Acer Customer Support Fails to Deliver
Update: 29/10/2007 2pm I see from my Weblogs, Acer have now read this post. Now please do the right thing, as I would love for this to have a happy ending.
Update: 30/10/2007 Acer have now stepped up and offered Leon a brand new machine – See the comments for the latest…
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Site visitor Leon Robotham contacted me with a terrible story about how Acer has failed to help him resolve an issue with his PC.
I asked Leon to write up all the details so other people considering purchasing Acer products can at least know the facts about Acer’s after care.
If anyone from Acer requires Leon’s Contact details just ask me colindiponio@gmail.com
Over to Leon:-
1. 15th September – I contacted the tech line and was advised that my machine needed to be sent back to be looked at as the ethernet controller, cardbus controller and broadcom adapter were having problems which meant I had no internet connection.
- I was advised that my machine would be returned within 4 – 12 days.
2. 25th September – I received my machine and was elated, great I’m back online! I opened the box and there was a technicians note saying that the main board had been replaced. When I switched the machine on I found that the screen didn’t work.
3. 25th September – I called the tech line to explain that the situation and had the phone put down on me. I called back and asked to speak with a senior manager and was then passed to Angela Foster who advised that she would now be dealing with the matter and that it would be dealt with ASAP. She advised that a courier would be re-sent and that she would do her best to have the machine returned to me quickly.
4. I called back in a few days later (either the 28th or 29th) once I’d given my case ID the tone of the advisor changed instantly. I asked to speak with Angela again and when I got through to her I asked for a copy of all of my recorded calls so that I could present them to a solicitor only to be told that my calls hadn’t been recorded – I had been warned about this from a friend.
5. About the 5th October I still haven’t received my machine but received a call from Angela Foster to say that the machine was waiting for parts to be fitted and that she would be getting it signed off herself so it could be sent out.
6. I receive another call from Angela on the 6th being advised that they are unable to fix my machine but would be able to send me a new machine. I asked all about the ‘new machine’ and was told that actually it is a refurbished machine but it is in immaculate condition and that the spec is an upgrade from my own. At this point I’m just happy that I will soon have a machine to work on as I’m losing work for my fitness business as it’s based online.
7. I receive the machine on the 10th October switch it on and it doesn’t work, there’s no Internet connection and the mouse doesn’t work. I call Angela on the 11th and am advised that the machine unfortunately needs to be returned. So off it goes back to Esplex!
8. I’m advised that she will have the machine back to me in the next two days.
9. I call in on the 15th to ask what is happening with my machine and am told that the main board is being replaced and I was told that I had put a screw through a wire and that was why the mouse didn’t work apparently I should look after my machine. Appalled I explained to the girl on the other end of the phone that in fact the machine that she was referring to was actually the same replacement machine that I had been told was in immaculate condition and had been checked by the technicians….. Silence, I again ask for all of my recorded calls to be told once again that they have not been recorded.
10. After sending an email to Angela explaining how I feel and telling her that I’ve never experienced such a poor level of service. I was told that she would do what she could. Well it seems to me that she can’t do anything.
11. Frustrated still I email details of the situation to watchdog.
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Thanks Leon
I agree very frustrating and simply not good enough.
I would say persevere but clearly you already have. 40/50 days waiting on Acer to do the right thing is more than any consumer should have to contend with.
Please let us all know what happens next.
October 29th, 2007 at 11:35 am
Today I contacted Angela Foster again and was told that she can not suggest anything for me, yet she is one of the managers of Acer. The levels of service never cease to amaze me.
October 29th, 2007 at 12:02 pm
Leon, That is staggering as Acer are a really huge company particularly overseas.
I would be asking for a temporary desktop/laptop (something) while they sort this out. Or just flat out ask for a refund.
Part of the cost of your computer is built in warranty cover that they are failing to deliver.
Colin
October 29th, 2007 at 3:25 pm
After speaking with Dee Dickson of Acer Head office I was advised to speak with Mr Martin Rigby (head of Esplex) I have sen’t an email to Angela asking twice to be contacted by Mr Rigby and as of now I have heard nothing.
My solicitor has advised me to reject any replacement machine and now go for a full refund under the Sale of Goods Act section 14 and also the Consumer Credit Act 1974.
I was also advised from Acer UK that if I didn’t get anywhere with Esplex my next contact should be Acer Milan as this is who Mr Rigby apparently answers to.
October 29th, 2007 at 3:29 pm
Good to hear from you Leon
I find it Sad that you have to jump through so many hoops.
I was hoping someone in Acer PR would step up.
Colin
October 29th, 2007 at 3:38 pm
This morning I asked if Angela Foster could have Mr Martin Rigby contact me. As of yet I have still heard absolutely nothing. I have emailed Angela again to prompt her and she advised that she has passed all of my correspondance to her immediate manager for further action. No further action has been taken.
If you are considering purchsing any Acer products please consider the aftercare.
October 29th, 2007 at 3:40 pm
Hi Colin
I was hoping something like that would happen myself, let’s see how far it goes before anything is resolved. You would think something like this would be simple enough to correct!
