HP backs off of imposed +15 minute wait times on calls to support line in Europe

[thewayne]

*blinks*

Apparently negative press works.

Imagine my surprise.

This still does not change my hearty recommendation to not buy any HP products ever, said recommendation having been in place for many years.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/02/misguided-hp-customer-support-approach-included-forced-15-minute-call-wait-times/

Comments

[armiphlage]

In 2001, HP tried charging my credit card for their services when I called their help line about my newly-purchased defective printer. I don't remember the wait for that "service", but it was probably at least 15 minutes.

[disneydream06]

I love calling places and being put on hold and listening to the recording telling me how important my call is, as I wait and wait and wait.
No, if my call was actually important, you would hire more people to answer your phones. Preferably somebody I can understand. :p
Hugs, Jon

[kaishin108]

That changed fast! Right, I don't think HP can be trusted.

[thewayne]

They became low-end consumer gear a long time ago, their quality is just terrible and their support is worse.

[kaishin108]

We have friends here in Idaho who worked for HP before the big downsize. A LOT has changed with their products since then, yes.

[viridian5]

When I needed a new laptop in 2017, my first choice was an HP Pavilion 15-bs131nr, due to its price and features. It refused to stay connected to wifi. After many hours of phone support trying various things, HP told me it was probably just that one laptop, so they replaced it with another HP Pavilion 15-bs131nr laptop... that had exactly the same problem. I switched it for a Lenovo IdeaPad 320-15IKB, which I still use today.

[thewayne]

Sounds like a bad batch of WiFi cards/chips.  Apple had bad luck with dedicated video cards in laptops and iMacs for a couple of years.  Cold solder joints that would eventually fail in one case, bad chips in another.

[ranunculus]

Not just low end crap, EXPENSIVE low end crap in the case of printers. How much for a thimble full of ink?
I actually threw out a quite new HP printer three years ago in favor of an Epson. I couldn't even give the HP away.

[devilc]

HP is a company of last resort for me and has been since 1998, when they tried to charge me $70 for an updated driver for a scanner I bought in 1997. The switch from W95 to W98 broke the driver. The new driver came only on a $70 CD which had some additional software, which I did not want or need.

Yeah, they wouldn't even support a 1 year old product that I had registered with them. I called them on the phone and asked if I could just get the driver, because didn't need the software it came bundled with. Nope. $70 or nothing. Fuckers.

HP got nothing.

A friend had a copy of Adobe Photoshop 4.0 which included a generic HP scanner driver compatble with W98 and he installed that on my computer and away I went.

[thewayne]

I worked IT for a fairly large police department through the '90s.  We sent our techs to an HP training/certification course to repair our printers and scanners.  They all got certified.  Then the fuckers wouldn't sell us parts kits.  Yeah, complete waste of time and money.  This was not the first time I saw what a horrible company HP was, and not remotely the last.

[devilc]

Sweet jeebus on toast points.

[thewayne]

Yeah.  Such miserable fuckers, to take our money and train our people, then not sell parts kits.  Personally, were I in charge I would immediately institute a replacement program and throw out every piece of HP kit in the building, but that didn't happen.

[silveradept]

Perhaps this reversal comes with the evidence of people actually making good on their threats to get rid of all of their HP products and not ever touch the company again. (That's certainly a good goal. It would be excellent to drive that company into the ground and let someone else take their market, preferably with the idea of making good computers and having support for them.

[thewayne]

A few years back I worked at our local Air Force base as a contractor, our group swapped out every PC in the base with a Windows 10 laptop.  We imaged them with a standard image, then when a group on the base was ready, we swooped in, removed the old kit, installed the new stuff.  Every single laptop was an HP.  It's probably bulk contracts like this that truly keep them going.

[silveradept]

Probably. There certainly isn't any other market they can do well than "lowest bidder wins and equipment cycled every few years so nobody gas to deal with their crap for long enough to make a change."