So the Saga begins...

In May of this year, I purchased my first laptop off TigerDirect.ca. It was a refurbished eMachines M5312 that came with just about everything I needed, and at a very nice price. I received the laptop in the mail about two weeks later, which was just in time for me to leave to Taiwan on a round of interviews. While in Taiwan, I realize that the left speaker buzzed slightly, as if blown, and the right speaker had some sort of loose connection because it would cut in and out. So, towards the end of June, when I returned home, I sent it in for repairs -- still on warranty.

About 3 weeks later, I get the laptop back. The speakers sound fine... but I soon noticed that the DecisionOne (eMachine's 3rd party repair house) technician didn't take care in closing the case, and the PCMCIA slot was jammed, warping the entire left side of the laptop chassis. You can imagine I was most unpleased with this, especially since I was moving to Taiwan for "good" in about 10 days. So I quickly called eMachines customer support who passed me the number to their corporate office to handle the problem. A lady I spoke with sounded sympathetic (isn't that their job?) and ensured they would do whatever they could to try to get it back to me before I left - i.e. overnight courier, high priority repair, etc. Well, long story short, after many non-toll-free calls to the U.S., I didn't get it back in time.

While in Taiwan, I had my father and sister, check up with eMachines on the status of my repair. The communications on the eMachines side, between their different offices and repair centres was HORRENDOUS. No one seemed to know what the other side was doing, and at the end of it, it sounded like the part I needed was in back-order. Well, to me, it seemed like a matter of time. After X amount of time, I would get the laptop back, and things would be okay. I'd then have to bother someone (probably my sister) to bring it to me thereafter. At some point, someone called my house saying that the laptop was ready to be released, and they wanted to talk to me to ask me some questions. After calling back, it seemed we couldn't figure out who wanted to ask the questions, and no one over at eMachines seemed to know anything.

Some 6 weeks after I had come to Taiwan, My sister emails me one day saying that the laptop had arrived. YAY! But wait... IT WASN'T EVEN REPAIRED!!! Well, you can imagine how infuriating it was to hear this, that it took 2 months for nothing to happen, meanwhile I was in another country without a computer. For the last 2 months, my blood boiled each time I thought about my laptop -- and I was thinking about it constantly. I was damn right pissed off at this point.

Then, I had my brother call eMachines' corporate office. On his second call, he managed to get a hold of someone who seemed like he would be more able to get something done. I followed up the call with this email (editted slightly for public posting) to that "support specialist", C.H. I got a reply the next day from him, which was a first. It seemed like things were going in the right direction. After a few more days, a few more back and forths, eMachines sent a new refurbished machine to my home in Vancouver, and my old one was sent back. Out of it, I was able to gain one extra laptop battery. That's it.

My sister brought me my new reburbished laptop... and guess what? The left speaker buzzes slightly, as if blown.