I bought a Pavilion dv 2500 in Hong Kong in October 2007. I live in France. It now seems a lifetime ago I phoned the UK Tech Help line. My call was answered in South Africa. I have used laptops for over 20 years and I know when the E drive (as it is on the Pavilion) is not working. But I had to check for the Analyst all the software for 75 minutes before he said that I needed a new Lightscribe disc drive. He told me to phone the French Tech Support line I did. The first guy phoned me again to see that all was well. I told him that the French help line sent me back to the UK because my technical French is not so good. The Guy in SA said phone again. I did. Again I was sent back to the UK number. The guy from SA phoned again and then again told me to phone the French number. The SA guy then gave up!

I tried a new tack. I sent a fax to the Head Office of HP UK Ltd. This may have been a month ago. I never received a reply. I sent an email to Mark Hurd's office and got an automatic response saying he is too busy to respond. I phoned UK again but this time using an international number and paying international call charges. Eventually I spoke to Carol and after telling her my problem she put me through to another Carol in Newcastle. She was sympathetic and said that she would make arrangements for the French office to phone me and collect my computer. I explained to her that I had been forced by HP to buy an external plug in Lightscribe disc drive partly because I need one for producing master discs for my music and partly for doing back ups. She said she would phone me the following day. Naturally anyone who begins to know how HP operates will know that no such phone call was forthcoming. I phoned the London number again and explained that I was still waiting for a call. I was put through to Ian who said that Carol was on the phone and would phone back. I never heard from Ian or the 2 Carols again.
I believe that the saga has been going on for 6 weeks. I know that all I need to fit a replacement drive is to take out one screw and slip the new one in gripping the sides as I go. I have offered several times to buy one even though I have a so called World Guarantee but that offer has been ignored. So on Tuesday I phoned the French Tech Support number. This time I persisted beyond what should be expected from any customer and eventually someone with some English spoke to me. I was then passed round with calls being made to me. Now it really takes a new turn! In very clear English I was asked if my computer is backed up. I confirmed it was. I was then told to recover my computer to factory settings. I protested that all that was wrong was a non serviceable dsc drive. No the lady at the other knew better. Yeah, right. She went away I did as I was told. She phoned back by which time I had run a total read/copy/burn test on the drive. It was of course completely dead. Right she agreed she would get someone to collect the computer and confirm the arrangements later on Wednesday. She phoned again. Wait for this one! She said that as I bought the computer in Hong Kong she would have to check something and phone back yesterday. She even took my cell phone number in case I was out. Guess what? That's right it now passed 1pm Friday and I have heard nothing. But...

My computer was cleared down on Tuesday. I thus had to load things back on. On Tuesday night I had to contact Symantec to download Norton 360. They insisted in doing the work for me. It was not down correctly. On Wednesday morning someone else from Symantec had to do again. It worked this time until Internet Explorer did not work. Back to Symantec. The next guy started to get me to remove programs (other than 360). I warned him that I had only 1 browser from the outset. When it got the point that it was imperative for me to get on the internet after he had got me to take off Google. He decided the problem wasn't 360 at fault and just left me to sort that mess out. Which I had to recover again and go back to Symantec to download 360 for the third time. Today's problem with Symantec is whilst I have protection it does not want to restore my back up.

So there you have it HP you are possibly the worst organization I have ever had the misfortune to get ripped off by but Symantec are not far behind you and could overtake you if I can't get my data restored.