You probably aren't familiar with how "guarantees" work here in South America, ugh.<p>See companies like Samsung and Toshiba have "certified" stores that "take guarantees" but they are not tied by their parent company, they are privately owned stores that just negotiated with the parent company to use their "sticker".<p>I bought a Phillips shaver and under warranty, the Phillips station wanted me to pay 70% of the cost of a new one, despite being a DoA device.<p>So while the sticker works as it should in the US and Europe, South America has a god damn wild west scenario. Anything goes, and if you don't like it, buy something else. Yep.<p>(Source: I live in Bolivia)
Doesn't look like it's just a misprinted warranty card to me:<p><a href="http://support.toshiba.com/warranty" rel="nofollow">http://support.toshiba.com/warranty</a>
<a href="http://cdgenp01.csd.toshiba.com/content/support/pdf_files/stdwar/gma501085010_web.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://cdgenp01.csd.toshiba.com/content/support/pdf_files/st...</a>
<a href="http://cdgenp01.csd.toshiba.com/content/support/pdf_files/stdwar/gma501086010_web.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://cdgenp01.csd.toshiba.com/content/support/pdf_files/st...</a>
<a href="http://cdgenp01.csd.toshiba.com/content/support/pdf_files/stdwar/gma501089010_web.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://cdgenp01.csd.toshiba.com/content/support/pdf_files/st...</a>
<a href="http://cdgenp01.csd.toshiba.com/content/support/pdf_files/stdwar/gma501089010_web.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://cdgenp01.csd.toshiba.com/content/support/pdf_files/st...</a>
<a href="http://cdgenp01.csd.toshiba.com/content/support/pdf_files/stdwar/gma501082010_web.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://cdgenp01.csd.toshiba.com/content/support/pdf_files/st...</a><p>That'd be a mistake across warranty docs between 1 and 5 years. Also some other products:<p><a href="http://cdgenp01.csd.toshiba.com/content/support/pdf_files/stdwar/gma501168010_web.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://cdgenp01.csd.toshiba.com/content/support/pdf_files/st...</a>
<a href="http://cdgenp01.csd.toshiba.com/content/support/pdf_files/stdwar/gmaa00362010_web.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://cdgenp01.csd.toshiba.com/content/support/pdf_files/st...</a>
<a href="http://cdgenp01.csd.toshiba.com/content/support/pdf_files/stdwar/gmar00008010_web.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://cdgenp01.csd.toshiba.com/content/support/pdf_files/st...</a><p>Seems a little odd though that support would go with an excuse like that. Is there more to the story?
Manuel Diaz is the head of Toshiba Sales & Marketing for Latin America: <a href="https://plus.google.com/105717227635873644097/about" rel="nofollow">https://plus.google.com/105717227635873644097/about</a> <a href="http://www.linkedin.com/pub/manuel-diaz/4/862/644" rel="nofollow">http://www.linkedin.com/pub/manuel-diaz/4/862/644</a><p>Make a nice <i>polite</i> blog post with all of your documentation (including your sales receipt) and then send the link to him.
I purchased Toshiba laptop in 2002. Within 3 months the laptop's graphics card failed. Toshiba does not repair their own laptops, rather they send it out to some 3rd party repair center. The repair center took 3 weeks to repairer the laptop. When I came back to pick it up, the laptop started but the screen turned off as soon as I picked it up from the counter. I left it with the relier center. 2 weeks later they called again. This time it worked for a day before dying again. 3rd time they took another 3 weeks to repair. After that it worked for a month and died. I gave up and got a new laptop. Since then I never purchase Toshiba. I don't care how good or bad their products are, their customer service is one of the worst.
I'll add another Toshiba support horror-story. It's why I haven't even looked at Toshiba products in 2-3 years:<p>My work laptop (supplied by employer) was a Toshiba and had a 1-year warranty. After about 10-11 months of using it, the DVD drive stopped working. Toshiba's warranty support was typical ship-to-depot, so IT pulled the drive and sent the laptop off for repairs. I wouldn't ordinarily care about a laptop our for repair, but IT supplied me with a temporary machine that was at least a generation back (ie: slow and heavy).<p>IT got a message that except that my machine had been received at the depot but heard nothing else for weeks and weeks after. By the time I'd bugged a tech at my company enough to contact them the warranty had lapsed ... and Toshiba refused to service the machine.<p>Toshiba refused to service it for several more weeks. I finally took over contacting support from the IT tech, and got the machine serviced after a half-dozen (long hold-time) calls. But for the amount of time the IT dept & me spent getting an optical drive fixed our company could have paid for two new machines.
