Acer's Customer NO Service

I purchased a Acrer Aspire One in September 2008 shortly after they came out. I was fairly satisfied with it except for the too small keyboard.

Well about 6 weeks ago I found that the screen had just gone out. I called Acer and they explained that it was a glitch that they would fix via a thumb drive which they sent FedX. GREAT. Impressed then with their service which was quick and this fixed the problem.

Several weeks later I awake to find that every thing on the Acer is screwed up. I think that just may be some thing has happened during the night as Microsoft selected 3AM in the morning to upgrade my XP. I began to look to see if it was a virus and NO virus was discovered by either Spybot Search and Destroy or Avast. I then try to see if I can reset to another time when the computer was working okay. That has no effect.

So I decide to use the Acer Recovery System that is in the computer after more than three frustrating calls to Acer techies that for the first two calls I could hardly understand what they were saying. Finally I get this ARROGANT American asshole who keeps parroting that I have to purchase a $19.95 physical recovery disc from Acer to get my computer back to normal. Screw that BS!

I soon learn that even though the computer itself is under warranty the warranty for the software is only 90 DAYS. I ask him if there have been other situations like mine where this has happen and he just EVADES the question constantly evidently reading from prepared script like his counterparts in the foreign countries. I guess Acer has not heard of the Ritz where a person can make a DECISION without checking with higher ups!

So I decide that at LAST resort I will use the Full Factory Recovery System and that is when the Error Code saying a line of code is missing shows up! No wonder the computer is NOT functioning properly. So I call Acer again and this time they say they will have a Level 2 call which they NEVER did!

I think that line of code is missing from all those Acers they shipped in the beginning. They refuse to suggest that is possible and just keep telling me that I have to pay the $19.95 to get my computer disc.

So I ask the operator if I can speak to either the Director of Consumer Affairs or some one in Public Relations.

SURPRISE there is no such person at Acer according to the operator!

She says that she can only send me back to Customer NO Service where I can listen to the same line of BS! I inform her that I have worked with the Fed Trade Commission on a project before and plan to report this to them. She is NOT fazed by this. She says that she can only send me back to Customer Service. Again these mindless morons are reading from a script!

So do you know if they have anyone in the USA office that could give me a REAL answer? You would think that during the time that computers are dropping in price like a rock they would bend over backwards to make others happy. NO!

I would love it if anyone out there reading this post has any relationship with an Acer executive or a marketing firm that works with Acer. If so please email me at hugh009@gmail.com Subject Acer.

Hugh Simpson

Acer Computer Is Screwing You

SURPRISED! NOT!

It all started last week when I went to bed with my computer still on which was probably a BIG mistake and I believe those assholes over at Microsoft did one of their middle of the night updates automatically. They had caused my Acer One netportable to freeze before.

So I realized this was another episode when there was no sound on my computer for videos, podcasts and YouTube. I began to try figure out what was wrong with my VERY limited knowledge of what the hell could be wrong!

So after several days of HELL I decided to call Acer. BIG f-cking mistake!

First, I was redirected to India where the young girl that answered spoke fairly good English which was surprising. However when she pushed me off to the first techie, another Indian woman, I began the hellish journey of trying to understand what the hell she was saying.

Finally I got the jest of the conversation: "Mr. Simpson, you have got to BUY the physical recovery disc that we sell to take care of this problem."

To HELL I do! First, it is THEIR recovery system in the computer itself that caused the SCREW UP! I have finally realized that the Error Message I was getting on the screen was talking about a MISSING piece of code from the recovery system! They f-ck up the code and want me to pay them? Screw that BS!

I need your help to get their attention of the BIG mistake they have made screwing with me. I have helped close down one of the largest transmission companies in the USA in the past for screwing the public.

Not only did I speak to one techie idiot that told me this in broken English but at least two more and finally one who was American! He was an arrogant asshole. All he could parrot was the buying of that damn disc!

If you are so inclined PLEASE Retweet this blog post! I want Acer to realize it can't screw us with this BS! They understand when it effects THEIR pocket book!

