matter in cases of obvious hardware defect. If they've got that on file, if it was a misunderstanding and every higher level employee involved in that case goes back through basic training for service repair qualification, I'll believe it.
) Human Kind Vs Human Creation
) It'd be interesting to see how many humans would survive to serve us.
A junior employee or contractor made an error that is against our policy.
Translated:
A local store manager is foolishly given broad discretion to run the local store and making ass-pulled risk estimates such as "this guy can't possibly escalate his complaint from porch-seat grumbling to global public-relations catastrophe."
[
Once more it pays to be well connected in the online community. Now if only this would work with the IRS and DMV.
For every present, there is a past
This is an interesting story, but must it come from "Erris"? He's the owner of the "twitter" account, and a known troll. The editors should be on the lookout for these things.
For what it's worth, there's a customer satisfaction survey running at PC Superstore website at the moment...
It was simply an excuse to turn away a customer so that one less laptop would have to be worked on .
Laziness at work.
Someone, please, tell me that PC World is not that stupid. Tell me that web page belongs to someone other than the AC that submitted the original story and was latter identified only as "Tikka". It violates their own store policy. Their PR people told The Register they would take care of it. Tell me the video was taken days ago. I'd really rather hear anything other than some self important moron is making life difficult for a Linux user, against store policy, common decency and half the internet's outrage. No?
Poor Mr. Tank.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
His name shouldn't be G. Tank.. it should be Tommy Tank
(english rhyming slang for you yanks)
but i'm certain linux caused this cracking of the hinge. if the user had continued to run windows, it would have actually gone the way of Christine, the Stephen King novel car character, and repaired itself magically.
offensive propaganda??!!?? maybe remove it because it is spam, but how is it offensive... if it's true should we rethink this "legal right" you guys crack me up!
"Why didn't you want me Mommy?"
You were the product of rape.
You were the product of incest.
"Mommy" was unable to raise a child currently due to low income.
Those are all real situations that people get abortions for. So you'd rather have a woman who was brutally raped have to give birth to and raise the child of the man who attacked her? Sweet deal.
I know I'm 'feeding a troll' or whatever, but I'm tired of people thinking they know what's best for everybody.
It's offensive propaganda because blastocysts don't post on Slashdot. And if you think they do, you're a complete fucking moron.
As Jerry A. Taylor found out, the Internet means that asmall public abuse power and or stupidity can result in you looking like fool on a planetary scale.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Uh, abortions are performed long before the level of fetal development you describe. Drop the hate-mongering and go get some facts.
I used to be a blastocyst, you insensitive clod!
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
He's (Tank) lucky that his email address wasn't included in the post. Give me a few minutes...
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=280723&threshold=-1&commentsort=1&mode=nested&cid=20375627
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=280723&cid=20375897
Someone needs to explain to PC world that their bad service is the 8th highest story on digg.
How many people read digg?
Take a crowbar and a fish. Pry the broken hinge open so as to free the penguin, then toss the fish to give the penguin an incentive to get out of the laptop. You may need to clean out the accumulated penguin filth.
Then take the laptop to a replacement window specialist to put windows back in the laptop. Once that is done, take the laptop to have the hinge serviced. Tada! all is well.
I scream. You scream. I assume that means we're both acquainted with the problem. We proceed.
A second post from an AC mentions the fabulous twitter and you have managed to create a tag that will point to more good stories in the future. Keep advertising my friend twitter.
Everyone else should check out the Vista Failure Log these AC's hate so much. It and most of what twitter posts is more intersting than a story about some clueless and rude manager at a big box store.
If you want to read some really intersting news, visit Stallman's Blog, which is updated every other day.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
Dear PC Superstore Customer,
Our bad.
Sincerely,
The Management
The game.
But I did. http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=294841&cid=20566253. Now you are still "fighting the good fight", but your laptop still isn't fixed. BTW on my dell I have a an extra drive with windows on it that swaps out in 2 minutes. Let us know when it is fixed for real and all us slashdotters can coach you with our brilliance and wit.
This is an interesting story, but must it come from "Erris"?
No, you ACs could have put the story up before me or after me instead of trying to game the Firehose. It works like this:
Proffit? No, entertainment is priceless.
