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Beating Down The Doors To The Customer Service Hall Of Shame

Mitch Wagner and Cory Doctorow in recent days have shared horror stories about PC and PC retailer customer service. Their troubles sounded familiar.

I recently bought an HP Pavilion notebook at CompUSA, complete with a $250 service plan. The purchase was remarkably difficult considering it's a commodity product that, one would think, CompUSA sells lots of every single day. Roughly a month later, my store became part of a massive downsizing by CompUSA; while the company's still around, I viewed the warranty as useless. I had to jump through hoops to request a refund, getting bounced back and forth between CompUSA and the company that manages its credit cards ("please enter your 16-digit account number at your touch-tone phone"; customer service rep's first question: "can I have your 16-digit account number please?"). I ultimately submitted all the necessary paperwork, but never have gotten confirmation or acknowledgment; I'm hopeful the refund will come through.

Then I reached out to HP to buy an extended two-year service plan. Prior to this experience, buying from HP over the Web and the phone was painless. For this issue, however, I fell somewhere between a retail purchase and a support call, and it wasn't pretty. HP has its own special brand of IVR hell, which I noted more than once in discussions with the three or four live people I spoke to before I found someone willing to take my money.

I particularly enjoyed Cory's anecdote about the five Sony execs contacting his girlfriend to fix her PC problem, only *after* the company had been called out on Doctorow's blog. My experience was nowhere near the "abusive contempt" he cites, but it was far from pleasant.

What vendors have made your customer service hall of fame/shame? What's the most irritating customer experience you've had? Weigh in below.

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