     Christine Baker (Admin) | Saturday, May 12, 2001 - 08:10 am 
Chad's letter:
Dear Editor,
This letter is the result of a dispute I am having with a computer manufacturer/distributor concerning highly defective equipment and poor customer service. The company, ARM Computers (www.armcomputer.com), specializes in low-cost laptop computers and has had several products receive positive reviews in several paper and electronic computer publications.
It is the purpose of this letter to (1) educate other consumers on the poor practices of ARM Computers, (2) encourage you, and other industry publications, to include manufacturer service/dependability measures in your reviews and (3) ask you to put pressure on ARM Computers to help me resolve this dispute.
I am an MBA student at Penn State University, and have come to realize the impact a consumer can have on a business’s success. I am not a spiteful man, nor do I enjoy writing lengthy letters. However, from the history of poor operations and customer treatment I have seen from this company, I decided to take action. Please help me in my quest!
I will now give you a quick history of my problems with the laptop I purchased from ARM Computers in June of 1999:
* June 23, 1999 – I paid approximately $2300 for a laptop (model TS3100-C433), including a 3 year extended warranty and $55 extra for 2 day express shipping
* June 25, 1999 – I received the unit, but it did not boot and had to be returned at my expense June 27, 1999 – I received a new, working unit.
* July 15, 1999 – The battery had to be returned as it was the wrong model (shipped at my expense)
* February 2, 2000 – The power connector on the motherboard broke after several weeks of intermittent functioning. Whole computer shipped for repair at my expense.
* February 22, 2000 – After over 2 weeks I had not received my computer back, so I called ARM and was told that someone had forgotten to ship my computer back to me.
* February 29, 2000 – I received my computer back from ARM (4 weeks to get it repaired!), along with a port replicator I bought to help prevent wear on the power connector in the future
* March 2000 – The AC Adapter for the computer failed and a new one was shipped to me by ARM. I had to send the broken part back (at my expense). Without power for 5 days.
* December 2000 – The CPU fan broke, which was noticed after the unit ‘froze’ a few times. I shipped the computer back (my expense again) and received it back just before 2nd Semester classes started at school. I noticed the computer was sluggish, but assumed it was a cluttered Win98 installation. I made plans to reformat during my school Spring Break…
* January 2001 – The CD-ROM eject button stopped working, but I could still use it by inserting a pin in the manual eject hole… I planned to send it back to ARM when I had time to deal with the process.
* March 10, 2001 – I was on Spring Break from school, and took the opportunity to “clean up” my hard drive. In the process, I checked the “Performance Tab” in the System Properties Control Panel. At this point I discovered I was only running on 64 MB of RAM, instead of the 128 MB I purchased with my computer. I shut the computer down, accessed the RAM under the keyboard, and found I was missing a memory module!
* May 5, 2001 – I recently started having trouble with the power connector on the motherboard again (as described above in February, 2000) and am dreading having to get ARM to fix it…
After discovering the missing RAM, I wrote a letter to ARM Computers detailing the history of my computer (similar to what is stated above). I asked them to contact me as soon as possible, and help me to resolve the problem with the RAM and the CDROM.
They contacted me, asked me for more details (such as Invoice Numbers, the Return Authorization Numbers and dates of the problems and proof of an extended warranty – which I clearly detailed for them), and said they would get back to me. A couple of days later, they did contact me and I was told that the CD-ROM would be replaced but the RAM was not going to be.
Their explanation was that too much time had passed between the repair and the discovery of the missing hardware. I told them I do not regularly open up my laptop to check for missing parts, and that I had presumed the lagging performance was due to a cluttered Win98 installation – they said it did not matter. I asked whether the RAM would have been replaced if I had discovered it sooner, and they replied affirmatively. My question is this – if they were responsible for the missing parts in the first place, why will they not be replaced?
I asked to speak to someone in the company that would be able to deal with the problem, and I was told the President had said that nothing would be done. Subsequent to this, I wrote a letter to the President of ARM Computers (whose identity is not given out… I wonder if he gets too much mail from irate customers like me?), asking him to address the issue himself. In the letter, I specifically asked him if he thought industry magazines would like to find out what kind of customer service his company provides – I pointed out several specific paper and Internet media sites I would be contacting by letter (which you find in your hand right now), including those that had recently written positive reviews about current ARM products. That letter was written in several weeks ago, and the President of ARM Computers has not replied to me.
Hence, I have written this letter and sent it to you and several of your publishing colleagues.
Other than writing letters to magazines, do I have any other course of action? Can I ask the police to recover my stolen RAM? Is there a law that protects consumers from repeatedly defective goods? My laptop has now had 5 major hardware failures, two of which are repeat occurrences – obviously this is a faulty product and should be replaced?
Before I conclude, I ask you to go to the following websites where similar stories are told about how ARM Computers has failed to service their products – it seems this is just another chapter in a long story of poor products and service to unwitting consumers.
http://www.bayhouse.com/ARMcomputer-SUX.shtml
http://www.bayhouse.com/discus/messages/17/1205.html?981182568
http://members.iquest.net/~westcott/arm/arm-story.html |
