Contributing writer

HP, Verizon, and Dell headline excerpts from the Gripe Line mailbag

analysis
Sep 3, 20093 mins

Despite an e-mail glitch, Gripe Line shares readers' comments about HP's hinge recall, Verizon's mysterious data charges, and Dell's abysmal support

First up, I want to apologize. Due to a server upgrade glitch at InfoWorld, I have not received any Gripe Line e-mails for at least a week. Foolishly, I assumed all was well in the world of IT and that you were all happy. But as several readers who were either resourceful enough to track down an alternate e-mail for me or who posted in the comments, that’s clearly not what’s going on. E-mails to me have been going into the ether or — occasionally — giving the sender a bounce message. It’s all fixed now. But if you sent me a gripe in the last week or so and I haven’t responded — even if you didn’t get a bounce error message — I probably did not get it. Please resend!

In response to “HP holds firm on hinge recall deadline,” Nick writes, “Suppose you had a cardiac pacemaker. And there is a recall because some units are defective. So you reply to the recall and learn that your unit is not defective. But to be safe, the manufacturer monitors the situation to see if the defect turns up. And at that point they replace it. They do not — as HP has decided to do — rule that if it’s not broke now, tough luck for later.” Needless to say, Nick is not happy with the way HP is (not) handling the hinge-crack recall now that the deadline for filing has passed.

[ Also on InfoWorld: “HP holds firm on hinge recall deadline,” “Verizon billing error may be rampant,” and “Stuck in Dell’s endless tech support loop” | Frustrated by tech support? Get answers in InfoWorld’s Gripe Line newsletter. ]

And it seems, from reading the comments on “Verizon billing error may be rampant” post, that a lot of people discovered mysterious data charges on their Verizon bills after reading that. (I only received one letter about this, though, so if you wrote to me before today looking for help, please resend.) Tdesmit writes in the comments that after reading about the data-charge problem and waiting on hold for over an hour, he finally got through to technical support.

“While I was on hold,” he writes, “I looked up the article in the Cleveland Plain Dealer. I read passages from it to the billing representative, who agreed to refund the data charges. Further, he said he would try to get information disseminated to the other representatives, since he had not heard of this issue himself.”

And reading the responses to “Stuck in Dell’s endless tech support loop” is causing me to look at the Dell desktop that has served me well for a couple of years — and that I’m using to write this post — with skeptical alarm. Will I have to write to myself at the Gripe Line to get help if it develops Xs for eyes?

Northidaholady says, “I have a pretty high tolerance level for troubleshooting and have been around long enough to know that things can go wrong: What matters is resolution. After purchasing 10 or 11 Dell computers and three Dell Axims in the last nine years, I’m with Pete: enough is enough! Even loyal customers can only take so much.”

Got gripes? Send (or resend) them to christina_tynan-wood@infoworld.com.

Contributing writer

Christina Wood has been covering technology since the early days of the internet. She worked at PC World in the 90s, covering everything from scams to new technologies during the first bubble. She was a columnist for Family Circle, PC World, PC Magazine, ITworld, InfoWorld, USA Weekend, Yahoo Tech, and Discovery’s Seeker. She has contributed to dozens of other media properties including LifeWire, The Week, Better Homes and Gardens, Popular Science, This Old House Magazine, Working Woman, Greatschools.org, Jaguar Magazine, and others. She is currently a contributor to CIO.com, Inverse, and Bustle.

Christina is the author of the murder mystery novel Vice Report. She lives and works on the coast of North Carolina.

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