I've had good luck with Dells from that point of view. I've bought 3 in the US, and two, at some point in their lifetimes, have needed some love from a technician (bad HD, and a cosmetic problem with a very new laptop that I wanted fixed because I spent quite a bit on it). Despite being very much not in the US anymore, they promptly dispatched people on site (in Innsbruck, Austria, and Padua, Italy) to fix the problems with no questions.<p>(Edit: by the way, most recent one was one of these - nice dev machine if you like Linux! <a href="http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/xps-13-linux/pd" rel="nofollow">http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/xps-13-linux/pd</a> )
After a serial number lookup, it appears that this Toshiba laptop's warranty expired in Feb. of 2013.<p>This is using the s/n in the image: <a href="http://bandyt.site44.com/toshiba/garantia2.jpg" rel="nofollow">http://bandyt.site44.com/toshiba/garantia2.jpg</a><p>Results of the s/n search:
(from site: <a href="http://support.toshiba.com/warranty" rel="nofollow">http://support.toshiba.com/warranty</a>)<p>Model Name: SATELLITE C850D
Product Category: Portable
Model-Part Number: PSCBQU-00200F
Serial Number: YC307409Q
Registration Number: 827633
Purchase Date: Nov 26, 2012
Country Purchased: United States
Complimentary Phone Support Through: Feb 24, 2013
Warranty: Warranty expired! +++
Warranty Expiration Date: Nov 26, 2013
Primary Service Option: Out of Warranty Service ++
<a href="http://toshibarepairservices.com" rel="nofollow">http://toshibarepairservices.com</a>
I'm probably with you, but there's not a lot of information here. Where did you buy it? Could it have been from a dealer that wasn't authorized to issue this warranty? If they couldn't agree to it on Toshiba's behalf the contract would be null, right? And what is the problem with the laptop - though that is of course a separate question from that of honoring the warranty.
Toshiba has been aggressive at limiting DIY repairs as well. They sent Tim Hicks a takedown notice forcing him to remove service manuals from his site: <a href="http://www.wired.com/opinion/2012/11/cease-and-desist-manuals-planned-obsolescence/" rel="nofollow">http://www.wired.com/opinion/2012/11/cease-and-desist-manual...</a>
I'm sorry to hear that you are having this problem. After buying/selling 10,000+ used laptops (every brand imaginable) over many years, I personally purchase and recommend only Toshiba laptops. Take it for what it's worth.
After buying a Toshiba Satellite P100-J01 years ago, and having to choose between either sound or ACPI when running GNU/Linux (until a BIOS update came out, and even then I had to patch the DSDT), I'll never buy Toshiba again.<p><a href="https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux-source-2.6.22/+bug/136469" rel="nofollow">https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux-source-2.6.2...</a>
Okay, I must say the situation depends.<p>I bought a Toshiba laptop previously and accidentally lots of water got leaked into it. (was my mistake)<p>The system didn't reboot at all. They entirely replaced my RAM and other hardware components free of cost. This happened in India. So I guess the situation varies.
Yet another bad-after-sale-support story. Why is this on HN? If you go stand at <i>any</i> laptop brand service centre, you'll hear 50 such stories everyday.
If you purchased this with a credit card, you may be able to use the card's warranty. Many credit cards come with an extended warranty service and dispute resolution/fraud protection as a customer incentive (in addition to their points/frequent flier miles/whatever). Even if this is not covered under your card's extended warranty, talking with your credit card company may allow you get the charges reversed.
Please don't tell me what to do. Every one of Toshiba's major competitors do things that are wrong and fail to own up to them.<p>It would take a lot more than this to get me to avoid a company as large as Toshiba.
This is perhaps the best and most tech-influential spot you can gain to advertise an issue you're having with a company/product.<p>However, I have a sneaking suspicion that nobody at Toshiba visits HN.
Sorry you have to face this annoyance!<p>I had a similar problem with top-end ultrabook from ASUS (13.3" FHD i7 Zenbook Prime with discrete graphics) in 2012.<p>The ultrabook stopped after 2.5 months (keyboard problem), then after RMA got update that it was a customer induced damage (definitely not, it was an issue many people complained about) requiring replacement of both keyboard and motherboard almost for the price of a new ultrabook. I was really upset and after 6 months of having it in a drawer I sent the ultrabook for an analysis to an independent lab - it turned out only the keyboard module was damaged, motherboard was OK. I ordered a keyboard replacement from asusparts (~$100) and it works till today. Never heard any sorry from ASUS for trying to extract money from me for a "damaged" motherboard.<p>Having said that, I scratched ASUS off my list for the rest of my life. This happened in Germany. Paradoxically I was just thinking about buying Toshiba Qosmio X70-136 as my DTR but after reading this I will go with some Clevo-based manufacturer like. Thanks!
As a Canadian I deplore this apparent policy. I'm not sure why Toshiba has introduced it, but it wouldn't surprise me if there is difficulty warding off warranty fraud under certain legal systems. Like, those legal systems your lawyers don't know. (You fired the international lawyers as a corner-cutting move, remember?)
