I purchased an HP MSL2024 and a three year next business day warranty from PC Connection as a tape backup solution for my employer.  The device is an LTO-3 robotic library capable of handling 24 tapes.  Cost of the device - $8,000.  Cost of the warranty - $1400.  But upon connecting the device, the packaging was missing the appropriate SCSI terminator in order to get the device to function properly.  Thus began my long drawn out saga with HP customer services.

On June 12th, 2007, I contacted HP to let them know that the part did not ship in the original packaging.  I was told that the part would be sent out and that I would receive it the next business day with a case number of 3219088293.  No problem.  We could go one day without performing backups.

Although I received a part on June 13th, it was not the correct one.  And of course it was too late in the day to do anything about it.  Instead of having a 68-pin configuration it was built around an edge connector. 

I called HP back on June 14th to let them know of the problem.  They apologized, located the correct part and informed me that they would ship it out overnight.  I would have the part the next day.  The part never arrived.

The following Monday, June 18th, I called HP to let them know that the part never arrived.  I was then told that it was on backorder and would not ship for at least one to two more weeks.  I tried myself to escalate the issue through HP’s channels, but was shot down at every step by a CSR named Leslie.  Apparently, there are no supervisors available in the CSR department to speak with – EVER.  So, I resorted to more drastic measures.

The SEC is a wonderful government agency.  I was able to locate company filings to retrieve an email address for the HP Board of Directors to which I could direct my complaint ( This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it ).  I also contacted the vendor to let them know of the issues I was having. 

I received an email from HP asking me if it would be acceptable to receive the part on June 22nd.  I don’t quite understand the logic of even asking me that question.  Was HP waiting for me to respond before sending the part out?  Were they just going to sit on it and wait until they heard something back?

HP has an interesting schema for naming their departments.  I found myself communicating throughout the afternoon with “Mission Control.”  I fought the urge to say “Houston, we have a problem.”  Kathy Merrick in Ontario was very helpful.  She was able to reach a parts specialist by the name of David presumably in California.  He in turn placed a third call so some outsourced overseas operation and connected Sonia into the call.

Sonia was able to locate what we were told was a suitable replacement part.  Kathy resubmitted the order through their Eureka system so that the part could be shipped.  When she had Sonia verify that the part had been ordered, we were informed that the order had been placed on credit hold status.  This is a bit odd since it was not ordered with a credit card, but under a warranty issue.  Kathy informed me that she would call me back later in the day to verify that the part had been shipped.

When Kathy called back later in the day, her system was still showing that the order was on credit hold.  Since she was leaving in a half an hour, she asked if I would like for her to turn it over to someone else or could she call me back the next morning.  I told her that it would be fine for her to call the next day.

The morning of June 19th arrived along with a slew of updates.  The first to contact me was Kathy to inform me that the package had shipped and that I would have it this morning.  She provided me with the UPS tracking number.  Right on her heels was a call from Raul Alberto Acuña who provided me with the same information.  He went further to state that HP should have replaced the entire device in the first place and that it should have never been handled under warranty.  The third person to contact me was Ron Williams in the local Minneapolis HP Distribution Center.  The purpose of his call was to inform me that the part was on its way from Milwaukee via a courier.  I then received a follow email from Raul and promised to call Ron back.  I still have no contact information for Kathy.

The part arrived via UPS as promised.  I thought the issue was finally behind me after a week and I could start performing backups once again.  Or so I thought.  Upon opening the package, I discovered that it did contain a SCSI connector with a pin-out configuration, however the connector was 50% wider than what is needed for the device.  I called Raul at the number he provided in his email and left a message informing him of the problem.  I also called Ron and left a message for him as well.

HP finally dispatched a technician early this afternoon.  Jack McCoy, a Storage Specialist with North American Customer Support arrived and assisted us with fixing the problem.  We are now getting 4GB/min transfers without errors as opposed to the 13MB/min with errors that we experienced previously.  So, all is good with the world again.

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