What will be even more fun is watching you PR types submit bad news about the companies you represent so some nobody like me does not scoop you when things leak out into the press. Get writing, your boss is paying you to manage opinion here not dick around with one or two "trolls". Be sure to get all the juicy details before they leak out. Try pointing out to your boss that full disclosure is better than being blindsided.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
Quite interestingly, you didn't seem so upbeat when you got caught shilling and posted this. Do you really think that anyone will believe you?
I also find it interesting that you call him "friend". That's an odd term for a "relationship" on Slashdot. Do you know him personally? Oh, wait. What am I saying. All these multiple personalities are hard to get right.
In any case, your "friend" twitter seems to have descended down to karma hell, like all the other trolls and crapflooders.
You're just another Bonch/OverlyCriticalGuy trolling Slashdot and disrupting conversations for some twisted reason. Probably paid for by monopoly astroturfing money, if the posts I've seen are any indication.
Since when the fook is a hinge anything but a hardware issue, not requiring powering the machine up (other than near the end to confirm all jacks got plugged before turning all screws)?
There was one time a Radio Shack district manager gave me the "Oh, we don't support Apples" song and dance when the item I came in to purchase was a DB9-to-DB25 serial cable off the shelf for my external modem.
And then there was the time I actually had to say to a salesperson, "Okay, let's forget I mentioned what kind of machine this is for, shall we... Now: how much does an external 56k modem cost at your store?"
Laughter is the Spackle of the Soul.
if the owner of the Storm Botnet read /. and if we can convince him/her to launch a DDoS against PC World...
If I owned a store... I wouldn't worry about it at all.
3 words : word of mouth
Us Linux users are the ones that friends/relatives/etc. turn to when they need computer advise. If they piss us off, guess who we aren't recommended to those friends/relatives/etc.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
at this point.. simply repairing the laptop is not enough.
If you go to their web site and follow the 'For careers at PC World click here' link, it takes you to another company called DSGi plc :
You might then also notice on the 'Job Opportunities' menu references to Currys and Dixons. They are other high street tech stores in the UK.
I can't help but wonder if Curry's and Dixons' customer support is equally poor.
Max.
Step 4. reinstall windows oem and bring it back to the store and say it was a theme you idiot.
There are enough slip-ups by you out there to easily prove you own both accounts. So why do you even try? Really, who do you think you're kidding, and why?
Hey, man, ask your mom to have an abortion. Thanks.
... as much as I agree with your personal outrage (that being a Woman's body is her own, etc.. etc.. et al) -- I have to say that just as important is the right of free speech. And remember, the most important time to defend free speech is when you disagree with the speaker.
That being said, that little bit of pro-life flamebaiting actually does more for the pro-choice movement than it should probably want to.
'Cause now yer little bastard is in the arms of the rotting Jesus... 'aint he/she?
Hah. Saved from a life of ill begotten moral line crossing. Another for your wierdo, domineering bipolar sky fairy.
Maybe we should all have abortions. Fill up heaven's ranks so that there are more pure angels to fight off Hell's evil.
Abortions for Jesus! Wheeeeeeee!
Whoops. Too much Eagle Rare and now I'm rambling. Hahahah. This is fun. Now I'm gonna go drunken babbling elsewhere. =b...
Oh... and while I'm at it. Mods... mod me down. Go ahead and waste yer points... OFFTOPIC BABY!!!!! WHOOOOOO! SCHAWEEEEEET!!!!
Yeah! Post drunk, post loud.
In the words of the great Hunter... Call on God, but row away from the rocks.
#SickNotWeak
This was a UK incident, and the customer in the UK is pretty well protected against this sort of nonsense (caveat: as demonstrated, they will still have to put effort in - retailers still don't seem to care enough not to piss off their customers). The shop effectively broke the law by refusing to repair the laptop (but why did the guy not contact the manufacturer directly instead?).
I specifically state 'UK' here because that's the only country I know this for sure of. It's pretty reasonable to assume this sort of protection is available elsewhere as well. What you suggest would amount to an override of local law which is impossible. You can't even get rid of such a law in small print in the contract as it will be found invalid in court - not that everyone + dog in business doesn't try..
I had Dolphin Kitchens try to pull a fast one on me that way, all the way to a 'regional manager' telling me that I signed and it was thus valid. I spoke to Trading Standards and approximately 15 minutes after they had a little chat with the company I got a phone call claiming a 'trainee manager' error. The moment I hear that excuse the company's off my list. If they can't even be upfront and tell me they screwed up I can't invest any trust in them.
