Martian wrote:
My new Compaq laptop developed a serious problem in March, and I ended
up sending it back for repairs after hours on the phone. They
replaced the M-board, and when they returned it, they had removed my
RAM upgrade. I e-mailed them about it and was told "the right amount
of RAM is installed." Then I e-mailed and got no response. Then I
called and we've spoken over the phone repeatedly ever since. Compaq
has spent way more than the $100 I spent on the RAM on phone calls!

I was just advised that their repair facility says they "did return
the RAM to the customer" and closed their case and they refuse to
discuss it further! I still do not have my RAM! I would tell anyone
seriously considering buying a Compaq or HP to buy a Dell. We have
had excellent service from Dell with our desktop. Compaq has taken my
property and apparently has no intention of returning it. I suspect
small claims court is my only recourse at this point.

Anyone have any other ideas?

Thanks.

Lesson learned: remove all components not on the original invoice before
shipping. Mirror your hard drive. Reinstall the original OS. The
warranty covers the unit in the state it was sold, even if the unit
contains after market equipment sold by the vendor, and in some cases
the vendor will not do warranty work with an OS different than the
invoice specifies.

In this case, Compaq should have retained and returned the RAM, and they
were a little short on ethics in your case by not doing so. The reality
is that the service center does their job on the basis of the OEM state
of the computer, and had to strip the RAM in order to QA their work
according to the state at time of sale. The person on the end of the
line has no knowledge of what the person at the front of the line is
doing, and the original invoice is the final arbiter.

Small claims court will be difficult since the vendor is out of state in
all likelyhood. You can get a judgement from court. The next
difficulty is collecting it.

Q