Too Much Bitching

I seem to spend way too much time writing about crappy customer service. There are companies that have good or great customer service. Although I find this to be very much of a crap shoot. I've gotten excellent service from GoDaddy once. Other times were mediocre at best. MasterCard has excellent customer support. The lady that I talked to was a joy to speak with. I'd never complain about a company's customer support if they were like that. Visa has a decent support. It wasn't as good or pleasant as MasterCard, but it was a cut above the others. I recently had the call Microsoft or one of their subcontractors on support and that was pleasant experience except for the wait time. If the wait time was shorter, I would rate it higher.

I'm Getting Pissed Off @ Samsung

I'm starting to get a little pissed off @ Samsung. I have a Samsung HD in my laptop that died on me last week. (T_T) I'm trying to get it RMA'd, but that's proving much much more difficult than it ever should be. I had to RMA 2 Maxtor drives to Seagate. (Segate bought out Maxtor.) They screwed up and are shipping me 100GB drives instead of 120GB drive that I sent in. Their system is a little screwed up. It can't tell the difference between 100GB & 120GB drive. The people that work there doesn't seem to be any better. I specifically e-mailed and called them about the problem, but they shipped out 100GB drive. Now the have to be returned and correct drives shipped. Think of all the wasted fossil fuel and the pollution. (>_<)

Back to Samsung. I just gave up on the Samsung drive and fighting them and just returned the damn thing. I got an Optiarc drive on sale. Optiarc seems to be some joint venture between NEC and Panasonic. I've had good experience with NEC, so it was no brainer. Even with the return shipping the Optiarc drive was cheaper.

I really dislike Samsung's phone system. It's worse than Cisco's phone system. I got disconnected three times in a row. Don't bother buying a Samsung product unless you buy it from Costco with their funky return policy or @ some store with their own extended warranty. With that money you could probably buy another brand with better warranty and support. I used to like Samsung, but they are totally FUBARed now. I ended up doing the RMA through the website, but we'll see how well that goes. I need to have the drive cross shipped and that's not something companies are doing these days. You can request it, but sometime you have to fight with them to get it... (>.<) And we know how wonderful Samsung support is.

If you find yourself in a similar situation with Samsung hard drive, you can call their PR rep @ HWH PR. It's Michael Ingalls @ (212) 355-5049. His extension is 124. You can also look him up on the directory. The Samsung HDD (Hard Disk Drive) product manager is a guy named Albert Kim. His number is (949) 307-7059. Funny he's in CA. I thought Samsung was in NJ... You can go bitch at these guys if you like since I never get anywhere with their 800 number. (Michael Ingalls came across as a much nicer guy than Albert Kim on the phone.)

I can't wait for my Samsung HDD to go out of warranty so I never have to deal with these numskulls again. That won't happen until 2009. (>.<) From now on I'm sticking with Hitachi. IBM was the best HDD maker with best service. Hitachi comes in a close second.