I’m having a bit of trouble composing this review since I have never given a negative review before. I will start with the good: PC Laptops has great salesmen and a good laptop product.
Their salesman was very, very friendly and patient with us. He was great at helping us find a laptop that would meet our needs specifically. The price was a bit steep but we were reassured that we weren’t paying for a laptop, but rather for their customer service with their very awesome warranty that would take care of us! Given our experience with the service from their salesman, we felt confident about their promised customer care.
I’ve since moved outside of their realm of business and to keep my warranty legal and active, I have to send it in annually for basic clean-up, tune-up work. My warranty will void if I allow anyone other than a PC Laptops location to open my computer. Fair enough.
The Laptop is good to me and awesome. It meets all of my needs, when I take care of it. I’ve had no complaints with that. But this is where I end with the good portion of the review.
I’ve sent my laptop in twice in the last two years to keep up my end of the contract warranty. Both times have been completely separate instances of bad customer service on very different levels. I’ve now tried two different PC Laptops locations and have nothing happy to report of either experience.
My first experience: I sent in my laptop and received no notification that it had been received, even though I went through the Post Office and had tracking confirmation that it was received for days before I finally called to confirm their receipt of it. The man I spoke with told me that it 1) Hadn’t been checked in, and 2) They couldn’t find it. Even though I had post office confirmation that it had been signed on location by one of their employees!
So my very first service experience? We lost your laptop. Mind you, I hadn’t backed up all of my data (which is foolish in hindsight!) because I felt confident in their customer service prior to this experience.
What was supposed to be a quick in and out trip turned into a mess from the start. They called me back a few days later to say they found it in their back shelving under stuff. I needed to receive paperwork to sign before they could begin work and this turned into a faxing disaster (of not receiving on their end) resulting in my driving across town repeatedly over the course of two days for them to even start work; This following the nearly two week process after receiving my laptop to acknowledging its’ presence in their business.
They had my laptop for well over a month and I received NO contact whatsoever unless I called them first to ask what was going on and for a progress report. All I needed them to do was the required tune-up/clean-up to keep my warranty honored.
I finally received it back. UPS left it on my porch without any notice or a signature requirement (and frankly, with a laptop that wasn’t “insured” and cost well over $2000, that’s just not okay!).
I waited until the last month that I possibly could to send it in this second time, dreading what I would get. I was not wrong for dreading it.
I will say this: This time it only took about two weeks! I had pre-called the location I picked different from the last one to ask for e-mailed paperwork that they’d need signed to avoid the faxing mess if I could.
Cameron at the 745 S State Street location was very polite and apologetic for the mess. He e-mailed me some paperwork to sign for their check-in so that I could mail it with my laptop and not need to deal with the faxing.
I received a call from PC Laptops, once again days after the post office had confirmed delivery. The phone call was from Ryan at the 745 S State Street location saying that I still needed to receive a fax with their paperwork to sign regardless of what I’d sent in already.
This really annoyed me as I’d already been assured I wouldn’t need to bother with this. Ryan was polite enough to e-mail me the forms they required but said I’d need to fax them to their location.
I drove to a faxing location and spent the next hour on site. Sent the fax 7 different times to call back and find out (when I’d called upon arrival for the number) that their machine wasn’t even on. They had told me they needed my signature to begin work but before I e-mailed the signed forms to Phillip at the 745 S State Street location, I had a call from my tech (Anthony) to say that 1) He’d taken the liberty to remove my firewall (without permission) as he felt it was blocking critical windows updates. And 2) He thought that my external hard-drive was causing my laptop to blue screen.
So: My tech had started working on my laptop without my signed release and had removed programs without permission (which isn’t a HUGE deal except I purchased that software and IF it were blocking updates, he had admin abilities to remove the block of updates because this software works with Vista, no problem).
I never received any other contact from PC Laptops beyond that first tech call. Even though Anthony said he’d call me back with more updates after his hardware diagnostic.
My laptop came back a week later (with no phone calls and no returned calls from my tech). PC Laptops had wiped my whole computer (meaning they removed all of my programs not Window based: Zune dashboard, VLC Player, Firewall, Firefox Browser – including lost all of my bookmarks for over a year—the list goes on) and just replaced my images and documents.
I’m still doing damage control and re-downloading all of my data, including being out my firewall. They never called to update me. They never called to ask permission, just wiped my whole computer. My computer that was absolutely virus and spyware free. They lost programs I’d PAID for. I didn’t receive a status slip along with my computer. I have absolutely no information beyond that of my tech’s ONLY call about my firewall already being removed and my external hard-drive causing blue screen on my laptop.
To say I am angry and disappointed in their “service” would be an understatement.
PC Laptops will never again get my business. I will only send in my computer for the bare minimum to uphold my warranty, although I’m not sure what exactly I’m benefiting from that.
Their sales pitch is great! They got me to dump thousands of dollars into their business. Their laptop is functional. But I will NEVER again buy anything from them. Their service team is terrible at customer relations and contact. And unfortunately, if you want to keep your warranty through them, you have to deal with their service at least once a year.
In hindsight, I’m able to find reviews saying that same things: Terrible customer service, terrible service on PCs and Laptops, wiped all my stuff, ect.
I’m so disappointed in you, PC Laptops. Fool me once, shame on you!
Update: Follow-Up Review here.
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