Toshiba says they made a mistake but they still cannot help me

http://bandyt.site44.com/toshiba/

by barhum • 13 years ago

700 191 13 years ago

bandyt.site44.com

anigbrowl• 13 years ago

Manuel Diaz is the head of Toshiba Sales & Marketing for Latin America: https://plus.google.com/105717227635873644097/about http://www.linkedin.com/pub/manuel-diaz/4/862/644

Make a nice polite blog post with all of your documentation (including your sales receipt) and then send the link to him.

d0ugie• 13 years ago

how about that, a contributor to Google Buzz

monkeyspaw• 13 years ago

This seems like an immensely useful service (looking up executive level social media accounts). Are there companies out there who provide this service?

ovi256• 13 years ago

The companies would be Google and LinkedIn :)

dsl• 13 years ago

Fuck everything about that. No.

I work at a big company and get sales, marketing, press, and customer inquiries ALL THE TIME, at my PERSONAL email address (which is easier to find than my work address). There is absolutely nothing I can do to help you if you contact me directly because company policy forbids it, official channels exist for a reason.

synecdoche• 13 years ago

Speaking of contacting high level management I once guessed the email address of a UPS board member responsible for international business because of consistently awful delivery service in Sweden and customer support. To my surprise I was contacted after a few weeks by a mid level manager in Sweden and was eventually compensated.

This was about two years ago and unfortunately their excuse for service is ostensibly unchanged, rated as 1.33/5 on one of the larger national rating sites (at the time it was 1.4).

Aaronn• 13 years ago

4 points and the site is down

barhum17• 13 years ago

fixed it! Thanks

shahzad_76• 13 years ago

Site is down due to "excessive usage", couldn't find this in the Google cache either.

barhum17• 13 years ago

fixed it, Thanks!

devindotcom• 13 years ago

I'm probably with you, but there's not a lot of information here. Where did you buy it? Could it have been from a dealer that wasn't authorized to issue this warranty? If they couldn't agree to it on Toshiba's behalf the contract would be null, right? And what is the problem with the laptop - though that is of course a separate question from that of honoring the warranty.

barhum17• 13 years ago

Bought it from Amazon.com directly Feb 19

JoshTriplett• 13 years ago

Have you tried contacting Amazon's customer service about this? Get them to either enforce the warranty or replace the laptop themselves.

wutangson1• 13 years ago

If you bought it from Amazon, and the warranty states that the manufacturer is Toshiba America Information Systems, Inc. which is based in Irvine, CA, then this is an US company accountable to US law. Basically, it appears that Toshiba is in violation of the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act which is enforced by the Federal Trade Commission, as well as the Attorney General. It seems they are trying to disclaim an express limited warranty. So, if you don't want to get an attorney, you can follow up with the FTC at https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov/#&panel1-1

incredimike2• 13 years ago

Not trying to spam, but OP please check my direct reply to your original post. I think Toshiba Twitter support wants to help.

nyar• 13 years ago

I like the Toshiba laptop I got.. but the Toshiba Thrive tablet which came out at the same time as Xoom has not received any updates! Xoom is on 4.4, Thrive has been abandoned.

nulagrithom• 13 years ago

Doesn't look like it's just a misprinted warranty card to me:

http://support.toshiba.com/warranty http://cdgenp01.csd.toshiba.com/content/support/pdf_files/st... http://cdgenp01.csd.toshiba.com/content/support/pdf_files/st... http://cdgenp01.csd.toshiba.com/content/support/pdf_files/st... http://cdgenp01.csd.toshiba.com/content/support/pdf_files/st... http://cdgenp01.csd.toshiba.com/content/support/pdf_files/st...

That'd be a mistake across warranty docs between 1 and 5 years. Also some other products:

http://cdgenp01.csd.toshiba.com/content/support/pdf_files/st... http://cdgenp01.csd.toshiba.com/content/support/pdf_files/st... http://cdgenp01.csd.toshiba.com/content/support/pdf_files/st...

