Compaq Ethics

Thursday, June 03, 1999

Dear Mr. Ciceri,

I’m a busy person, and I’m sure you’re very busy-- so I will be very brief.

About two months ago, we were shopping for a laptop computer. I had not purchased a Compaq in some time, because I had been "burned" about seven or eight years ago by Compaq’s proprietary memory modules-- we had to pay three times as much as other computer owners did for a simple memory upgrade. However, I thought it was time to give Compaq an opportunity to win more of our business. We bought three Compaq Armadas, and then I bought a Presario Notebook, model 1920, for myself—because I needed a large hard drive and lots of power.

I discovered, within a couple of weeks, that Compaq now installs "Winmodems" on its notebooks. I was shocked and extremely disappointed. I called your staff and asked to exchange this model for a Compaq that had a real modem. No dice—you don’t make any models with a real modem anymore. Fine, I will take a refund—it’s been less than 30 days. Then I’ll get a Sony or some other model that does have a real modem. Surely you don’t want a dissatisfied customer.

I won’t bore you with the details. I was on the phone for hours arguing with your staff. The bottom line was quite clear. Once Compaq has your money--- they will never, ever give it back, no matter how dissatisfied you, the customer, may be..

I was a little stunned. Usually large companies that wish to do well over the long term realize that customer satisfaction is far more important than the profit margin on the sale of a single item. We are not a small company. I play an important—probably decisive – role in almost all computer purchases for this agency. You don’t even want to give me the benefit of the doubt?

Your staff argued vehemently with me that winmodems are great. I won’t repeat the discussion—ask any reputable, independent computer expert what he thinks of "winmodems". They are the "mopeds" of the computer world. They only function with Windows. They create a larger profit margin for the modem vendors because, even though they cost less to the consumer, they also cost way less to manufacture.   And they can sell you an "upgrade" without providing any new product at all.   Just send the user a "patch" that shoves more of the work onto the CPU.   And Winmodems increase Microsoft’s proprietary stranglehold on the desktop. 

That's not my only complaint about your notebook.   I discovered that my 6.5 GIG hard drive is only a 5.0 Gig hard drive. Again, semantics aside, the Presario has stolen 1.6 GIG of MY disk space for something called "System Save". I am warned that if I delete this, I will be in danger of losing data or worse.

Look, you had a reasonable customer who didn’t expect the world—only a decent, well-made notebook computer, with 6.5 GIG hard drive space, and a modem. Because this notebook has a "winmodem", I cannot use it to run Linux, my favourite OS. Nothing in your advertising or webpages indicates that you can’t run Linux on the Presario 1920.  And, well, you can run it, if you don't need a modem.   As if...

Anyway, the bottom line is this: Compaq had (has) a choice.  Compaq could have said: we have an unhappy customer.  We did fudge a bit about the modem.  Maybe he's got a point.  Maybe not.  But let's make sure we don't cost ourselves future sales: give him his money back. 

Or...  like any carnival huckster, Compaq can keep my money in their tight little fists and refuse to ever give it back, knowing full well that it would cost me more in legal fees to fight them than it would to swallow that unpleasant taste in my mouth and take my cruddy little notebook computer home and let it sit in a little corner somewhere.  

Sir, you refused to make good on your promises. You made me feel ripped off. Your salesmen, beyond all comprehension, said, yes, we will write off any possible future sales to Christian Horizons for years and years and years, just so we can desperately hang on to the profit margin from a single laptop computer. I was amazed. If I had any money invested in Compaq stock and if I thought this was representative of how Compaq deals with its customers, I would sell my stock immediately.

Unless Compaq has a change of policy, you might as well send your brochures elsewhere.

Bill Van Dyk