Toshiba Laptops - Don’t Buy One

Want a laptop?

Here’s a tip - Do not buy a Toshiba Laptop.

Here’s why.

I had too send my Toshiba Laptop back for a repair, basically the screen broke. It took the repair team less than 24 hours to repair the screen, that was back on May 14th. Come June 20th I am still waiting for my Toshiba Laptop to be returned!

Why is that you may ask? Well, the outer casing of the Toshiba Laptop has a design fault and as a result after the insurers replaced the screen it was returned to Toshiba’s authorised repairer to replace the outer cover. That was over a month ago.

Old Dell Boy

Now I am using on old Dell Laptop at the moment, which to be fair is an old warhorse. The Dell Laptop may not have the bells and whistles, but listen up Toshiba, it is not sitting dormant in a repair shop waiting for a plastic outer case! Dell obviously know how to design laptops you morons!

Hello Tosh, got any spare parts?

So why has it taken Toshiba over 4 weeks to sort out a plastic casing?After speaking to my insurers repairer, they assured me it was not them holding the repair up, as I said, their part of the repair was done and dusted in 24 hours, no the hold-up was down to Toshiba’s authorised repairer.

We’re Toshiba, we’re too big and we don’t care

There was nothing left for it, I had to call Toshiba and speak to someone in their customer services division, I needed answers.

Do you know what, the guy I spoke to James really did not want to help me. But after some gentle persuasion in as much as giving James the truth and the facts, he was forced to concede the problem is Toshiba’s. When I gave James the model number he knew immediately which laptop it was and he also conceded it had caused problems!

Go away and contact our repairer

James wanted me to call Toshiba’s authorised repairer - I politely refused. I explained my insurers repairer could get no sense from Toshiba’s repair department. I also explained to James that as a ‘Customer Care Representative’ it was his job to look after me, ‘The Customer’. James reluctantly took my details and said he would call me back.

Toshiba’s response

It must have been an 90 minutes later when my mobile was ringing; it was a withheld number, so I knew it would be Toshiba. Sure enough, young James was calling me back, he was not the barer of glad tidings.

“I’m sorry, we have no idea when the outer plastic casing is going to arrive, there is no ETA”.

“Pardon?” I responded, I was astounded; but getting myself together I challenged this pathetic response.

I asked James if it was acceptable for a Toshiba user to be without a product for a month through no fault of their own. James agreed with me, it was not acceptable.

The fact that Toshiba could not offer any kind of time-line of when the plastic case would be sent from one Toshiba factory to the Toshiba workshop highlights the stupidity of the organisation, and there was me thinking the Japanese were efficient!

I said go away!

Now what? James instructed me to contact Laptops Direct (original supplier) and ask them to send me out a new laptop because and I quote “The product they (Laptops Direct) supplied is/was not fit for its intended job”.

Toshiba UK’s own ‘Customer Care‘ team member has confirmed to me that a Toshiba product should not have been sold in the first place - Game Over!

I explained to James that I would not be calling Laptops Direct as it was not their fault that Toshiba could not supply a spare plastic cover to replace the faulty cracked version which only cracked because of a design fault.

Have it back

James then tried to fob me off by asking me if I wanted the faulty laptop back. There is no way in the world that I am going to accept a faulty product back, why should I? If I did there is no chance the machine would ever get fixed. It was only now that the idea of a temporary machine was mentioned.

I further explained to James that I was not going to waste my time with the inconvenience of getting a temporary unit since the Laptop was sitting in a Toshiba workshop waiting for a Toshiba part, which Toshiba had no idea when it was going to even turn-up!

So what next with Toshiba?

The conversation ended with me informing James what I wanted and what I expected - a new laptop.

Now James has no clout, he is simply a level one customer services money; he has had to refer this case to Toshiba UK Head Office. I was told a call could come from these guys as soon as Monday next week!

Wow, Toshiba really do know how to look after disgruntled customers with genuine grievances - NOT!

I’ll let you know what happens when a senior customer services advisor from Toshiba contacts me - bring it on………

Written by MrCrip on June 20th, 2008 with 10 comments.
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