Seems a little odd though that support would go with an excuse like that. Is there more to the story?

barhum17• 13 years ago

Not that I know of...They just said is not covered in Latin America anymore and that the warranty manuals are wrong...

deadslow2• 13 years ago

Either there is more to this story, or the OP went to one illiterate customer care guy. OP should go and show them the official website and maybe make him/her talk to a customer care executive over phone.

barhum17• 13 years ago

I talked to one call center in India and then I had to speak to the Latin America call center. They all said the same thing.

jedmeyers• 13 years ago

According to the picture you are going to have to go to arbitration to dispute this. What a bummer.

pyre2• 13 years ago

The good news is that Toshiba probably gets to choose the venue and the arbiter! What could possibly go wrong?

undoware• 13 years ago

As a Canadian I deplore this apparent policy. I'm not sure why Toshiba has introduced it, but it wouldn't surprise me if there is difficulty warding off warranty fraud under certain legal systems. Like, those legal systems your lawyers don't know. (You fired the international lawyers as a corner-cutting move, remember?)

cabinguy3• 13 years ago

I'm sorry to hear that you are having this problem. After buying/selling 10,000+ used laptops (every brand imaginable) over many years, I personally purchase and recommend only Toshiba laptops. Take it for what it's worth.

barhum17• 13 years ago

Most brands are made in Foxcon anyways. I think it is the support and service that makes the brand.

cabinguy3• 13 years ago

I can't speak to the support/service (which seems to be lacking here). I'm just saying they were, by far, the most reliable machines we bought/sold.

midas007• 13 years ago

Hon Hai Precision Industry (Foxconn).

And then there are ODMs and OEMs: ODMs provide the designs, OEMs mostly just stuff boards.

It's common to find products of different brands that look almost identical, because the chassis are the same while the bezels are different.

Dell for example is basically just a sales force with a catalog, not much different in principle from CDW.

marcosdumay2• 13 years ago

They still vary widely on parts selection and, for portables, mechanical design.

cududa• 13 years ago

Really? They consistently seem, in my experience, to have thew worst build quality, and parts die regularly. Ive never seen a single one that had a solid hinge on it after 6 months of use.

w1ntermute• 13 years ago

I know a guy who's still using a 7 year old Toshiba laptop. He installed an SSD, added some RAM, and upgraded Vista to 7. It still runs like new.

mindcrime• 13 years ago

My last three laptops, going back to 2004 or so, have all been Toshiba. By and large I've been pleased with the quality and support on all of them. I'm typing this now on super-cheap, low-end Toshiba that I bought as an emergency replacement a year ago (I dropped my other one and busted the screen) and it has been fine. Well, as "fine" as you get when you're running Linux anyway. Almost everything "just worked" out of the box with the only big exception being suspend. If you try to suspend this machine, it bricks it (but you can unbrick it by taking the battery our for a couple of minutes). But hibernate works OK, so I get by with that. Still, for < $400.00 for a 17" widescreen, I'm not complaining.

nether• 13 years ago

The sad thing is that OP's single datapoint as a David vs Goliath story will get far more attention than your experience. Even on HN, drama carries the day.

swang• 13 years ago

The problem is the warranty literally says, "Latin America" as one of the areas it supports and is telling the OP that they do not support said country. It isn't about their reliability, it is about the fact that they don't honor their warranty.

psibi• 13 years ago

Okay, I must say the situation depends.

I bought a Toshiba laptop previously and accidentally lots of water got leaked into it. (was my mistake)

The system didn't reboot at all. They entirely replaced my RAM and other hardware components free of cost. This happened in India. So I guess the situation varies.

barhum17• 13 years ago

I can see that happening but in this case I am screwed..

benatkin4• 13 years ago

Please don't tell me what to do. Every one of Toshiba's major competitors do things that are wrong and fail to own up to them.

