Toshiba get your @#$% act together!
We used to be a Toshiba family. Not ever again.
I bought a Toshiba laptop for Scott in October. In March he complained that the HDMI port was no longer working, so as we had paid for the extended warranty at Dick Smith, we took it in.
We demonstrated the problem to the lovely guys at my local Dick Smith – I’m a very very regular customer – and they sent it off to Toshiba Repairs on 10 March. Actually that’s what the repair receipt says – I really dropped it off a few days earlier before I went overseas on the 9th. But anyway.
At the end of March we followed up with Dick Smith. Apparently Toshiba had sent it back to the store saying there wasn’t a problem. The guys at Dick Smith actually took a video demonstrating that there was in fact a problem – the HDMI port definitely didn’t work. They sent it back to Toshiba.
Every 2-3 days we went in to Dick Smith to ask how things are going. They checked online. The manager rang them. But it’s still at Toshiba.
I went in today (20 April). It’s still listed as being at the store. THAT’S SIX WEEKS TOSHIBA!
AND NOW, I just got home after work, and there was a letter from Dick Smith saying that the laptop could not be repaired under warranty because the fault is not covered. The reason from Toshiba was CRACKED LCD.
WTF TOSHIBA? It’s a broken HDMI port. The screen was NOT cracked. The receipt said everything else apart from the HDMI port was fine. If you are trying to cover up a screen that you broke, you’ve got another thing coming to you.
The letter also said:
‘The cost of this repair estimate is $438.90 to replace the LCD.
You may wish to reject the estimate, if you do so, a rejection fee may be charged from the repairer and the unit will be returned to you unrepaired.’
You’re going to charge me NOT to repair a documented problem?
No response on the phone – it’s after 5.30pm on Friday.
And that’s not our only Toshiba Repair experience.
A couple of years ago Scott had another laptop, bought from Myer. Can’t remember whether it was actually a Toshiba laptop, but the warranty meant it had to go to Toshiba Repairs. This stupid laptop ended up having a broken motherboard, broken hard drive, broken power pack on three separate occasions. Eventually we got it declared a lemon by Myer, and got a replacement. I think Scott ended up having the laptop 3 months out of the 8 we owned it. Our opinion of Toshiba Repairs was pretty bad then.
Last Sunday I bought a new laptop for myself. A Toshiba from JB-Hifi. They didn’t have the model I wanted in stock, so I accepted the floor demonstration model, with an extra 4GB RAM added by JB-Hifi staff. I took it home, downloaded Bitdefender, XAMPP. Then tried to install Adobe Master Collection from DVD. The drive was kind of noisy – no, make that very noisy. Wouldn’t kick off the installation. So I gave up and downloaded the official Adobe Suite – didn’t really care about the bandwidth. The installation got to 30% and hung. And hung. I went out, then 3 hrs later cancelled it. It was so slow I had a look at the system info – it wasn’t recognising the additional RAM. The wireless strength was so poor it wouldn’t reach from the bedroom to the lounge room. I rang JB-Hifi and they said that as it was only 3 days old and obviously faulty, they would replace it. I upgraded to the beeoootiful Samsung I am typing this post on.
Will I ever buy another Toshiba product again in my life? NO.
Am I a big technology shopper? YES.
Will I tell everyone about my horrible experience with Toshiba Repairs? YES.
I am so pissed off it’s not funny.
Screw the Toshiba. When it comes back we’ll use it as a spare. A learning tool.
Tomorrow Scott and I are going shopping. (Scott – I’m serious about that Maths practice twice a week, and 90% in IT).
Alienware or Samsung, here we come.
Good riddance Toshiba.
Geekgirl,
Someone’s got to ask why you bought yet another Toshiba last Sunday after the problems you’d had?
Crossword Man
Gidday Dave,
Until this week, as far as we knew it was Toshiba Repair causing us problems: – being slow repairing Scott’s laptop (possibly a Compaq) a few years ago, and being slow repairing his laptop this time. A broken HDMI port was supposed to be a tiny thing – not somehow turn into a broken LCD screen that they won’t fix and tell me they’re going to charge me for non-repair.
Matt has has a Toshiba for a year that’s been ok – not a lot of grunt, but he’s not a heavy user.
Me buying a third Toshiba on Sunday was a gamble swayed by price. The faulty disk drive, inability to install Adobe, inability to recognise the extra RAM and poor wireless strength were educational, in a negative way.
Three strikes and they were out.
With your website, I think it’s just time to bite the bullet and have the WordPress site as the whole main site, but we probably should chat more.
see ya
Update.
Matt’s Toshiba’s hard drive failed on the weekend. Completely dead.
So that’s three Toshibas dead in three months. What else can I say?