Gateway Technical Support

Gateway Technical Support

2800 W. Story Road

Irving, Texas 75038

I purchased a Gateway PC in July 2005 and it worked fine until April 2006- not even a year. I first contacted tech support in April, they troubleshot the problem with me over the phone said my hard drive was bad. So they said they would send me another one. It took a few weeks of phone calls but I finally received the hard drive and replaced it and that did not fix the problem. So I called tech support again. This time they said we had to do a complete system restore- I had already lost all my data, a year's worth of photos and countless documents- so I did a full system restore (one of many to come), but it could not complete because drivers and other things were missing from the system- so they said they would send me the driver disk to re-install the drivers- they kept referencing a blue disk and red disk that was supposed to have come with my computer- but didn't. So I wait for a week and a half and no disks- so I call tech support again and they have no record of any disks being sent to me. So they say they will send them again two more weeks go by (all this time with a computer that randomly restarts itself if it has been turned on for more than an hour) and then I receive a system restore disk in the mail (which I already have). SO again I call tech support and talk to someone who actually has half an idea of what is going on- she tells me all I need to do is download a link she emails me and run a GW scan to test the hard drive- so we do that within an hour and she says the hard drive is fine we should replace the power supply next. So I finally receive a power supply (after several phone calls and weeks) and that doesn't fix the problem. The computer itself identified the problem as needing advanced hardware diagnostics and needing to replace the motherboard, CPU and RAM. To make it worse it is now July and my warranty is about to expire- I'm not worried because the problem started before the warranty expired- however I am told I will no longer get assistance if I don't upgrade my warranty- so $140 later I have a new warranty but tech support keeps giving me the run around finally they agree to have me ship it in and they will replace the motherboard so I ship the computer in and they break my case and then document that it came to them that way and they "reseat" the mother board and send it back- problem not fixed; so more phone calls, more b/s and lies and more run around - now they are telling me I don't have a warranty even though I have the order number and credit card charge to prove it. They say my warranty covers labor but not service (there's a difference?!) my husband argues with them on the phone for an hour before the guy finally gives in and says that they are the same thing and the warranty is good ( they were trying to get us to upgrade to $279 warranty). Every time we call Gateway it is a minimum of an hour on the phone- they are rude, they refuse to ever connect us to a supervisor or advanced tech support. We have now sent the computer in a total of three times for mother board, CPU and RAM replacement - every time the computer comes back something else has been replaced- the dvd drive, the modem, they totally reloaded Windows XP (again wiping out all my data). None of these things were malfunctioning and none of these replacements fixed the computer. It is August 19th and my computer is still restarting at random- and it's not a virus either- first thing we ruled out. At one point a tech support rep said we had to send the computer in three times for repair and then they would replace it- we sent it in three times it is still not fixed (because they never replaced the parts that are malfunctioning) and now they refuse to replace it. Twice they have said they were sending a computer tech to our home (because it is covered in the new warranty I had to buy) to trouble shoot and fix the problem, and no one has ever called to set up an appointment or shown up at my door. Every time I have sent the computer in we have to pay the shipping- which is supposed to be covered in the warranty- their excuse? We are sending it in for a new problem, because they are replacing different parts every time they say it is a new problem and that we ahd to pay shipping-even though it had been the same problem all along. I am at my wits end- they won't fiux the computer, they won't replace it and I have 3 year warranty that is not worth the paper it is written on!

HEEEELLLPPP!!!

James and Kathryn Duren

Pueblo, CO