Oh by the way are you aware that the majority of your computer software that runs your computer only has a 90 DAY warranty? After that if it screws up you are expected to buy that damn disc for $19.95!

Also that arrogant asshole from the USA told me that they were only covering their costs. What BS! I know from 35 plus years of Direct Marketing experience that damn disc in quantities don't costs more than a dollar! FEDEX also does not costs $18.95 to send Ground! Do they think we are STUPID?

Hugh Simpson

MORE KUDOS to Cobb Transit Authority

Not only was the information in the email ABSOLUTELY and TOTALLY accurate the Cobb Xpress bus to my destination was RIGHT ON TIME! The bus was a beautiful CLEAN comfortable bus like a Greyhound out fitted with the overhead lights and air directors. The driver was very courteous and helpful when I asked about the last return bus.

My return trip was also a almost stop free trip to the Atlanta downtown MARTA station.

In the future when I need to go to a mall that MARTA runs to I think I will go to one in Cobb County. Even though it is further out the trip is actually shorter than one taken with MARTA.

Also I found out from Rebecca, the director at Cobb Community Transit, that Mary has just been hired from the Utah Transit Authority where she spent 32 years in Customer Service. The reason that the call wait estimate was 9 minutes was that Mary has instructed all her representatives to make sure that EVERY question is THOROUGHLY answered regardless of how long it takes.

NOW there is a REFRESHING approach to Customer Service!

Hugh Simpson

Hugh Simpson

KUDOS to Cobb County Transit Authority

Yes, it is SO pleasant to be able to actually find a KUDOS story to share with you as opposed to the usual Gotcha stories I usually hear.

It all started because I needed to find how to get to my destination in Cobb County, Georgia tomorrow in order to meet my friend Paul. As many of you may know I don't drive due to Emory University botching up several - three to be exact - detached retina surgeries. They would have tried more if I had not walked out and NEVER returned! Get this - they wanted me to pay THEM $10,000 per operation! Not on your life and they learned I meant what I said and they quit bothering me.

Well, I have decided not to risk my life and the lives of others driving on the Atlanta interstates with one eye. So I normally take MARTA which is Atlanta's Transit system. However they don't run to where I wanted to go. Cobb does.

So after looking at the Cobb Transit map and not being able to determine which bus to take from the MARTA Arts Station I decided to call the number at Cobb's site. I was put through the usual "press 1, press 2" routine. I also found that Cobb instead of putting you on hold FOREVER with no estimate of how long you will be there DID give an estimate - 9 minutes.

Well I could not live with that and found an email address for the Director. I emailed her and told her my predicament and what I needed. I honestly expected NO answer or one too late to help me.

WOW, was I surprised and thrilled when an assistant, Mary, emailed me back and she had kept it - KISS - Keep It SIMPLE Salesperson! I had all my info to make my trip perfect for tomorrow in one paragraph!

I seriously doubt MARTA would have come through like this and get this - the answer was in LESS than 1 HOUR!

So yes Cobb Transit you are WINNING the Customer Service Game in my book!

Hugh Simpson

Disaster at Dumb Buy!

It all began when I was visiting a local Atlanta Best Buy store to look at the new ultra-portable computers that are becoming the rage for late 2008! As someone said it is a hybrid between a cell phone/PDA and a laptop. I wanted to look at the Acer One that offered 120 GB and the Wifi G service. It had really good reviews from users. Also it had a price tag of $349!

So I start to look around ready to purchase on the spot! Of course, they are sold out at that store. I ask if they will check at other Atlanta stores. They locate one at another store but make NO offer to have it transferred to the store near me. I guess they see no reason to save me from driving over 50 miles round trip!

So I decide to see if it is avail on the Net. Sold out!

So several days later I call the store near me to see if they had gotten a new shipment of the computers. Well I learned that if the phone rings more than X amount of times they transfer you to the Internet store. However no one tells you that has happened since I asked for Dayton Crawford, who had talked to me first in the store. Instead of telling me that this was NOT the store the idiot at Customer Service says Dayton's not in today. Of course, he is not in! He does not work for the Internet based store!