It would take a lot more than this to get me to avoid a company as large as Toshiba.

barhum17• 13 years ago

So if other companies are worse does that excuse another of doing wrong?

freehunter• 13 years ago

There would be very few companies to buy things from if we stopped doing business with every company that has ever had a complaint against them.

benatkin4• 13 years ago

No. It just means that we need to decide for ourselves what to do with information we hear about a company. I can't avoid every company people have said negative things about to me in person, and I certainly can't avoid every company that I've read bad things about on the Internet.

The result is that I generally throw out anecdotes like yours, no matter where I hear them (including from immediate family members), and instead read reviews.

In fact I sometimes even throw out my own opinions in favor of something more objective. I was severely wronged by T-mobile, and a year later, signed back up with them, and it's been great.

jtreminio• 13 years ago

In every "don't do X" someone has to chime in with "Don't tell me what to do!".

He's not actually putting you in a headlock and saying "YOU BETTER NOT DO THIS, benatkin!". He wrote a blog post.

Dylan168072• 13 years ago

It's clearly advice, not an order.

Don't be so defensive.

benatkin4• 13 years ago

Advice is something that often needs to be pushed away just like orders do.

sasv_victim• 13 years ago

Sorry you have to face this annoyance!

I had a similar problem with top-end ultrabook from ASUS (13.3" FHD i7 Zenbook Prime with discrete graphics) in 2012.

The ultrabook stopped after 2.5 months (keyboard problem), then after RMA got update that it was a customer induced damage (definitely not, it was an issue many people complained about) requiring replacement of both keyboard and motherboard almost for the price of a new ultrabook. I was really upset and after 6 months of having it in a drawer I sent the ultrabook for an analysis to an independent lab - it turned out only the keyboard module was damaged, motherboard was OK. I ordered a keyboard replacement from asusparts (~$100) and it works till today. Never heard any sorry from ASUS for trying to extract money from me for a "damaged" motherboard.

Having said that, I scratched ASUS off my list for the rest of my life. This happened in Germany. Paradoxically I was just thinking about buying Toshiba Qosmio X70-136 as my DTR but after reading this I will go with some Clevo-based manufacturer like. Thanks!

endgame• 13 years ago

After buying a Toshiba Satellite P100-J01 years ago, and having to choose between either sound or ACPI when running GNU/Linux (until a BIOS update came out, and even then I had to patch the DSDT), I'll never buy Toshiba again.

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux-source-2.6.2...

rhgraysonii• 13 years ago

Hey Moneer. Just wanted to say, I miss you buddy! I hope this all gets sorted out. Let me know if I can help you in any way.

barhum17• 13 years ago

Hey Bobby! Thanks for the support!

deadslow2• 13 years ago

Yet another bad-after-sale-support story. Why is this on HN? If you go stand at any laptop brand service centre, you'll hear 50 such stories everyday.

whatevsbro• 13 years ago

Because it's good for people to know that Toshiba sucks, so that they can avoid buying their products.

davidw2• 13 years ago

I've had good luck with Dells from that point of view. I've bought 3 in the US, and two, at some point in their lifetimes, have needed some love from a technician (bad HD, and a cosmetic problem with a very new laptop that I wanted fixed because I spent quite a bit on it). Despite being very much not in the US anymore, they promptly dispatched people on site (in Innsbruck, Austria, and Padua, Italy) to fix the problems with no questions.

(Edit: by the way, most recent one was one of these - nice dev machine if you like Linux! http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/xps-13-linux/pd )

virtualwhys• 13 years ago

Dell warranty is pretty nice in a pinch, particularly on the road (screen died on my M4700 last year and they replaced the machine, got an extra 16GB RAM to boot).

FWIW, roll with Dell on server front as well, great machines, hope Dell sticks around and doesn't go under.

piyush_soni• 13 years ago

Yes, my experience with international warranty with Dell has been good as well. They are prompt in servicing or replacing bad stuff.

csense2• 13 years ago

You got overcharged.

I got a laptop from Newegg for ~$700-$800 with an i7, nVidia GPU, and Windows license. Installing Linux is easy enough, and dual booting gives you flexibility if you want/need to run apps that refuse to go in Wine.

