HP Direct

Full review
This review applies not only not only to HP Online Shopping, but also of its customer support.

About a month ago, my fiance and I purchased a new computer through HP Online Shopping. Although he is a student at a university with a student discount deal for another computer company, we found a much better price on better equipment and more memory, better processor, etc. with HP. We were elated.

However, we chose the cheaper shipping option, FedEx Ground (see my review of FedEx Ground at http://www.epinions.com/content_193919291012) and the problems began - not with HP, but with the shipping company. Long story made short: Our computer was...misplaced by FedEx Ground... HP was extremely helpful. They quickly began their own investigation of the missing shipment. HP kindly dealt with numerous phone calls from us, all of which were handled wonderfully. Within days, a new computer was being built for us, set to ship on FedEx Express (which, believe it or not, is actually separate in a lot of respects from FedEx Ground) with no additional charge to us. HP also planned to give us a significant refund on a portion of our computer as soon as the investigation closed. As of right now, the investigation has not yet closed, but is expected to very soon.

In the meantime, my credit card company - who shall remain nameless since they are soon to be bought out - made a mistake on the charges. An HP Customer Service supervisor, Melanie, decided she would be our direct contact for all the issues. After a quick note to my credit card company, HP helped my credit card company clear the mistaken charge.

Then, our new computer arrived ahead of schedule - before the expected ship date - in pristine condition. In this whole situation, HP is the only company that stood by our side the entire time. They were so helpful and so wonderful and so ready to make sure everything wrong was fixed - even if it wasn't their fault.

My advice: If you purchase from HP, head off your problems by selecting the express shipping option. But if you do run into problems with shipping, your credit card, even HP, you can rest assured HP will stand by you, fix the problem and do what it can to ease the stress the comes with any problems.

And, oh, yeah, our new computer works like a gem! We couldn't be happier.