I recently bought an Acer desktop at Futureshop, ~6 months.
Backtrack 5 weeks from now, I’m in Futureshop, it was a Thursday.
My computers hard drive has failed after I tried to install
Windows 7 on it, so we brought it in for repairs under warranty.
The guy there told me the S.M.A.R.T. reading verified it was a
hard drive failure (it did, I don’t remember what it was now but
I’d looked it up myself before bringing it in) and that the part
should be in in 3-5 business days and should be installed and have
the OS set up and ready for pickup in 5 – 10 business days.

2 weeks later, on the Thursday of that week, I called back and was
told he had to look at it and would call me back in half an hour
or less cause he had to check if the hard drive was installed yet.
2 hours later, I figure “Hey, it’s not nagging if I’ve waited 2
hours right?”. I’m told the guy that was on shift when the computer
came in hadn’t been in and the part hadn’t been ordered, and that
the guy was running a ~8 hour diagnostic to check if the hard drive
was the problem.

I told the techie that I, and the technician before had
already verified that and asked why he didn’t just order it
now because that’s another business day of shipping lost,
and he said that he had to make sure. I thought that was
stupid, but the next day I called back and was told that
it’d be in in 2 – 3 business days and that it’d be done in
5 days or so.

Shitty, yes. But I’m one to hope for the best
in people. Not sure what day it was, but around that time later
I called back, and the part wasn’t in yet. Alright, that’s ok I
guess, not their fault. I waited another week or so to call back,
and when I did they gave me some bullshit about it being in but
not installed yet, and so I started calling back every couple days
to check. This is where it gets bad.

Calling back, I’m fed a line about the hard drive being installed and
the operating system going to be installed the next day, every time. It’s
already BEEN 3 and a half weeks by now, a little haste would go a long way.
This was what I was repeatedly told until about week 4, when I was told directly
that they were having trouble setting up the drivers, and it’d be done tomorrow.

Ever. Single. Day. Tomorrow, Tomorrow, Tomorrow.

This Monday came, and I called and was told their technician supervisor
or some obviously worthless job title would be in tomorrow to look at it
because they were having trouble getting the drivers done properly, as they
had to get drivers on the hard drive, to install the OS onto the hard drive,
or some bullshit like that. I figured alright, that sounds a bit not right, but
Dad said he’d go into Futureshop with me tomorrow if they didn’t have it fixed and have some words with the people there. The next day, they told me it wasn’t fixed but that they’d call us the next day because it would be, and lo and behold, the next day, for the FIRST time EVER, they kept their promise and called back.

Now, good news. It’s fixed. I went out, and expected my CD RW back as the techie said there was no need to take it out at the store if I didn’t need it right away because they’d give it back after, because he was too lazy to hook it up and eject it I assume. I was told by whichever douchebag who has the nerve to call himself a techie, that he couldn’t find it. I asked if I could have one to replace it, as I don’t have many CD RW’s (try three, two now) and he said he didn’t know if they had any but he’d check. He brought
back 2 cd-r’s, which had paper printed on to the faces of them. Told me there you go. I looked at the backs, and saw that it looked like a CD-R, not the CD-RW’s I’d seen. He noticed, and after a pause, said ‘I think they’re CD-RW’s anyways, they could possibly be CD-R’s, I’m not sure. I corrected him, noting his shady trying to pass one off on me, I told him you can even see CD-R written on inside ring of the disc, and that the color wasn’t
even right. He went in and brought me out 2 new discs, I looked at it and thought thank god, finally.

No. The inside ring: DVD-R. I told him and he said something like “Oh, yeah we don’t use CD-RW’s here I guess.” Bull fucking shit. I’m pissed, but I just pick up my computer to go and take the 4 discs, and lifting the computer up, the FRONT FELL OFF. No fucking joke. These model Acers have a front plate that clips on, and it FELL OFF. Hanging by the power button cord. I lift it up and try to put it on and repeatedly push in one corner,
trying to make it clasp but it kept clicking and looking fixed, but not being fixed at all. The tech guy got fed up I guess, and asked to try it. He did the exact same as me, and called it fixed. I said no, look, as I poked it to make it fall off again. He put on a big show of re-fixing it, testing its stability, and returned it to me. Again, not fixed. He asked if it was always like that, and so I told him not until I gave it to you guys. He said the clasps must be coming loose. Anyways, after another effort, we got it, and I
took my shit to the Customer Service department.

There, I explained the long, painful struggle I’d endured all this way, and how I’d been fed bullshit, bullshit and more bullshit the whole way through, to ask for a CD-RW, or I hinted, maybe a pack to make up for the bad service. Nope. She said if he didn’t find em, they mustn’t use them, and she doesn’t work there so he’s the best word on it. I asked ok but what about one off the shelves? It didn’t seem too ludicrous to request that after
such infinite quantities of bullshit, and she said “Oh no, we can’t do that. Store use stock is different from inventory, we can’t give that away.” I asked why they couldn’t just make an exception considering how much they’d dicked me around (in politer terms), and GET THIS.

It’s store policy that once your computer is in for services, it’s your responsibility to back up your own things, and to remove all removable stuff you may have, so they can’t be held liable for it. It was then that I lost absolutely all faith not only in the tech department, but in customer care WHAT SO EVER, of Futureshop.

Side notes of Pain:
-forwarded to tech room, 5 minutes later a guy accidentally answers the phone
and tells me ‘the tech room is pretty backed up, so I’ll just send you on
to a general manager’, which was what I’d requested at first. General manager
got on the phone, and told me she’d forward me to the tech room. I told her
about what just happened, and she said she ‘just wanted to see’. So after another
lengthy wait, I hung up, giving up for the day.
-had been told progress was made, and that next work was being done on it, when
in reality it had not changed at all, as affirmed by the next days call
-tech room hangs up instead of answering when directed to being put on hold for them
from front store
-tech room answers by accident, says he meant to be on another call because he was
needed there, put on hold, and never picked up again

There was much more, but I honestly can’t remember it all. But I guarantee you that no way, unless you’ve had to deal with them yourselves, could you EVER ascertain ANY idea of the pain and suffering endured throughout this ordeal by reading this post.

Don’t make the mistake of buying at Futureshop, they’ve got the products you want but none of the customer care you’ll need once you’ve got them. For the price-to-pain ratio, you’d be better off building a much better PC yourself and googling to learn how to fix it every time something goes wrong. Even self-teaching + fixing it, I’d put my money on you to finish before I’d put it on them.

Posted by chrispomroy on Monday, October 19th, 2009 at 6:25 am.