To be fair, my machine only came with 4GB of RAM and no SSD, but upgrades for those can surely be found for less than the $400-$500 price differential.

And a system with no discrete GPU is crippled if you're a gamer. If I'm paying $1000 plus for a system, you can be sure it'll have a decent GPU.

aferreira2• 13 years ago

To be honest there's a lot more that factors in when you're buying a computer for business. It's not just the CPU and GPU that come with it, there's a plethora of other factors that may be important to the buyer, such as:

* Maximum ram upgrade amount (most consumer laptops max out at 8 GB or 16 GB)

* Screen quality (IPS vs TN, glare vs anti-glare, etc)

* Keyboard layout and quality (yes, this matter A LOT if you type all day on the computer)

* Driver compatibility (since Linux is mentioned)

* Weight, roughness (or beat-up factor), portability factors, battery life, modularity, expansion ports... the list goes on.

It's not just "this machine which has a top end Intel i7 CPU and an SSD" for everyone.

dangrossman• 13 years ago

And a system with no discrete GPU is crippled if you're a gamer.

That used to be the case. Intel's caught up. Look at the ASUS UX301LA for example. It's extremely thin and light, with 8 hour battery life and a 2560x1440 screen. Those attributes together wouldn't be possible with discrete graphics, yet the Intel Iris integrated GPU that comes with its i7-4558U is more capable than a discrete Radeon Mobility of 2-3 years ago. It can run mid-level games like Diablo/Starcraft at native resolution (which is very high) and high quality easily, and probably anything released in 2014 smoothly if you just chop the resolution in half (1280x720 not being bad at all).

rmason• 13 years ago

When you buy online you need to investigate what happens before you need service. A consumer might not need to go to the effort but for a programmer a good laptop is a tool.

Years ago I bought Dell's and found paying extra for their onsite service was a wise investment. Only needed it for a single machine but they literally came to our office with parts and repaired it. Until I needed it a second time and found they had changed policies and found onsite was in name only.

So when I started buying Toshiba Qosmio's I actually investigated my service options in Michigan. It has paid dividends because whenever I've had a problem I can get on the phone with the company's owner, they turn it around faster than shipping it to Toshiba's depot and keep me informed every step of the way.

scottydelta• 13 years ago

They are all the same, trust me, I am facing same on my HP laptop, they say that they are not responsible for poor battery backup after 2 months of purchase because I use my laptop excessively!!

sergiotapia• 13 years ago

You probably aren't familiar with how "guarantees" work here in South America, ugh.

See companies like Samsung and Toshiba have "certified" stores that "take guarantees" but they are not tied by their parent company, they are privately owned stores that just negotiated with the parent company to use their "sticker".

I bought a Phillips shaver and under warranty, the Phillips station wanted me to pay 70% of the cost of a new one, despite being a DoA device.

So while the sticker works as it should in the US and Europe, South America has a god damn wild west scenario. Anything goes, and if you don't like it, buy something else. Yep.

(Source: I live in Bolivia)

alimoeeny• 13 years ago

Same in Iran, there are private importers that have some deal with Samsung, or Toshiba ... AND they advertise that they represent the mother companies and give you warranty cards, but they don't give a damn to actually do any repairs or replacements, the only one that I had luck with was VAIO laptops,

dguaraglia• 13 years ago

Yup, that's the case in both Argentina and Brazil too. But then, customer service sucks pretty much at every level. In the US you can buy a product from Walmart, use it for a couple weeks and if you aren't happy with it just return/exchange it (and yes, you get your money back, not some store credit.) Coming from Argentina, I was amazed the first time it worked and felt like I was ripping someone off. After a while I got used to the idea that that is how customer service should work.

lambda• 13 years ago

Some people do abuse this to rip companies off, to varying degrees; I know some people who treat returns as free rentals, buying something, using it without ever intending to keep it, and then returning it. Some people go even further and steal things and then return them for cash.

