I was going to write a nice note about the telephone support I received from Toshiba this morning, about my messed-up laptop. Richard on the US support line was helpful and technically well informed.
But something is truly rotten in the state of Toshiba, or at least Toshiba Europe. I bought my Portege M200 in London about 20 months ago. It’s still under warranty. The problem is that moving from London to Berkeley means an awful lot of stuff is in boxes that haven’t been touched yet. In one of those boxes, I’m pretty sure, is my Toshiba recovery disk. But wouldn’t it be easier to get a replacement recovery disk from Toshiba?
Trouble is Toshiba USA can’t provide a recovery disk for my European-spec laptop. That has to come from Toshiba Europe. I’m helpfully provided the phone number in Britain. That’s where the problems begin.
Toshiba Europe can send a recovery disk. But they can only send it to a European address. Oh, and they don’t accept a credit card. So they suggest we find someone in the UK who can send them a check (or cheque), they will then send the disk to that person, who can then send it to me.
That’s a great way to treat a customer who has a product that is still under warranty, isn’t it? When the day comes to replace this laptop (which might well be sooner rather than later), I’m sure not going to have good thoughts about Toshiba. Extraordinary.
Update It gets better (read: worse). Just received this from Toshiba Global Support Centre: “Please find attached the Replacement Product Recovery Media form. The replacement cost for the recovery media is £35.25 (£30 plus VAT). In order to receive the requested software, please carefully read and complete the form, and mail it together with a cheque for the replacement cost to the address indicated on the form. The delivery of the replacement media may take up to 4 weeks after the form and payment have been received by Toshiba.”
Is there any reason why I shouldn’t be able to download this from a Toshiba website for free?
My Sony Vaio recovery discs perished just over a year after I bought the laptop, even though they had been stored in a cool, dry, dark place in the original packaging. Sony cheerily informed me that they would gladly send me a replacement… for £50. “But they are courriered to your door,” they said when I expressed my incredulity. Nvere again, Sony.
Currently on a Fujitsu Lifebook S, which I am very happy with.
I agree.
Some Japanese products have terrible services
and high prices.
They’d become too arrogant and fat.
I just want to post a comment re TOSHIBA TECH SUPPORT. It is TRULY BAD. I have a Toshiba laptop for which I got an extended wty. We had software probs, called them 6x, they were so bad it was pathetic- overseas call ctr (I would guess in the philippines)- one guy told us to read the help files! The other guy tried to help us restore the system with the utilities disk and forgot to tell us to press F2 to boot from the disk drive, then wanted me to call after the weekend to get a new disk mailed!! FINALLY I GOT A SUPERVISOR ONLY AFTER THREATENING TO POST A BLOG about their service, and WAS PUT ON HOLD 2x, EACH TIME FOR EXTENDED PERIODS, like they were trying to discourage me. The supervisor finally told me to bring it to Data Vision in NYC, who finally fixed it. (Data Vision is excellent.)
In conclusion: Toshiba watch out- remember what happened to Dell when they tried to cut customer service to save money? They lost money on that one, instead!
Thanks for the info about Toshiba service is rotten!
A little more info 2 years later. It would appear the troubles have spread over seas to Toshiba Texas. My good buddy Paul has been dealing with them for about half a year now.
His computer would die off (unable to so much as boot up)and he would it off to be repaired. Counting tonight this is the third time. Both the first and the 2nd time they would tell him it was a virus, spend a ridiculous amount of time “fixing” it and send it back. (but as this is now the third time you can assume they weren’t trying hard.)
What’s more, on the second time they attempted to replace the hard-drive and put in the type for his model of lap-top. Now mind you, THEY made the lap-top, so they should know which hard-drive it would need. When Paul found out and questioned them they promptly blamed him for going to an outside repair center (their scapegoat for mixing up the hard-drive) & as I understand it the guy on the found went into a rant about how he can’t do anything if Paul doesn’t send him the laptop’s hard-drive. (which they have…)
Naturally they’re probably going to say it was a virus this time as well. There is a bit of a problem with that… Paul hasn’t had access to the internet in quite a while, it couldn’t be a virus. From what I’ve seen and heard of Toshiba it’s hard not to compare their costumer service to the dealing of a con artist. I typed in the words Toshiba Customer Support, Bad in my Google search bar and for 6+ pages I was still getting hits on that subject. Shocking, really.