Finally realizing I was talking to someone in God knows where, I ask to speak to a Supervisor and she puts me through to one. I explain to this guy what I'm looking for and he re-tells me what I already know – they sold out on the Net. DUH!

I will say that he does try to look to see if there are any of the computers in other stores in Atlanta. NOW they are none!

So finding that I'm just not your average Joe calling but a reporter he tells me that he will help me by giving me the Best Buy number so I can check each week to see what is the status of this computer. He makes NO offer to inform me by email!

So he gives me the following number that I would like for you to punch in your computer: 8967335. First go to Best Buy's site. Put in the number. See if you get what I got today. This item does not EXIST!

See actually when I called back the local store and gave them this number they said that it did not exist either. So either this STUPIDVISOR was BSing me which is a f-cking NO-NO or he is dyslexic!

So after doing my own research I find that Acer is coming out with a NEWER model of this computer with 160 GBs instead of 140. That STUPIDVISOR had NO clue that was happening! I learned this on Amazon who will be carrying this computer at $399 with FREE shipping!

So you can bet that I will buy it from Amazon! I recommend you consider that too after the f-cking disaster I experienced at Dumb Buy!

Hugh Simpson

A Freebie Nightmare

This lesson refers to the recent nightmare my partner and I experienced with using 000Webhost which is a FREE hosting service that does not require any ads on your site. They say that they are offering this service as they already have a for-profit company doing well.

So here's what happened. We decided to use 000Webhost for the 7th Haven Development site. Dr. Tim, my partner spent numerous HOURS designing a really good site to find that 000Webhost had decided to suspend our site! Dr. Tim created a ticket to find out why that had occurred and received NO response.

I created a ticket and told them that if they did not respond with an answer to my ticket I would turn this over to my friends at the USA Federal Trade Commission! I explained that I was a consumer investigative reporter and I wanted answers ASAP!

Well I got an IMMEDIATE response. I spent several HOURS going back and forth with their Customer Service person who I must admit was right there unlike the assholes at Kaser Electronics.

I told them that as far as I could determine we had NOT violated one section of their policy. Here are the sections for you to see for yourself.

The only area that I saw where they could have gotten us for was SPAMMING. There terms about Spamming are so NEBULOUS. I asked them if this applied to us showing a video on YouTube where we gave the web site at the end; blogging on Blogger and also telling people at our DOUBLE OPT-IN subscriber list.

They IMMEDIATELY unsuspended the site; however a lot of good that did as they had taken it down from the server and we lost EVERY THING we had created! Unfortunately Dr. Tim had NOT backed up the site which he had planned to do.

Lesson learned – ALWAYS backup EVERY THING ASAP!

Another lesson learned – if it is FREE be EXTRA careful about using it! READ ALL the info before signing up! As you will note they have the right to remove your site for almost any thing they can dream up! Since you are NOT paying for it you are screwed!

Fortunately we will be able hopefully to redirect 7th Haven Development over to our 7th Haven site.

Oh, by the way here is there reply in regards to losing every thing with their service:

We would like to say thanks for using our services! You can also help us by placing link to http://www.000webhost.com/ from your website, blog or forum or let your friends to know about our free hosting services :)

In your dreams will we help 000Webhost! Instead we will tell EVERY Internet Marketing teacher we know to NEVER use 000Webhost and we know lots of marketers with HUGE lists of subscribers!

Looking for your comments and suggestions!

Hugh Simpson

Don't Buy From Kaser Electronics

Yes, you need to NEVER buy from Kaser Electronics in China!

These people don't even KNOW what Customer Service is – period!

Here's the scoop.

I was looking through the Atlanta newspaper and found the Frys Electronics ad insert. Usually there is NOTHING of interest in those circulars for me. However this time I saw some thing that caught my attention. It was a cool MP3 player with 2.8 inch touch screen that played video and stored up to 4GBs. It also had a digital camera with it.