But I guess that on the whole, the good customer experience for the honest customers outweighs the cost of fraud.

nowarninglabel• 13 years ago

Not to take Toshiba or the service center in Guatemala's side, but I think you highlight what I would guess is the problem here, which is that when you felt like you were ripping someone off to be able to make such a return, there are many people who would in fact actually rip the store off if they could get away with it. I believe stores in the US have done a good job of putting mechanisms in place to help counter such scammers, but this is likely not true in many other countries. Thus, it's hard for the manufacturer to offer warranties in these other countries.

But that's just a guess, why else would they stop supporting a warranty in Guatemala (at least if their line is true that they actually removed the warranty for this country) other than they'd gotten ripped off there more than their bottom line could handle?

mindslight• 13 years ago

Well honestly the US is too far in the opposite direction. 90 days no questions asked return is nice so you can buy something you -may- need for a project and then return it at your leisure (unopened, in new condition). But OTOH the idea that you can buy something, use it for a few months, and then return it because you're done with it is ridiculous. I know of people who've bought plants at Home Depot to decorate for guests, and then returned them after a month of not watering them! And when you return something that breaks in the middle of using it due to design flaw (so you don't want another), it's annoying to feel that there's no differentiation between you and someone who is scamming.

larrys• 13 years ago

"After a while I got used to the idea that that is how customer service should work."

You can build any system of service and policies you want as long as you account for it in the price of the product or service. Even if customers take advantage of you.

There is an exercise machine (some kind of wonder machine) that costs (from an ad I saw some time ago) about $17,000. [1] [2]

IIRC they give an iron clad mbg. Might even pay the shipping both ways (and actually so do many high end mattress companies). (Sorry don't have time to fully re-read the links that I am giving.

Bottom line is they are tying those consumer friendly policies into the price of the product. So since the cost of the equipment almost certainly pales in comparison to what they sell it for, even taking into account returns, in theory, they still will earn a profit.

[1] I think this is it but I'm not seeing any price info on the page. http://www.fastexercise.com/

[2] http://blog.cleveland.com/health/2009/03/rom_machine_worth_i...

notdrunkatall3• 13 years ago

The question is: why the difference?

marcosdumay2• 13 years ago

I'll have to partially disagree here. In Brazil you have warranty that your product will be functional. Yes, customer sevice normally sucks, and you normally can't just ask for your money back, but not fixing a deffective product is serious matter here.

barhum17• 13 years ago

I have actually bought many Toshibas from abroad and took them to certified Toshiba centers here in Guatemala. It seems that they recently changed which countries it covers but forgot to change the documentation on the box and the warranty card.

einhverfr• 13 years ago

When I worked at Microsoft, we had a situation where the office XP upgrade policies were changed but the boxes were not. The fact is that in these cases, my view has always been that the documentation given to the customer is authoritative. After fighting with my boss for two weeks over this (and breaking policies to help fill our written promises to customers), I finally went over their heads to get it fixed and got flack for that :-P No good deed goes unpunished.

The fact is, Toshiba made a written representation to the customer. They can change their policies, but they shouldn't break those promises in the process.

matsemann3• 13 years ago

In my country (Norway) the seller, importer and manufacturer are obliged by law to fix or replace broken items the first 3 to 5 years after purchase depending on type of item.

So warranty/guarantee is mostly useless, what the law provides us consumers is already better.

rjuyal2• 13 years ago

If that is the case, then your country Norway is good man.

gcb0• 13 years ago

I bought a low end lenovo after loving their high end models at work.