October 29th, 2007 at 3:44 pm
With a company that size, so would I.
Colin
October 30th, 2007 at 11:48 am
How frustrating for you, Leon. You did the right thing by contacting Colin. Publicising unacceptable customer service on a well read blog is probably the only thing that gets results these days without going down the legal route. After all that nothing less than being immediately sent a spanking new, top of the range machine would seem right – to make up for your lost time, possible loss of business, and it will show blog readers that Acer have tried to make amends. Good luck.
October 30th, 2007 at 5:30 pm
I have received a couple of calls from Acers Customer service escalations manager and it seems that I I may have some progress here. I will post the details tonight.
October 30th, 2007 at 5:32 pm
Fingers Crossed.
Colin
October 30th, 2007 at 10:14 pm
Yesterday I made a call to Acer head office and then Esplex advising them that I would now be taking legal action and if they wanted to be updated on the situation they could read all about it here on Colins blog.
Melanie Knight is the customer services/escalations manager for Acer’s repair centre (Esplex), she contacted me after being notified of my current situation. It is suprising that it has taken so long for somebody to take the problem seriously but it’s looking like I have finally made progress thanks to Colin.
Melanie has promised that there will be a brand new machine sent to me today which I should receive tomorrow. It is an upgrade to the model I had and an apology has been made from Melanie on behalf of Acer with the guarantee that an investigation into the treatment I have endured will now take place as they do not condone customer service like this.
Thanks Gary, you’re right and if Melanie comes through with the promise then I will be happy with the end result but overall completely let down with the service.
October 30th, 2007 at 10:53 pm
Leon
That sounds like great news. I am pleased if I have helped in any way.
Colin
October 31st, 2007 at 10:59 pm
Today Acer finally stepped up and did the right thing after many months of mayhem. I would like to say that Melanie Knight, customer services/escalations manager was the most helpful she did as promised and I received my machine this afternoon.
The new machine is an upgrade to what I had and is brand new. Thankyou Melanie.
Thanks for publishing the post on your blog about my situation Colin it clearly been very effective.
A happy ending was indeed needed, I hope nobody has to endure the type of service I did and deeply hope that Acers investigation improves on all customer experiences.
October 31st, 2007 at 11:18 pm
No Problem
Colin
February 11th, 2008 at 1:16 am
I was looking to buy an ACER ASPIRE 9920G-704G50Hn at a price of £1599. First of all i have spent a lot of time online to get as much information on this laptop as i possibly could. After being satisfied with what i found, i decided to do one more thing, and that was to “google” and find out what ACERS customer support is like…This led me to here and after reading about Leon’s Ordeal with the LACK of CUSTOMER support from ACER i have changed my mind. I will know start looking again, it’s a shame as i had recently bought my daughter a laptop (ACER ASPIRE 5175) and thought it was a great little laptop and very good for the price i paid.£380.00
If my daughters laptop were to have problems and i got the same lack of customer support that Leon had, i would not be very happy. But if i had paid £1599 for the ACER ASPIRE 9920G-704G50Hn i would be MAD as HELL… and it’s not a CHANCE im prepared to take.
Leon i am very pleased that ACER finally did what they should have done at the very start.
GOOD LUCK with your new machine. Ralph
February 24th, 2008 at 12:45 am
Pleasing to hear that Colin got his new machine. Hope this one will last and not need fixing. My own feelings about this brand is that if you can not fix it yourself then don’t buy (if in the UK) Perhaps the Plymouth service centre has improved since 2004 and my time there, but somehow doubt this. I work for myself in IT now and can not, and certainly do not ever recommend Acer as a brand, I’d rather walk away from a fee paying job really is as simple as that in my mind. My customer experience was having a relatives Laptop returned not repaired and having another fault with the LCD cable being pinched between the top plastics, the LCD panel showed almost a million shades of odd colours. On principle this was sent back, on reflection not the brightest move. They did manage to fix this but not the original fault. I opened the unit up myself and resolved the original fault. I don’t think that Esplex have even put the customer support department in to operation as yet.
February 24th, 2008 at 10:37 am
Hi Mike
Thanks for your comments.
The views of purchasing consumers is the most valuable way to help others pick a supplier.
When it comes to Acer is really is a story of two halves.
1) Manufactuing & Sales
2) Support.
Sadly as a consumer you need to be able to rely of both.
Colin
July 13th, 2009 at 4:39 pm
i to had an acer product (aspire 0ne netbook)which after only 5 months of use the screen went funny it was sent off for repair only to be told that i had damaged the netbook and it would not be covered and would have to pay £100 for it to be mended the machine its self only cost £180 so i told acer customer services not to both to return my netbook 2weeks later i had to ring round and chase up the were abouts of my netbook and was told oops sorry i dont no why its not been sent back luckly i did receive my netbook back 3 days later by a woman delivering it in her car
July 13th, 2009 at 6:59 pm
If the acer has a video connector like VGA you might be able to still get some use out of it connected to a monitor.