The incident response of "it was a mistake" is total and utter BS. I'm pretty sure that the customer will have asked for a manager to discuss this, and said manager will have told him the same which suggest it's company policy (not store, COMPANY policy) rather than "a mistake".
I think the only mistake they feel they will have made is not even the public relations hit because it's mainly on geek sites and sufficiently 'geeky' customers avoid that shop anyway unless it's something simple. No, the mistake they feel they have made is attracting Trading Standards and Consumer Direct's attention to the store - no store likes to be picked over by a Government department proving they're needed, especially if the validity of the complaint is well above doubt.
So, if you want to do anything I would suggest telling you NON-geek friends. See if your local newspaper wants to carry the story..
Insert
Our evil is everwhere and there are those of us who (praise hail satan!) will do nothing to avoid murdering a child. Occasionaly, though, finding fresh children to murder is too time consuming. So what are we to do? Why, make children to murder of course!
Why, just last week, my devil's whore and I coupled to produce another victim for Lord Lucifer! We'll gladly await its time of bodily maturity so that we may, once again, sacrifice another innocent life on our doctor's blasphemous alter of evil.
Soon, the end will be upon us. Hail satan! hail satan!!!!!!
I used to be a 2 year old!
ZOMG AN EX 2 YEAR OLD PROGRAMMING C++!!!!!11!11
Great Intellect...
funny Now why did /. say I had posted 16 seconds ago when it's been a couple of hours? Clock running slow?
In Canada, PC Superstore is President's Choice Superstore ... which is pretty much the all Canadian Wall Mart. I was so confused with that headline.
in the story of his ongoing ordeal, I have to ask myself (and you): why doesn't he get a lawyer already? I'm by no means an expert on the way the US judicial system works, but shouldn't it be rather easy by now to find a good lawyer who will know how to use the publicity for his client and himself, how to get a large chunk of money out of this and also do the whole thing pro bono? Or have I watched too much Boston Legal?
Same with copyright, then. IP protection is a legal right and you have nothing to say about it.
Are you foaming at the mouth now?
If he's a manager at PC World, I find it very unlikely that he would have an e-mail address, or know how to connect to it if it existed.
It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.
Shouldn't it read:
Day 2: Got a job at PC World.
Day 3: I've been promoted to manager.
Only three things are certain; death, taxes, and apocryphal quotations - Ben Franklin.
Why the obvious troll?
What's wrong is that it has absolutely nothing to do with PC World's ability or otherwise to fix broken laptops, or about tech matters in general.
If I had mod points at the moment, I would be giving out a few -1 offtopis here.
I got dicked over by IBM's service center in Denmark in 2002. Machine was defective and they refused to service it since it was running Linux. The mailorder firm, which was by law required to accept unconditionally any return for any reason within a number of days, refused to accet the machine and refund the price. The consumer agency would not touch it since it was about $8 USD over their limit. Prior to that my experience with IBM had been *very* good, but that experience burned up most of that good will.
Hardware vendors really have no business telling its customers what they can and can't run on their hardware. I'd be surprised if it were actually policy to do so. They do need to police their employees to make sure that none of the Gates cultists have taken it on themselves to decide corporate return and repair policy.
It's amateurish, the people there seem not to get the concept of using a computer (you switch it on) and even if you take something in because the paint's peeled off, they'll install their 'performance measuring application' (bloatware) on your machine and drop a few PC World adverts on the desktop.
And they seem to think that 80gB is 'massive' by today's standards.
Those using pirated Tinysoft signatures(TM) are a real threat to society and should all be thrown in jail.
When I heard about a store suddenly making and about-face and deciding to provide better service to a customer named "Tikka," I could only assume it was a corporate account.
In the dim distant past I applied for a job for PC-World (I didn't get it). The store managers reason was, you know too much about computers, and might scare people away when they most need advice. They were interested in sales people and not people that could give the correct advice and make a sale.
Just try it out, go into their stores and ask them a basic question (if you can ever find anyone) and see how far they get with it. Usually you'll get the "I'll just go check for the answer", and the sales rep runs away to the stock room until you've given up and left (to order gadget online instead).
The store is good for getting emergency supplies like ink, paper or DVD's etc., although not particular cheap.
Take Nobody's Word For It.
In the US, a warrantor can say the whole warranty is nullified if you hang fuzzy dice off the corner of your screen. The only thing they need to do is state so in plain terms. Read the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act, if you want to know.