They were crappy (you order online, there's no place to see them). I hated, but there was a $200 restock fee on a $300+ product, so i just gave it to a relative when i was visiting.

two days in Brazil and the mother board died. I called lenovo, they gave me the number of a local shop. I called the local shop. They arranged to pick it up. I had linux dual boot and some personal data there already, So i gave instructions that the HD would be out of the device. no problem. they missed one or two pickup schedules, but when they finally picked it up they confirmed it was the dead motherboard, replaced, tested, returned. I put the HD back in and all was fine.

lenovo: 10 for warranty, 0 for retail experience and product satisfaction..

joelhaasnoot• 13 years ago

Their cheaper laptops don't have international warranties, but some of the lower end models do, atleast that's how it was a few years ago when I bought my "Ideapad Y"-series laptop

nodata2• 13 years ago

I don't know why you are posting this on HN. Anyway you have several options:

1. Go to the vendor you bought it through

2. Go to your credit card company

3. Look up the consumer protection laws of your country and use them

kahirsch• 13 years ago

4. Warn other consumers from buying Toshiba products.

5. Shame Toshiba into living up to their word.

nodata2• 13 years ago

Apple did exactly the same thing in Europe (worse actually, they lied to make people buy AppleCare). In China too iirc.

Use your legal rights, and advertise what you did. If you don't know your rights you'll probably have a bad time.

mbijon• 13 years ago

I'll add another Toshiba support horror-story. It's why I haven't even looked at Toshiba products in 2-3 years:

My work laptop (supplied by employer) was a Toshiba and had a 1-year warranty. After about 10-11 months of using it, the DVD drive stopped working. Toshiba's warranty support was typical ship-to-depot, so IT pulled the drive and sent the laptop off for repairs. I wouldn't ordinarily care about a laptop our for repair, but IT supplied me with a temporary machine that was at least a generation back (ie: slow and heavy).

IT got a message that except that my machine had been received at the depot but heard nothing else for weeks and weeks after. By the time I'd bugged a tech at my company enough to contact them the warranty had lapsed ... and Toshiba refused to service the machine.

Toshiba refused to service it for several more weeks. I finally took over contacting support from the IT tech, and got the machine serviced after a half-dozen (long hold-time) calls. But for the amount of time the IT dept & me spent getting an optical drive fixed our company could have paid for two new machines.

6d0debc071• 13 years ago

Called customer service for about 2 hours, they said that they made a mistake in printing the warranty card and that I would have to pay to repair the laptop.

---------------------

Ugg. Too bad for them but I wonder what the small claims court would have to say about it. Contract is what's advertised, not what you secretly thought.

...

Assuming there is an equivalent there, of course.

prehkugler• 13 years ago

If you purchased this with a credit card, you may be able to use the card's warranty. Many credit cards come with an extended warranty service and dispute resolution/fraud protection as a customer incentive (in addition to their points/frequent flier miles/whatever). Even if this is not covered under your card's extended warranty, talking with your credit card company may allow you get the charges reversed.

fuckpig• 13 years ago

I haven't since this event:

In 1987, Tocibai Machine, a subsidiary of Toshiba, was accused of illegally selling CNC milling machines used to produce very quiet submarine propellers to the Soviet Union in violation of the CoCom agreement, an international embargo on certain countries to COMECON countries. The Toshiba-Kongsberg scandal involved a subsidiary of Toshiba and the Norwegian company Kongsberg Vaapenfabrikk. The incident strained relations between the United States and Japan, and resulted in the arrest and prosecution of two senior executives, as well as the imposition of sanctions on the company by both countries.[6] Senator John Heinz of Pennsylvania said "What Toshiba and Kongsberg did was ransom the security of the United States for $517 million."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toshiba#1939_to_2000

bcoates• 13 years ago

The Free World won the war against Communism through economic warfare, surely Toshiba contributed to that impoverishing them by $517 million of hard currency for weapons they never got to use?

frenchy• 13 years ago

Not necessarily. That $517 million would very likely have been spent on attempts to reproduce the technology themselves, not on economic development.

dbs• 13 years ago

I guess if toshiba lies in the warranty and does not assume its errors, it should also lie in other things. Not a good company to do business with.

sarreph• 13 years ago

This is perhaps the best and most tech-influential spot you can gain to advertise an issue you're having with a company/product.

