I had some keys fall off my 7 month old Compaq laptop keyboard. Went through the warranty reporting India merry-go-round, paid $19.95 to ship my laptop in for warranty service. About a week later I got a call from a rude Compaq employee to tell me that the damage was caused by abuse and not covered under warranty and that I needed to pay over $335 to have them repair the keyboard. Laptop only cost about $400. What a great deal, what a joke.

I buy a lot of laptops for my business every year and Compaq/HP has just convinced me to buy Dell from now on. They will never get another nickel from me or my company and I will tell this story to all my friends and acquaintances. No more Compaq/HP laptops, printers, printer refills, no more anything. There is plenty of competition to pick from where you are not treated like a criminal for trying to get warranty service.