Most of the "they can't do X" crap, like the AC's comment, stems from a misinterpretation of one specific part of the act"The clause is to prevent, say, a vacuum cleaner company from requiring used of their own brand of bags (unless they provide them free). It doesn't mean you can modify your car for more horsepower, and expect the manufacturer to cover the engine under warranty when it breaks. It also doesn't mean a manufacturer can't put a clause in the warranty which says the engine warranty is voided if you hang fuzzy dice from the mirror. It means that they can't put a clause which says "Use of any brand fuzzy dice other than ACME brand fuzzy dice will void the engine warranty."
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Fortunately for those that are queasy at that proposition, many countries have moved to ban late term abortions
... which I for one don't agree with. I think the limit should be raised to sixteen years postpartum.
200 years ago, owning a slave was a legal right too!
"Anyone? The 14-year-old rape victim? The forced underaged wife of a Mormon polygamist? The woman who learns on the ultrasound that the child is ancephalic and will not survive regardless? The woman who learns that she has a less than even chance of surviving the pregnancy?"
Yeah, we've all heard the "14 yeard old rape victim" line a million times. Only thing is, that just a very small percentage of abortions, most are for birth control because some lazy assholes forgot or just didn't care to use a condom, pill, etc.
Considering the number of /. posters stating that PCWorld sucks and the number of PC World shops in existence, it appears that the bad word of mouth can be overcome by 2 cents off. (or 2p., in this case)
Valid point.
Over-the-top Response Guy! Giving "Over-the-Top Responses" since 1970.
It's ridiculous that you have to get on slashdot and raise a fuss just to get a laptop serviced under warranty. I am sure the laptop hinge would still be broke if it wasnt for the swarm of bad press headed to PC World. And as far as not honoring the earranty if linux is loaded on the system, what a joke. If anyhting, they shoudln't warranty and system running windows, as in my experience, winblows is much more likely to fry your hardware than most linux distributions. All I really know is, I will never deal with PC World.
BrickerEnterprises.Com - Innovation at work
REPOST THIS IF YOU HATE ABORTION
I've an even better idea
Don't spam fucking offtopic crap everywhere if you want people to see your point of view. Most people here really really hate spam and have a much stronger view on that subject than abortion.
This is an awesome example of 'Slashdot Power'. Slashdot can and does change things for the better (well not always)
The protection by the Consumer Credit Act is one of the reasons I explicitly try to buy things on credit (with a non-charge period, obviously). I don't need (nor want) the credit, but the extra protection is rather helpful if things fail in the first 30 days and -admittedly unfair to the reseller- you can even just change your mind and they'll have to roll it back. No "restocking charges", no "you can buy something of the same value" - none of that. Money. Back.
..
Having said that, the few times I had to use that protection were interesting. I had a Dixons "manager" tell me point blank that I had it all wrong and that they all had "training" - strangely that didn't last long when I suggested that his only other option was a phone call, with a choice between regional manager or Trading Standards. Maybe my asking for the name of his regional manager to pass on to aformentioned Trading Standards was too close to a "career" limiting move.
Not that I didn't have to cut him short when he tried making remarks like "I'll do this as an exception" (by that time I was getting pretty irritated by his attempt to make me hang on to a defective product) by telling him I didn't need special services, only him following the law and sell me kit that works. Kinda helps if the shop's got other customers
Insert
This is just sad, I hope you manage to get it fixed. "You broke your computer when you installed linux. That's why the construction of the computer failed"
Even if they 'made it right' later, being *this* incompetent up front is worrisome and ill be sure not to purchase from them, ever.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Your definition of day seems to be about as consistent as the Bible's
This is a win for common sense. Thank goodness.
Trust, me, I know about the second kind too. Maybe you missed where I mentioned that abortion is, in fact, abused. That doesn't mean I'm willing to abandon the legitimate cases, as I also said.
And while these cases may be in the minority (which I see no reason to believe without some evidence or links), they are not so uncommon as to be ignorable.
Walk into the offending PC-WORLD store with PLAN-9 on a bunch of USB keys and proceed to install it on all their demo machines while pretending to look at them. Then exit the store.
They will never figure out what they are looking at. Maybe even pray for Linux.
until this whole debacle happened and was posted about....I had never heard of the PC world store-
...what a bit of bad press can accomplish?
Operation Guillotine is in effect.