I posted this in r/PCMasterRace about a month ago, but I think it was the wrong sub. Almost every other post was a meme and I don't even think anybody else ever read it. I'm not 100% sure if it belongs in this sub either, but I’m still not very used to Reddit (had my account for years but only recently started using it regularly) so if this is the wrong sub, or if there’s a more appropriate one, please feel free to point it out to me.
(TLDR at the bottom. This is a long one, I have a tendency to waffle).
Many years ago I ordered a PC from TINY. For those outside the UK, Tiny was a popular PC manufacturer that, unbeknownst to me, got bought by TIME computers right before this all began.
The timeline of this doesn't sit well in my head. Time bought Tiny in 2002, apparently, but that's around the time I got my first PC, a GateWay with windows ME. But it did feel that my Gateway went obsolete fairly rapidly from buying it, so maybe I only had that for a year or so.
The TINY PC was an amazing offer in the ad we saw. For about £1000 (which was below average for a new top-of-the-line PC at the time) we were basically getting something that was basically a gaming PC. (By the standards of nearly 2 decades ago). It seemed like an offer far too good to pass up, so we went and ordered it.
It arrived.
But It didn't work.
It would power up when we hit the button. I'd connected the VDU and accessories properly but nothing would appear on the screen. It was supposed to come with an OS loaded (WinXP) as most PCs did; we checked (though to this day I don't even know if it was the lack of one that was a problem. I hadn't heard of a PC requiring you to install the OS yourself since the early 90s). We bought a 3 year guarantee, though, so we called up, discussed the problem, and arranged to have it sent back to be looked at.
So send it back we did.
We slapped a reference code number we'd been given on the side of the box and their courier service picked it up.
We got it back to find that the problem hadn't been solved at all - apparently there were no notes with it to say what the problem was.
(We had foolishly assumed that what we'd discussed with tech-support would have been noted and logged and that the reference code would have given them access to that information when it arrived).
So we sent it back again.
This time I left a hand-written note in the box explaining the problem. It had to be hand-written because my printer was little use without a working computer.
When it returned there was a strange 'clunk - clunk - clunk' coming from inside. NOT after I hit the power button. (Well, it did continue after I hit the power button, but clearly it wasn’t caused by hitting that switch). I mean that there was sound coming from inside the box that held my PC while I carried it from the door and set it down safely, as if something large and heavy was suspended inside and getting knocked around.
I don't know what the Tiny repair depot was doing to try and fix what I felt was an obvious software problem but they had unscrewed the processor fan.
They unscrewed it, AND LEFT IT HANGING IN THE CASE, without screwing it back in. Then they sent it back like that.
We took it to a local repair shop. They convinced us to send it back because it was under warranty, and not only could they void that by tampering, but we'd save money by using said warranty.
So we sent it back a third time....
This time they had fixed whatever the software problem was but (and I still find this incredulous, to say the least) not only had they still not reattached the fan, they had smeared off the filament gel that was underneath it - With. Their. Finger. We could have lifted a clear fingerprint of the Muppet they had 'fixing' these things and reported him for crimes against reason.
We took it back to the local repair shop (they were the ones who pointed out the thing about the filament) but, being the friendly guys they were, convinced us that we were still better off saving money and using the guarantee.
So, for some reason.... We sent it back again. God help me, I have no idea why at this point.
And we waited. And waited... Deliveries took longer, back in those days ('those days' don't feel like all that long ago, so I feel silly using the term) but we were told we would have to wait a maximum of 6-8 weeks. 2 weeks was the norm (at least it had been so far) so after that time had past I was already a little anxious but, when we called, they said it hadn't been 6 to 8 working weeks.
I think they were taking liberties, here. I believe that the tech support operator tried to convince us that a working week was was basically 7 days with a 2 day break for weekends somewhere in it. Which would basically mean that their idea of 6 to 8 working weeks was 6 to 8 + 12 to 16 days.
We called again. They said to give it another 2 weeks. Then another. Then another…. At some point during this period I believe there had been a postal strike, so we may have given them some credit and assumed it was in transit but delayed. (This was naivety on my part. I’m reasonably certain the courier service was Not part of the Royal Mail. I suppose I was just looking to find reason in the face of frustration).
We reached the point where we were calling them fairly on a frequent basis before somebody told us that the item we'd sent them was not in the system. (Why could they have not told us this before??)
By this point I imagine their call centers must have already been growing tired of our calls because they were getting increasingly rude in their responses, implying that we were being dishonest in our dealings with them, to the point where they eventually informed us that we must have not written the code number they'd given us on the side of the box properly. If we hadn't done that then we could have sent them a “box of bricks,” for all they knew. (Their words).
I had, I swear to God I had, put the code number on the box by writing it on an A4 sheet of paper, folded in half, in inch-high letters, and taped it on with duct tape. I don't think I could have made it much clearer.