However, I have a sneaking suspicion that nobody at Toshiba visits HN.

dmourati• 13 years ago

... in Guatemala

lazyant• 13 years ago

try calling Toshiba laptop support for North America and press/ask for a representative in Spanish, they do laptop support for (some?) Latin American countries out of Mississauga, Ontario

barhum17• 13 years ago

I did talk them in Spanish, the manager was the one I spoke to there...

thatthatis2• 13 years ago

Did you buy from an authorized retailer?

barhum17• 13 years ago

from Amazon.com

kwiens• 13 years ago

Toshiba has been aggressive at limiting DIY repairs as well. They sent Tim Hicks a takedown notice forcing him to remove service manuals from his site: http://www.wired.com/opinion/2012/11/cease-and-desist-manual...

vacri• 13 years ago

My own Toshiba experience with Australian support is that they wouldn't even talk to you unless you paid them $55. I was after a service manual, not troubleshooting, but I couldn't even get to ask what I wanted unless I paid. There were a couple of other times I needed to ask for trivial things to service clients' laptops, but at $55 per question, sod them.

danysantiago• 13 years ago

I know the feeling! Living in Puerto Rico is a double edge scenario. I might be fully treated as an US customer with all the benefits or they just don't consider us a US Territory. Sometimes we are another country somewhere in the Caribbean, sometimes we get confused with Latin America and then the options for services just becomes close to none.

jlund3• 13 years ago

I've had bad experiences with Toshiba refusing to honor warranties before. After hours on the phone it turned out that the reason they wouldn't help me is because they had recorded my date of birth as the date of purchase and vice versa. Apparently no one there thought it strange that the laptop had been out of warranty for more than two decades... The one manager that did understand the absurdity of the situation still insisted that no one at his call center had the authority to make the obvious correction. Like the OP, I will never buy another Toshiba product, and I tell all my friends the same.

volune• 13 years ago

Latin America is a conceptual region, not a concrete set of countries. They can probably get away with not honoring the warranty in Guatemala because of this ambiguous terminology.

Panoramix• 13 years ago

But there are no definitions of Latin America that do not include Guatemala: a) Former Spanish colonies b) Spanish speaking countries c) Romance language speaking countries d) Countries South of the USA

petercoolz• 13 years ago

i remember back in college my friends would call them shitobas because they broke so often

JSno• 13 years ago

Now I understand why people came and coming U.S..

incredimike2• 13 years ago

Hey man. I can't figure out how to direct message you. I contacted Toshiba via twitter and asked for a comment. They said they would investigate. You may want to contact them directly.

Support says they've passed the matter to "customer service mgmt. Expecting a response on Monday."

These dudes: @ToshibaUSAhelp

barhum17• 13 years ago

Thank you Mike! I saw your comment on twitter!

x0054• 13 years ago

I purchased Toshiba laptop in 2002. Within 3 months the laptop's graphics card failed. Toshiba does not repair their own laptops, rather they send it out to some 3rd party repair center. The repair center took 3 weeks to repairer the laptop. When I came back to pick it up, the laptop started but the screen turned off as soon as I picked it up from the counter. I left it with the relier center. 2 weeks later they called again. This time it worked for a day before dying again. 3rd time they took another 3 weeks to repair. After that it worked for a month and died. I gave up and got a new laptop. Since then I never purchase Toshiba. I don't care how good or bad their products are, their customer service is one of the worst.

Casseres• 13 years ago

I gave up and got a new laptop.

Hopefully for free. Most states have a lemon law.

nickjamespdx2• 13 years ago

After a serial number lookup, it appears that this Toshiba laptop's warranty expired in Feb. of 2013.

This is using the s/n in the image: http://bandyt.site44.com/toshiba/garantia2.jpg

Results of the s/n search: (from site: http://support.toshiba.com/warranty)

Model Name: SATELLITE C850D Product Category: Portable Model-Part Number: PSCBQU-00200F Serial Number: YC307409Q Registration Number: 827633 Purchase Date: Nov 26, 2012 Country Purchased: United States Complimentary Phone Support Through: Feb 24, 2013 Warranty: Warranty expired! +++ Warranty Expiration Date: Nov 26, 2013 Primary Service Option: Out of Warranty Service ++ http://toshibarepairservices.com

binarycrusader• 13 years ago

The buyer claims to have purchased it on Feb. 19th 2013, which would definitely still be within a one-year warranty period.

