Thursday, April 27, 2006

Acer Tech-Service Blues

Complaints about poor service abound these days. I remember years ago when I had a problem with my Dell notebook computer, Dell had it picked up, shipped overnight to Austin, repaired it, and shipped it overnight back to me. I was without my computer for less than two days. Dells service has gone downhill since then, and woe be the unfortunate Dell owner whose computer needs service today.

I purchased an Acer 8200 notebook computer over a month ago, a top-of-the-line machine, and I still have not been able to us it. Two days after if arrived, before I had all of my software installed, it stopped accepting the BIOS password on boot. I hadn’t forgotten the password; somehow the BIOS had gotten garbaged, and the computer could not be turned on.

Because the dealer that sold me the computer has a restocking charge for returns, I sent it to Acer for repair. The computer sat in the Acer repair depot for three weeks, supposedly waiting for parts. With shipping, the computer was gone a month. It was returned with a note that Acer had replaced a defective motherboard.

When I turned the computer on, it made a horrible noise, and I discovered that loose wires were stuck in the fan, wires that the technician had failed to reattach after reassembling the computer. Had the technician bothered to turn the computer on after reassembly, it would have been obvious that something was wrong.

I called Acer again, and they promised to fix it on an expedited basis, but they only paid for two-day shipping. That means with roundtrip shipping, the computer will be gone at least another week. One-week service is considered expedited these days.

All of the reviews say that the Acer 8200 is a good notebook computer, but I am unable to verify that. I have owned mine for almost two months, and I still have not had the chance to use it. If Acer had tried to make amends for the shabby way it has treated me, I wouldn’t be writing this. However, I have to admit that Acer is no worse than many of its competitors. However, if you shell out $2500 to $3000 for one of these machines and it stops working, just throw it away. The hassle of getting Acer to perform a warranty repair are not worth it.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

As a recent purchaser of an Acer PC - I have to agree with you 100% about the extremely poor service I have recieved for my computer.
My husband purchased ours just before Christmas '08 - from Best Buy - and unfortunately, did not get an extended warrenty at the time of purchase. Needless to say -two months later, there seemed to be a problem with the ethernet card (so the tech support finally guessed anyway), and after 5 calls to their technical 'support', they finally made arrangements to have the tower shipped back to the Acer repair facility. The computer sat at the repair facility for at least a week. Not once did I recieve a call from anyone there about what was wrong or what they planned to do. I eventually took it upon myself to call for an update and was told that the 'bezel' on the tower was cracked during shipping, and that Acer would fix it - but they would have to charge us $199.00 for the repair. I was furious.
After numerous heated conversations with the courier company and the manager/supervisor of the technical support, I was told that the courier service would pay for $100.00 of the damage. by this time - I was so fed up with getting absolutely NO help from Acer, that I agreed to this partial payment- just to get our computer back. After calling *again* to inform Acer that I would like them to go ahead and repair the bezel AND the original problem with the ethernet card, the idiots went and shipped the tower back - once again without any correspondance - and it was still cracked!
I will NEVER use this company again. the service is the absolute worst I've ever experienced.

Unknown said...

Same thing happened to me. I bought an acer aspire one and it died. Obviously a motherboard problem. Sent it in after 2 weeks of tech support via email. They said the LCD Screen was cracked and that it would be $199 to have it fixed. I told them to mail it back to me and the screen is fine. They have horrible tech support and I will never use them again.