A Request for Kossack Advice/Help

Things have been kind of tumultuous and negative here in Dreamland over the last several weeks.  It’s test time for my blood problem; my anxiety level’s on full tilt and my nerves are frayed.  (The CT scan came back clear.  We’ll see Monday what my hematologist/oncologist has got to say about the labs he’ll have drawn.)  But that’s just the tip of the proverbial iceberg.  

Many items in Dreamland have decided to break over the last few weeks as well.  Dealing with company reps and service people has been tedious, time consuming, and nervewracking.  The final straw in these few weeks I spent in the 7th ring of Dante’s Inferno culminated in a very unsatisfactory conversation with an indifferent and apathetic young, female Customer Relations Case Manager for Toshiba this morning.  It left me with a very bitter taste in my mouth and wondering if the consumer has any rights or recourse at all.

Last year I was in the market for a laptop computer.  On the sound advice I got from our own clonecone, I went to CNet and researched what I was looking for, what I could afford and what was available.  I found a Toshiba laptop that I ended up buying.  I love this laptop and have had virtually no problems with it, whatsoever.

My son began attending a university some 50 miles from here as a junior a few weeks ago.  He thought it might benefit him to purchase a laptop computer.  He bounced a few questions off of me and I told him how well I liked mine.  I advise him to check out CNet, as well, to check out their reviews.  He settled on one he liked and bought it direct from Toshiba online in mid-July.  The computer arrived at our home several weeks later, in early to mid-August.  He had it built to his specifications and spent what I view to be a small fortune.  It’s got a huge supply of RAM, a 3 year extended warranty, and runs Windows Vista.  

From the first week he’s had it, this thing has done nothing but give him problems.  He’s been able to do very little school work on it because from the first week, it would run horribly slow and shut down by itself and for no apparent reason.  

With going to school full time and the long commute, he’s been doing his work on the PC we have and has had little time to try to figure out what’s wrong with his new laptop.  Last Saturday, he decided to try to figure it out, to no avail.  He then decided that he’d better save the little bit of school work he’d been able to do on the computer during the first few days he owned it.  He tried to download the software for the Toshiba external hard drive he’d bought and the computer crashed.

So . . . he called the Toshiba Technical support number.  Seemed about right.  After all, he has the Rolls Royce of service agreements, right?  Not exactly.  The technician tried to talk him through a few steps and the computer kept shutting down on its own during every step the technician recommended.  He then told my son to save all his files to disk or on an external hard drive.  So, my son proceeded to tell him that that’s what caused the computer to crash, that he couldn’t even install the software for the external hard drive.  The tech told him to just plug the external hard drive into one of the USB ports and drag and drop the information my son needed to save.  The system would only allow him to drag and drop a few files and that’s all that he was able to save.  The technician was on the phone this entire time and my son was advising him of all that was or wasn’t occurring.  After the few salvageable files were saved, the tech told my son that he’d have to restore the computer to its original state.  That in order to do this, he’d have to use the Toshiba Recovery and Applications/Drivers disk that came with the new computer and advised him that he’d lose every bit of information that was on the computer except for those few files he was able to save to the external hard drive.

My son restored the computer to the original state and immediately began having the very same problems as before, starting with the computer shutting down on its own.  

Last night, my son decided that maybe he just needed to restore the computer back to it’s original state again - a last ditch effort if you will.  He put the Toshiba Recovery disc in the E Drive and began the restoration.  When it finished, nearly 3 hours later, the computer is now completely empty.  No recovery, nothing.  All that remains on the monitor is a continuous DOS prompt that reads repeatedly:

For Realtek RTL8100E/8101E Fast Ethernet Network Adapter v1.2 (860510)
PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable
PXE-M0F: Exiting PXE ROM.

Intel UNDI, PXE-2.1 (build 082)
Copyright © 1997-2000 Intel Corporation

At this point, I’d had it.  This morning, my son had to go to the school to talk to his VA rep and I called Toshiba’s Repair Service number, gave the person who answered my son’s case number,  and asked to speak with their Customer Relations Dept. because, obviously, Toshiba doesn’t have a separate number for Customer Relations.  The young lady who answered, tried to dissuade me from talking with Customer Relations and wanted to connect me, instead, to the Technical Services Department.  I, politely, told her that I’d speak with the Technical Services Dept. after I spoke with someone at Customer Relations.  She told me that there were 10 calls in queue ahead of me and asked if I still wanted to be connected.  I answered, "Yes, thank you."  She advised me that when connected, I’d be speaking to a Case Manager.  I, again, thanked her and was put on hold.

Twenty minutes later a slightly annoyed woman got on the line and I was so caught off guard by her demeanor that I, regretfully, neglected to ask her name.  I gave her the information she snappingly asked for and explained what had gone on since my son received this brand new computer and the state that the computer is currently.  She proceeded to tell me that it seemed to be a problem with the Recovery Disk and asked if I wanted Toshiba to send me a new one.  "No," I replied.  "At this point, I think the problem is with the computer itself and what I’d like is a new computer or to get my money back, which I don’t think you’re going to do."  "No," she said, "We can’t do that.  We can either send you a new Recovery Disk or you can send the computer back and we’ll try to repair it.  Those are your only two options."  I opted to send the computer back and asked what recourse I had if this "repair" didn’t work.  She replied that they’d send me a new Recovery Disk.  I asked what the next step would be if that didn’t work.  She said that a computer being deemed "unrepairable" would be determined by the Technical Repair Department and if the computer is "unrepairable," they’d consider sending my son a "refurbished" Toshiba computer.  

I asked if we couldn’t just take the computer to one of Toshiba’s Service Centers in our area and she curtly replied, "No."

She then said that she’d connect me to the Technical Repair Department to set up our sending this brand new unuseable computer back.  I was on hold for five minutes, when a prompt came on telling me their Technical Repairs Department was very busy and asked for my name and phone number; that Toshiba would contact me in 1-4 hours.  It’s now been five and a half hours and I’ve heard from no one.  I told the Customer Relations Manager that I spoke with that if some satisfactory outcome was not reached that I would be contacting our state’s Attorney General’s Consumer Protection Department and she was unimpressed.

As I post this, my son is filing a complaint with them.  This is a nightmare already and I refuse to let Toshiba keep well over a thousand dollars for a computer that hasn’t worked correctly since day one without trying to get some kind of resolution.

Are there any other avenues that might be helpful?