Laptop Warranty

[Bud Wiser]

Sony Vaio is what I am on and they recommend that you remove the battery when you are hooked up to mains.  The next time you are on the M50 Dell are just beside it at the Cherrywood Estate after Leopardstown. I had a problem last year and I rang them and brought out the computer (desktop) and left it at reception and collected it repaired next day.

[stevo-08]

I've just come back from the PC World store and thought I'd let you know how I got on.

When i asked the young girl if the warranty included battery replacement in the event of failure/over heating/losing charge, she replied "of course it does". I asked if she was sure, so she asked a colleague who said that it in fact wasnt covered as it's a "consumable". so i asked if they stock replacement batteries and she answered No (how did you know Bud???). And if I sourced a replacement battery myself, does the warranty still stand - she hadnt really a clue, but thought it should still hold.

At that point I asked to cancel the cover. She needed some assistance with this so her colleague came over who asked why i was cancelling. I explained that i didnt think the cover was worth it, when it doesnt even cover the battery and the cost is app. 35% of the laptop. He tried to suggest that I shouldnt even worry about the battery, and even if it did fail, i could pick up a replacement on ebay for €6. Sweet Jesus!!! And how would that effect the warrenty of the laptop, i asked??? Oh, im not sure but it shouldnt effect it. Yeah right!!!! I was getting a little frustrated at this point so i told him about my other concern - that the company wasnt even registered with the CRO. He looked at me like i had 4 heads and seemed to lose the ability to speak. So i asked who exactly is standing over this warranty - he said the store, here in sligo. But it's not a registered company, how can it be covering my insurance, i asked. He explained that it doesnt matter, as long as I had these little policy documents, I could sue the company if they refused to pay out. Oh ok, and im sure that would be a very smooth & efficient process....

Anyway, after finally cancelling the policy and getting my money back I made the 2minute phonecall to my household insurance company and I have my laptop included as a nominated item to the value of €699 for 0 additional charge. Happy Out!!!

So thanks to all for the advice and especially to Bud for his work. Sorry for this long-winded reply but I thought it only good manners to let you all know how I got on.

Happy new year to yiz all.

[Bud Wiser]

One last question.  How did you manage to be looking in at the baord for "a few years" as you said in your opening post and not feel the urge to take a swipe at one of us over some topic or other !  Don't go AWOL for another two years now, der dus be great craic here when you get the Dub's wound up.

Oh aye, one other thing, about the house insurance.  If you go to the Insure.ie website and ask for a quote for your house insurance, even though you have no intention of taking it and fill in the correct renewal date they will return you a fair good price. However, the trick is to keep the one you have.  Now, say if you have a claim like I had although it was my only one in 30 Yrs, and next year your insurance is due for renewal this is what will happen.  Your current company will send you a quote for renewal. The boyos in Insure dot eye e will have an alert and they will send you a letter saying " Your current house insurer is xyz and your renewal is now due and we estimate your renewal to be Xyz.  We can provide the same cover for 180 Euro for exactly the same contents and cover.  Then you can flash that letter at your insurance and stay or change.  Great craic altogether.  I got exactly the same reduction on my car insurance because Insure dot eye e kept my records when I checked up to see how good a deal the GPA were getting.  I got mine reduced from 599 to 420 and still stayed with my current one.

Battery for £6 !!     The cheapes you will pay in Euro will be about Euro 130 including carriage.

http://www.computerbatteries.co.uk/gb3/m/compaq/presario-1200.html

[redcard]

Class stuff lads  Well done Bud. Would have loved to be in the shop too. Nearly bought a laptop from there in the past.

[stevo-08]

thats a fair good question bud. not sure how i've stayed looking on this board so long without posting and i never thought my first post would be in the non gaa discussion section, but there you go.

i must say i've really enjoyed looking at the various threads on here for the last few years - some serious banter and good old craic as you say. i should really have posted earlier in the year, what with us being connacht champions and all, but i think i might have got slated for being a sunshine supporter or something like that.

anyway, have no intention of going away so hopefully you'll see plenty of me in the future.

now, must get myself a nice avator to go along with my user name. must say, i like your one bud...

[Norf Tyrone]

Hi Stevo-08

Welcome to the board. I think you scored a goal for the cosnumer today with an assist from the honourable bud.

Nice one gents!

[Hardy]

I bought a cordless keyboard from PC World in Cork last year. Within three months, the letter prints had worn off a number of keys and I was typing "shite" for "white" and the like. So I brought it back in and went to the service counter. The woman there took a look at the keyboard and at the date on the invoice and said "that would be normal wear and tear". We had a short and heated discussion on the expected useful life of keyboards, but could reach no compromise between her three months and my ten years. So I took it home and went back in the next day, took it to the cash desk and said "I need to replace this". "Right", says yer man, "go and get the one you want" and the job was oxo.

Bad as they are, though, they don't hold a candle to BT, who have recently changed my account number for no reason, presumably by mistake and called me up looking for payment on a bill on that non-existent account that I didn't receive. Then, when I tried to pay my real bill on the real account, they couldn't process the payment as the account doesn't now exist. They are working on it, of course - have been since 13 December. They promise to call me back every working day. They called once. That was to promise to call the next day. Which they didn't. Next step is they will cut off my broadband and phone. I know they will do this because they did it before on our business account, because they failed to register our written notice of change of address and continued sending bills to the wrong address, including the final cut-off notice. It's this sort of thing that causes machine-gun rampages.