Hewlett Packard - HP is a hot mess. Avoid doing business with them.

I bought an HP laptop computer (new) on Amazon in March. This week, some problems developed.

My first interactions with HP support were today.

This is what I encountered:

1. HP's records showed my computer as purchased last October. I had never registered it. When asked (online) for help in registering it, I was directed to register.hp.com.

When I input the model, it was not an option on the dropdown list. (Incompetence!) I entered the serial number, and I was asked for my name, address, and other data. The webpage would not accept any entries in the name or street address or city fields. (More incompetence!) So I could not register it online to record the actual purchase date.

2.

I was bounced from one person to the next four times on my first tech support call. I eventually got to someone in warranty registration, but it was COMMERCIAL warranty registration, so I had to be transferred to another warranty registration department. The fellow said he would sent me an email so that I could attached and return my purchase invoice from Amazon. I never received his email, and I was disconnected after wasting more than an hour on the phone.

3.

I waited 30 minutes for that fellow to call me. I know he had my phone number because EVERYONE at HP asks for a good callback number. He had my number. He just didn't bother to call back.

(Rudeness!)

4. I called HP support again, and after a couple of transfers and 30 minutes, someone sent me an email, I returned my proof of purchase (invoice), and he said he had updated my warranty date so that I would get free support.

5. Now, I am waiting for a call back tomorrow for help actually solving my problem.

So, I after failing to resolve the problem on my own, I have wasted about 3 hours of my valuable time scheduling help for tomorrow -- help I should have gotten immediately on my first call.

If this is what HP offers in terms of support, I would advise people to find another vendor for a laptop. There are plenty, and they could not be more poorly organized.

The fact that you cannot register a laptop on HP's website is absurd.

The fact that you need to be transferred five times on a single call, get disconnected, and they don't call back is awful.

Find another vendor.

I have.

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This is followup information posted the next day.

I bought a large USB flash drive which is required to download and run the HP Cloud Recovery Tool.

I used it to download the software from the Microsoft Store as directed by HP yesterday.

When I went to run it, it didnt work. So, I called HP yet again.

This time I was connected to someone who was completely clueless as she read instructions off a computer monitor. If I asked her to clarify something, she would put me on hold while she tried to create an answer. She clearly had no experience in assisting with a clean Windows install.

She also would ask me the same question 3-4 times.

One example is: Have you tried the USB flash drive in another port. After the third time she asked the same question within a few minutes, I asked to be escalated to a supervisor.

Her supervisor was more attentive. I followed his instructions exactly which led to my computer being completely unusable because he invoked Microsofts BitLocker. So, now I cannot even use it at all.

(Before, I could use it for most things. This guy actually made it completely unusable.

He wanted to know if ai had a second computer to try someone else. I do not. He called that unfortunate.

So, now I need to wait a couple or days (maybe more due to the weekend) for HP to send me a USB flash drive that will override BitLocker.

HP support has, thus far, wasted about 7 hours of my time and taken a laptop with some minor problems and made it completely unusable.

HP should not be trusted to provide support for its products.

It hires poorly trained, inexperienced people to read directions off a screen.

I can do that. So can you.

Avoid HP just as you would not intentionally walk in front of a bus.