It shouldn’t be a difficult task to order a laptop over the internet in 2017.
At least that’s what I thought when I attempted to order an HP laptop at the end of this summer, only to begin what was unquestionably the worst experience I have ever had purchasing anything. I went through three credit cards and hours of calls just to get a laptop that completely broke down a week later. The laptop in question - an HP Spectre x360, had to be replaced by a second laptop that also broke down, but this time after only a day of use. You might have seen "Mother!"and "IT"in theaters recently, but get ready, because this is going to be your third horror story of the week.
A few days before starting university up again, I attempted to buy an HP laptop from the company’s official website. I filled in all the necessary details, and the transaction failed. The next day we called up customer support and we were told that international credit cards were not accepted methods of payment only after an hour of useless security checks and identity verifications over the phone (we were trying to use a Peruvian card). It was somewhat of a waste of time, but a fair enough reason after all.
We then proceeded to try and buy the laptop with an American credit card, and once again, the transaction failed. This time, HP charged us for the full price of the laptop, but didn’t fulfill the order request. We called customer support once again, somewhat perplexed. After another hour of being on the phone, verifying our identity and attempting to do the purchase with this particular card, we were told that our new card would not be able to process our transaction for security reasons. Fine. We were able to get the charge for the laptop returned to our bank account.
Finally, I had to get a wire transfer from a family member to my Bank of America account (and pay the due fee) so I could use my debit card for the purchase. Surprise surprise: this new transaction failed as well.
By this time I was back in the US, days away from starting up classes again, and I was laptop-less. I called HP for a third time, now losing my patience over how incredibly hard it was to order a product from this company. They told me they had to verify my identity with my bank in order to allow the order to go through, even though I had entered in all of the correct information and had confirmed my card’s details numerous times. I could have ordered a laptop from Amazon in 15 seconds without any of these issues and didn’t, only because they didn’t have the specs I needed. I’m putting money down for an ultrabook, not uranium.
Because of the delay with ordering the laptop, I chose to pay for the express shipping option. This was a Friday. However, the laptop did not arrive until next Tuesday afternoon, by which point my college classes had already begun. I had to call HP yet again, this time to get a refund on the price I paid for express shipping.
This might seem bad so far, but the ordeal still wasn’t over. One week and a half after receiving the HP Spectre, it started an automatic update as I turned it off before going to sleep. The next day in class, I tried to turn the laptop on, and I realized that the update had malfunctioned, as the screen was completely black. The only thing I could see on the screen was my mouse, wandering across a blank screen.
I tried everything I could to save it. I reset it several times. I reset the BIOS image to get back to factory settings. Nothing worked. I went to my university’s tech support office after class. They couldn’t get it to work either. I ended up calling HP customer service (my least favorite people to talk to by now), and described exactly what had happened to my device. They immediately told me my laptop was going to have to be exchanged for a new one, which would be sent to me only after my current laptop reached their location. I was outraged and had to take a stand, refusing to wait longer than a day to receive the new one. I had gone through enough troubles for this excuse of a device already. Thankfully, they accepted. I returned my laptop and received the same model the next day.
I thought my troubles were over, but no. I spent two hours setting up my laptop with everything I needed, only to have my laptop suddenly restart and update itself. And there it was: my second HP Spectre had effectively killed itself, because once it started up again, it had exactly the same black screen of death my previous laptop had suffered from. This time, I managed to completely reinstall Windows and save it from becoming unusable again, but that meant deleting all of the work I had done for the past two hours. I have written this article from my HP laptop, but I can’t shutdown or restart my laptop anymore. Doing so would give my laptop the black screen of death yet again.
Buying and using the HP Spectre x360 has been indisputably the worst experience of my life with any product. I’m trying to get through an exam this week, after which I might return this laptop and get another brand. My only suggestion to you, the reader, is to try to avoid buying an HP product if you appreciate living a happy, stress-free life. The purchase process is excessively strict and long-winded and their products are simply deficient. Thanks for nothing, HP.
