OK, Ray, I thought Toshiba were the greatest too! . . ..
Here goes, then, with my story!
I scoured the internet for a month or two before settling on a Toshiba
Satellite Pro A120SE in late September. I looked carefully at the specs,
not wanting to spend money on changing JAWS so rejecting anything but XP
Home to be sure everything would/should work well! This narrowed my
search somewhat all round in fact because I discovered that (in general)
many of the cheaper range computers offered are with XP Home but,
increasingly, more are being sold with Windows XP Professional and with
other slight variations on Windows XP. . .. Finally I had my model and,
as I could only find the exact match in a couple of places, decided to go
for it and order, via Toshiba from their agreed seller, which in this
case
was Ingram Micro. (Big Mistake!)
I was given some of the blurb about the user of the card having to live
at
the same address as the goods being ordered and thought that was fine.
However, I wasn't told all of the story: The computer arrived promptly,
being delivered by one of my lesser favourite couriers, City Link. I
know
them quite well though and even knew the delivery man when he arrived.
He
asked for the cardholder to produce his driving licence or passport (no
alternatives appeared acceptable) in person and also to sign the sheet as
required. Well, Mike was at work, we didn't at that time know where to
locate the passports easily and had little sighted help available to us
for some days. The driver refused to either leave the laptop with us or
to call his depot again, saying he'd already discussed the matter before
leaving, knowing that he was coming to us and that they had to abide by
the company's (in this case Ingram Micro's) stipulations! Well, I almost
had my hands on that computer, yes, almost, and could in fact have taken
it from him whilst pretending to get Mike!
Yes, it went back and then commenced the battle which is not yet totally
over! First, I spent all morning the following day ringing Ingram Micro
and couldn't get a telephone answered anywhere, anyway. I decided not to
put up with this and contacted the sales person at Toshiba with whom I
had
placed the order. He followed it through and was eventually told that
they were their rules and no way would they change them. They would
agree
to the computer remaining in the depot for a few days to allow us time to
find the relevant documents; but by that time I really didn't want to do
that and, besides, we still had no way of finding them within the next
week or so, until friends were well and truly back in the swing of things
after various times away. With reluctance, therefore, we started the
battle of getting our money back from Toshiba, or rather from Ingram
Micro
via Toshiba. (I was not going to try to call them again and waste my
time.)
Some days went by before we learned the computer, supposedly, had gone
missing from City Link's depot! (Surprise, surprise!) They therefore
wouldn't refund us . . . then suddenly the computer had turned up and
eventually we were told the money would show back in our account in a
further ten working days. Well, that long! <GRRR!>
I was also told that Toshiba had now changed that model (as they
apparently do every month or two) and so it was no longer available but
they would tell me when something else came out that may be suitable.
They did tell me, but of course, it didn't have XP Home and they wouldn't
install it for me!
Eventually we did get most of the money back, but they had taken out a
charge which we later tracked down to being for delivery. No, they
weren't getting away with that either! Finally we have had a promise
that
this will also be refunded, but we have yet to see it.
Despite my discussions with Toshiba about their lack of information about
the terms of purchase when I arranged to buy and the fact that they
haven't come up with a suitable alternative, they refuse to help any
further and, with great annoyance, I've closed the door on that one!
We have been staggered at these rather over-cautious safety arrangements
and certainly consider it unfair that totally blind people have to be put
in this position. We almost ended up with the Disability Rights
Commission and I'm certainly "off Toshiba" right now!
I searched and searched again and finally ended up going Roger's route
and
buying a very light weight DELL, albeit that the price was a fair bit
more
and there were a number of hassles in placing that order which I won't
cover here! With a back problem, I just hope I've perhaps done myself a
bit of a favour!
I'm also hoping now that we really can enjoy the new laptop with not too
many more problems, but no doubt I'll be writing for advice here and
there
as I get things set up - so watch this space!
If you've read to the end and can at least identify with all that's gone
on and feel a sense of annoyance at the lengths some companies are going
to in order to guard themselves regardless of the cost and inconvenience
to the customer, then I'm glad I told the story. If you were bored then
I
can only apologise that you didn't press that DEL key <Smile>
Goodnight to all!
--
Carol
carol.pearson@xxxxxxxxxxxx
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