Colin
October 15th, 2009 at 5:08 pm
My letter of complaint to Bobby Watkins, Acer UK MD, 08/10/09
Dear Sir
Case ID’s: 673271N & 858992N
On 8 September 2009 I returned my Acer Aspire laptop to Acer UK for a warranty repair. The email I received from your UK support supplied the following statement regarding obtaining repair status:
“You can check the progress of a current repair by visiting http://www.acer.co.uk. Click on ‘Service and Support’ and scroll to the bottom of the page to the ‘Repair Status Check’.”
Two weeks passed and not having had any email correspondence (well no-one expects a phone call from a human these days, do they?) I decided to try and find out my repair status online. Unfortunately, the ‘Service and Support’ link on your website does not contain the text ‘Repair Status Check’ in the form of a link or any other Internet browser mark-up language. As an IT professional, I’m used to digging for answers in my day job, so after following the link ‘Acer – Customer Care Portal’ I finally got to a ‘Case Status’ page. I wonder how your not-so-savvy customer’s muddle through trying to locate an advised link that doesn’t exist whilst attempting to obtain repair status? Thanks to my investigative prowess, I was rewarded with some slightly cryptic information that I translated as my machine was being fixed. Not the most intuitive of customer web portals, but at least there was some sort of result.
Having given it another week I decided to check on repair status. This indicated that the repair was completed and I naturally assumed I would receive the laptop via courier in the next few days. By 5 October I started to get worried and sent an email using your online contact form enquiring when I could expect to receive it. At this point, my faith in the Acer online support system started to wilt somewhat, so I decided to call your support number, just to be on the safe side. Lo and behold, a human response to my call was finally answered – not in the Plymouth location the unit was returned to, but one of those good old cost-cutting Indian call centres.
Having given my details to the operator, I was informed that my laptop was fixed with “a new screen” and would be “as good as new!”
“Excellent!” I thought, now there was just the matter of the return?
This is where it all goes wrong. According to the operator in the other time zone, my laptop had been returned and signed for. Not being in possession of it, this was indeed, news to me. But no; it had been returned and signed for by a ‘Julie Carter’!
“Who?”
I was then asked if I knew a ‘Julie Carter’ (obviously not) and what my home address was. Having supplied that information, it was then revealed that my home address was not the destination that the laptop was shipped to. Before I had chance to ask “where the hell is it then?” the operator asked me for the original pick-up address that DHL had collected from which happened to be my place of work. Not surprisingly, that didn’t match the address for the mysterious ‘Julie Carter’ either. Sensing he was out of his depth, the operator apologised and said that my case was being escalated with a new case number as a matter of urgency and for me to call back in 48 hours for an update.
So Acer lose my laptop and I have to go through the trouble of contacting them for an update? It was at this point that I started to get the feeling that Acer customer support was all a little bit too ‘one-way’ in their favour. Never mind, let’s give it 48 hours and see what turns up.
Before I go any further, I would like to share with you how the small retail company I work for handles scenarios like this. If we send goods to the wrong customer, the onus is on us to retrieve the goods from the incorrect delivery address ASAP. As soon as we are aware that there is a problem, we contact the receiver of the goods and inform them of the mistake and arrange a convenient time to send in a courier to retrieve the goods at our expense. I assume that you will agree that under such scenarios, damage limitation is the key issue, with customer satisfaction in the shortest possible timescale the objective.
Getting back to my Acer customer care experience, I called back the support line on 9 October expecting that in the two days, Acer UK have initiated a similar process to the one described above. Unfortunately, it appeared that there was nothing to report, no updates; only lots of apologies and the information that my case has been escalated further and to call back again in 48 working hours. That brings me to the present date, as at the head of this letter.
It now transpires that eight days have passed since Acer were first aware that there was a problem with the return of my laptop. To my thinking, that is more than enough time to take steps to retrieve it (unless of course there is a delay due to the erroneous recipient being on holiday etc) and provide me with an ETA. Once again, your operator could offer me no update but assured me that it had been escalated to a higher level. Attempting the “I want to speak to your supervisor” manoeuvre, I found myself on the receiving end of the highest assurance that my case had been escalated to the operator’s superior. To make matters worse, I am asked to confirm my email address (why is this not on record from my original enquiry? Are Acer not supposed to be a global IT hardware vendor with a data centre?) as being one they have on record which turns out to be Julie Carter’s, current ‘keeper’ of my laptop! What an absolute mess. Acer really couldn’t have got things more wrong and I am not a happy man. Competitive marketplace prices you may have, but what you’ve shaved off in getting your white-goods onto the high street is apparently sacrificed against providing efficient customer care.
Therefore, as it appears that I cannot obtain a straight answer from three telephone calls to your support line in India, I would like a UK response to the following questions:
1.) Where is the laptop I sent for repair one month ago?
2.) When will it be returned to me?
3.) What are you going to do if you are not successful in retrieving it?
4.) What timescale are you going to allocate to resolve this problem, considering that eight days have already passed?
You may of course wish to assure me that you have thousands of satisfied customers and my incident is isolated; but until you can provide me with answers to all of the above questions, I remain a very unsatisfied customer.
Yours faithfully