HP users demand proper treatment

By WANG CHAO (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-03-25 07:50

More than 800 customers have banded together to demand better treatment from HP after serious quality problems were reported in some of the company's laptops.

The group is being led by 10 lawyers from Beijing and it is negotiating with the company for compensation.

So far, a spokesperson said, they have not received a "satisfactory promise" from the company.

"HP hasn't compensated customers properly for its laptop problems," said Wang Fengchang, founder of the activist group. Wang is also CEO of Laweach, the biggest professional law website in China.

"The spare part manufacturer nVIDIA found defects in their products and paid compensation of $191 million to HP but where is the money? Are they forwarding it to the customers who were the victims of the defective products?" Wang said.

During a March 22 meeting initiated by the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ), the lawyers representing the customers asked HP for a solution.

"Previously, HP published a document but many customers said it was too vague and some laptop series mentioned in the document were not even sold in China," Wang said.

At the meeting, HP agreed to draft a detailed "Q&A" on how to deal with the problems with HP's laptops.

"Compared to its previous cold attitude, HP has changed a lot; but it didn't promise anything to the customers," said Jiang Suhua, the leading lawyer with the customer group.

According to Jiang, HP had been getting complaints from customers but those complaints spiked after Consumer's Day on March 15.

"We have been organizing customers through the Laweach website," Wang Fengchang said.

This month, sales of HP laptops fell by 40 percent at Kemao Electronic City, according to National Business Daily.

Gao Ke joined the group two weeks ago, after struggling with problems on his HP DV2624 for three years.

Gao said he repaired his HP laptop 10 times in the past three years and twice lost data from his hard drive.

"I bought the HP laptop late in 2007 but, after only a year, the temperature of the motherboard was reaching up to 144 degrees and the battery was almost on fire. It was so scary."

Later, Gao found that many customers had the same problems and that customers were forming a group.

"I just want HP to get rid of these problems thoroughly, instead of repairing it again and again," Gao said. "And, as far as I know, many spare parts they use are recycled ones."

When asked how they will deal with the problem, Su Li from Hill&Knowlton Public Relations Company, which handles PR for HP on the issue, told METRO the company has already published its service rule online and "will cooperate with AQSIQ to solve the problem".

But Su did not say if there was a plan to communicate with customers face-to-face again. Wang Fengchang said: "Our goal is to solve every customer's problems; so HP can either provide compensation or a replacement to customers. And, we hope AQSIQ can push HP to communicate with consumers directly, to listen to their requests and finally solve the problems."