Regardless, the claim is that Toshiba is refusing to honor the warranty because of the country the laptop is in, not because the warranty is expired.

mdmarra2• 13 years ago

I think you mean November 26, 2013.

barhum17• 13 years ago

I will upload the invoice shortly that shows feb 2013 purchase from Amazon. How did you manage to come up with the part number?

akira2501• 13 years ago

According to the UPC it is a PSCBLU-025003, which is marketed as the Satellite C855-S5343. I don't see the UPC being associated with any other product. Entering this information into the warranty information page on Toshiba instead states it was purchased Feb 24th 2013, and the warranty expires on Feb 24, 2014.

TillE• 13 years ago

YC307409Q

You entered the wrong serial number. It's YC317409Q.

Warranty Expiration Date: Feb 24, 2014

nickjamespdx2• 13 years ago

You're right, I entered '307' instead.

late2part• 13 years ago

2 Thoughts:

1. Bill Clinton might say - "Well, it depends on your definition of Latin America."

2. You should mail the CEO of Toshiba. In fact, you should give us the contact info for the CEO of Toshiba so we can mail him on your behalf.

MatthewWilkes• 13 years ago

So, I don't know about the north/south american systems, but in the UK when a manufacturer or a store fails to meet their obligations you sue them in small claims court. I've never heard of a company not settling out of court, they don't want a precedent set against them and they don't want to fly their lawyers out to talk about a laptop return for a day.

blizzard• 13 years ago

I was about to buy toshiba portege laptop. Now I have changed my mind. Thanks!

gwbas1c• 13 years ago

Take up the problem with Amazon.

sciguy77• 13 years ago

I won a Toshiba in a science competition. Even though it was free it still sucked, they make terrible little machines.

dustinbrownman• 13 years ago

I'm sorry this happened to you, buddy. That really sucks. Us United States consumers should be more concerned with the shortcuts and backhanded ways companies deal with customers outside of the States. A company that treats customers badly just because it CAN instead of doing what it SHOULD doesn't deserve our business.

ivanhoe• 13 years ago

Oh, yes, Toshiba's support sucks, especially if you live outside US and EU. My Qosmio laptop was constantly overheating in summers, power adapter got broken twice (and on one of those occasions literally started burning, smoking and all melted down), volume control got broken after about 6 months and started randomly changing the sound volume to max (very scary thing since I often leave my laptop playing music when I go to sleep)... and each time I would have to wait for 2-3 weeks for them to "repair" it. And it wasn't cheap at all, I could easily get Apple MBP for that money (which I eventually did)

arcosdev• 13 years ago

Toshiba makes crap. Most Windows-based laptops are. I know it sounds ridiculous, but it still makes more sense to buy a Mac laptop and run Windows on it. Every time a friend or family member asks me what Windows-based laptop to buy, I have to tell them to buy a Mac because of shitty situations like this one.

ido• 13 years ago

The sony vaio ones are pretty good in my experience.

jychang• 13 years ago

Thinkpads?

alanning• 13 years ago

This seems like it would be a "truth in advertising" violation. From your pictures, normal recourse looks like binding arbitration but maybe the truth in advertising angle can make it a bigger deal. Especially since someone else pointed out that they have included Latin America in their warranty list for years.

Fjolsvith• 13 years ago

I guess I won't buy toshiba at all now. I will also tell my friends to not buy toshiba.

cpncrunch• 13 years ago

Website still isn't working...

etler• 13 years ago

I've heard plenty of bad things about Toshiba customer support last time I was looking for a laptop. It's not too hard to find complaints about them.

Toshiba says they made a mistake but they still cannot help me

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