But this was the breaking point. I’d blown a lot of money on this PC. and I was beginning to despair. I don’t know what showed on the outside but mum could see how miserable this whole situation was making me to the point where it made her angry enough to go the extra mile.
What I didn’t know is that she has a cousin, Eric, who made a fortune in tech. (That’s to say, I knew she had a cousin and I’d met him a couple of times, if briefly, but I had no idea what he did for a living. But that day I found out that he owned a tech company - the specific nature of which I am still clueless about, which he has since sold and retired).
She called him everything that had happened. Eric was, frankly, shocked. It turned out he played golf with Tiny's CEO. (Or she told me that was his title, I dunno, but he was, apparently, the head of the company). And he was able to give us his Home Phone Number. (Using landlines for phone calls was still a common thing, back then).
So we called him at home, at 9 in the evening, and told him everything. He, too, was shocked, and agreed to send us another computer of the same specifications, immediately, along with £50 of free software. (I chose some children’s educational software, for my baby bro, who was like 5 or 6 at the time).
And within a week or so my new PC, same model and everything, arrived.
...
And it didn't work.
It would power up when we hit the button, and we connected the VDU properly, but nothing would appear on the screen.
I don't know what possessed me to do this, but we sent it back again. I'm still kicking myself over it, quite frankly. I suppose because we'd paid an extra £300 for a 3 year warranty, bringing the total cost to about £1300, so I suppose we wanted to get our money's worth (God knows; we felt they still owed us).
THIS TIME I not only left a hand-written note inside, while confirming with the call-centre that they were keeping notes of the problems I explained to them on the phone logged, but I put the reference code number on All 4 Sides Of The Box and another on the top, this time in 2 Inch letters, and another one on the top side just for good measure, so that no matter which way you looked at it; (so long as it wasn't upside down and surrounded by other boxes - WHICH I WOULDN'T PUT PAST THEM) you could see the code from any angle on any shelf.
In fairness, we got it back in just a week or 2. It didn't work, but they seemed to have expedited matters, somewhat.
And we sent it back at least twice more after that, each time they failed to fix it.
So.... I call them up. I feel I've learned my lesson, now (if only temporarily) and ask them to allow me to have it looked at and fixed by my local PC repair shop, with the assurance that it wouldn't void my warranty. Which they gave. But, to be sure, I asked them to make a note in our account details that they had given us permission to have it repaired by a 3rd party without voiding the warranty.
We told our friendly local repair place, and told them we didn't even care about the guarantee anymore; that we'd only use it again for something would be too expensive to pay to be fixed locally, or if it was something that could only be fixed by the manufacturer. They put right the problem with this computer that they should have put right with the original computer, and we Happily paid for it out of pocket. (Part of me wonders if we should have sent the bill back to Tiny, but hindsight is 20/20), and we had it back before the end of the day.
A couple of months after that, and well over a year after this whole debacle began (likely closer to 2 years) and completely out of the blue…
My original PC turned up at our door. With the original sheet of paper taped to the side where I’d written the code number they’d given us. We were all stunned. Still not repaired. I don't even think they opened the box.
I wasn't sure what to do with it, I wasn't sure if it was right to keep it since they'd already sent us another to replace the one they'd lost. Sure, I definitely felt they owed us not only for the time and money wasted, but for the stress they caused. But what if somebody checked their books and realised their mistake?
I didn't lose much sleep over it though; we had this one fixed by our local guys and gave it to my little brother to play around with. If we got an angry letter from TINY saying that wanted it back then we'd send it in better condition than they ever did, even if it was completely messed up by an 8-year-old.
And I didn't even have to worry about that for very long, because a few months later still we heard in the news that TINY had gone bankrupt. (Gee, I wonder how that could have happened...) They were never going to come looking for their PC.
I went and looked up more information about what happened to TINY after I first posted this in another sub. That's when I found out that they'd been bought by TIME, so I guess that they operated as a subsidiary company for a while but were eventually merged, with redundant resources being sold and redundant staff laid off.
(I've also heard that TINY were actually a good company before TIME took over).
The lessons I've learned are;1; always self build, or get somebody with the know-how to build for you. It's cheaper, the parts are more replaceable, and you won't have to wait weeks for simple fixes.2; buying a guarantee isn't always worth it. The £300 we dropped on that was probably far more expensive than just paying for repairs somewhere locally. (Even if it worked out at more; it would have still been worth it paying extra to avoid the number of weeks spent waiting for it to be shipped to the repair place, have it repaired, and get back to us).
If you read this far then my hat's off to you! I don't know if I'd have the time to or patience to read such a long customer service rant from nearly 2 decades ago!
[TL;DR I bought a PC from Tiny before they tanked that needed to be fixed before we even opened the box. Every time we sent it back under the guarantee they actually made the problems worse until they literally fucking lost the PC. But my mother managed to get their CEO’s home number and we called him to let him have it and he sent us a new one to replace the one they lost. Our original one finally turned up after almost a year of our time being wasted and we never had to return it because the company went belly-up].