Well I had been looking for a small player that I could use to show off my dome building business' videos. This looked like it fit the ticket. I began to research this player and found some good reviews on it. One person called it the “poor man's Iphone” as it does look like an Iphone. Of course, no phone!

So I decided to head to the local Atlanta Fry's store before the sale went off. GREAT price too – under $80!

Now because I don't drive I had to take a MARTA bus and rail to then be picked up by my friend who was kind enough to drive me to Frys' store.

I found the device after receiving NO help from the Fry salesperson except a grunt of where the device was located. I found that the device came with NO instructions in the package; however that is SOP – Standard Operating Procedure – today. I noted a web site where I had visited before coming to the store that had a fairly decent description about the device and also some downloads.

I had wanted to make sure that the device could be played using Windows 2000 which I found was okay. Hey, I just upgraded to Windows 2000 after using 98SE for years.

After purchasing the device I was of course eager to get home and play with it and set up the dome videos. I noted that I would have to download the driver for Windows 2000 on the page which I did. As I went to open the zip file I received an Error Message – not good! However the file did open and I thought I was going to be able to make it work. WRONG!

The file was corrupted. Also the PDF file would not download that was the manual for the unit. This was NOT looking good!

Soon matters went from BAD to WORSE! I emailed Customer Service which I have found was a
f-cking joke! They said at their email they would reply in 24 hours or less. It has been a f-cking WEEK and NO reply from these assholes!

I would like for you to go to the Kaser site and look for Mambo 4GB Touch-Flix and see if you can download the file for the driver. If you can you will be the first as I had a friend try for me. I thought may be it was the Zip downloader I was using; however I had NEVER had problems with it before. You will be downloading the file for Windows 2000 users.

You know the sad thing about this disaster is that the device is REALLY cool and works like a charm when it comes to the camera and the radio. I have now got to upgrade to Windows XP which is okay too since I have a new HD camcorder that requires XP. I should have NO problem since there is NO requirement for downloading a driver if using XP. Guess I need to come out of the Dark Ages!

I had planned to recommend this device to my friends and you readers. And if you are using XP or Vista there should be NO problem. Every thing should be cool unless you need the NONEXISTENT Customer Service for another problem!

Also I blame Frys too. Why would you market a product in your store that offers NO Customer Service! Have you EVER thought of checking out the Customer Service for products that you market especially in the Electronics and Computer Departments BEFORE you put them on the shelves? What a thought! Might even make a GREAT ad campaign if not for Fry's then their COMPETITION!


Give me your feedback and comments!

Hugh Simpson

More Raging from Me Part 3

Here's another rage against the ass-oles at Microsoft!

I decided this week to learn how to use my HP Ipaq PDA I bought on eBay several YEARS ago. With my new dome building business I wanted to be able to load my videos I had shot about the dome's construction and also the completed dome of Kevin's and use them to show people like a virtual calling card. Actually I think with the prices of the MP3/4 video players coming down so rapidly we will see that as a reality sooner than you might think. Give the players away to prospects that play a video like the greeting cards that play music!

Anyway of course the HP is loaded with Microsoft's 2003 PC Mobile software. BIG mistake. After spending frustrating HOURS with this f-cking piece of crap software I remembered the wonderful people at the HP Forum that helped me before with an Ipaq question. So I headed over there to let the folks know about my frustration with using Windows Media Player 9 for video.

Would you believe that Professor Julie who was the one that helped me before was still on the forum and she remembered me. She had an answer that I would have NEVER found from Microsoft. Reason – there f-cking Windows Media Player can't handle most video formats! What a surprise – NOT!

Julie recommended another piece of software that unfortunately costs $25. So I spent another couple of hours searching the Net and found a wonderful FREE player for the PDA. It is called SompyPlayer. Loaded it with NO problems and worked like a charm! Kudos to SompyPlayer!

Also kudos to another player I now have on my laptop – GomPlayer also FREE!

Microsoft ought to take some lessons from these guys and create something that WORKS!

That's my rage for now! LOVE to have your feedback! Write me at hugh009@hotmail.com.

Hugh Simpson