Hey man. I can't figure out how to direct message you. I contacted Toshiba via twitter and asked for a comment. They said they would investigate. You may want to contact them directly.<p>Support says they've passed the matter to "customer service mgmt. Expecting a response on Monday."<p>These dudes: @ToshibaUSAhelp
When you buy online you need to investigate what happens before you need service. A consumer might not need to go to the effort but for a programmer a good laptop is a tool.<p>Years ago I bought Dell's and found paying extra for their onsite service was a wise investment. Only needed it for a single machine but they literally came to our office with parts and repaired it. Until I needed it a second time and found they had changed policies and found onsite was in name only.<p>So when I started buying Toshiba Qosmio's I actually investigated my service options in Michigan. It has paid dividends because whenever I've had a problem I can get on the phone with the company's owner, they turn it around faster than shipping it to Toshiba's depot and keep me informed every step of the way.
Oh, yes, Toshiba's support sucks, especially if you live outside US and EU. My Qosmio laptop was constantly overheating in summers, power adapter got broken twice (and on one of those occasions literally started burning, smoking and all melted down), volume control got broken after about 6 months and started randomly changing the sound volume to max (very scary thing since I often leave my laptop playing music when I go to sleep)... and each time I would have to wait for 2-3 weeks for them to "repair" it. And it wasn't cheap at all, I could easily get Apple MBP for that money (which I eventually did)
I've had bad experiences with Toshiba refusing to honor warranties before. After hours on the phone it turned out that the reason they wouldn't help me is because they had recorded my date of birth as the date of purchase and vice versa. Apparently no one there thought it strange that the laptop had been out of warranty for more than two decades... The one manager that did understand the absurdity of the situation still insisted that no one at his call center had the authority to make the obvious correction. Like the OP, I will never buy another Toshiba product, and I tell all my friends the same.
I like the Toshiba laptop I got.. but the Toshiba Thrive tablet which came out at the same time as Xoom has not received any updates! Xoom is on 4.4, Thrive has been abandoned.
So, I don't know about the north/south american systems, but in the UK when a manufacturer or a store fails to meet their obligations you sue them in small claims court. I've never heard of a company not settling out of court, they don't want a precedent set against them and they don't want to fly their lawyers out to talk about a laptop return for a day.
My own Toshiba experience with Australian support is that they wouldn't even talk to you unless you paid them $55. I was after a service manual, not troubleshooting, but I couldn't even get to ask what I wanted unless I paid. There were a couple of other times I needed to ask for trivial things to service clients' laptops, but at $55 per question, sod them.
I know the feeling! Living in Puerto Rico is a double edge scenario. I might be fully treated as an US customer with all the benefits or they just don't consider us a US Territory. Sometimes we are another country somewhere in the Caribbean, sometimes we get confused with Latin America and then the options for services just becomes close to none.
I'm sorry this happened to you, buddy. That really sucks. Us United States consumers should be more concerned with the shortcuts and backhanded ways companies deal with customers outside of the States. A company that treats customers badly just because it CAN instead of doing what it SHOULD doesn't deserve our business.
This seems like it would be a "truth in advertising" violation. From your pictures, normal recourse looks like binding arbitration but maybe the truth in advertising angle can make it a bigger deal. Especially since someone else pointed out that they have included Latin America in their warranty list for years.
Called customer service for about 2 hours, they said that they made a mistake in printing the warranty card and that I would have to pay to repair the laptop.<p>---------------------<p>Ugg. Too bad for them but I wonder what the small claims court would have to say about it. Contract is what's advertised, not what you secretly thought.<p>...<p>Assuming there is an equivalent there, of course.
Toshiba makes crap. Most Windows-based laptops are. I know it sounds ridiculous, but it still makes more sense to buy a Mac laptop and run Windows on it. Every time a friend or family member asks me what Windows-based laptop to buy, I have to tell them to buy a Mac because of shitty situations like this one.
2 Thoughts:<p>1. Bill Clinton might say - "Well, it depends on your definition of Latin America."<p>2. You should mail the CEO of Toshiba. In fact, you should give us the contact info for the CEO of Toshiba so we can mail him on your behalf.
They are all the same, trust me, I am facing same on my HP laptop, they say that they are not responsible for poor battery backup after 2 months of purchase because I use my laptop excessively!!
Latin America is a conceptual region, not a concrete set of countries. They can probably get away with not honoring the warranty in Guatemala because of this ambiguous terminology.
I've heard plenty of bad things about Toshiba customer support last time I was looking for a laptop. It's not too hard to find complaints about them.
try calling Toshiba laptop support for North America and press/ask for a representative in Spanish, they do laptop support for (some?) Latin American countries out of Mississauga, Ontario
I haven't since this event:<p>> In 1987, Tocibai Machine, a subsidiary of Toshiba, was accused of illegally selling CNC milling machines used to produce very quiet submarine propellers to the Soviet Union in violation of the CoCom agreement, an international embargo on certain countries to COMECON countries. The Toshiba-Kongsberg scandal involved a subsidiary of Toshiba and the Norwegian company Kongsberg Vaapenfabrikk. The incident strained relations between the United States and Japan, and resulted in the arrest and prosecution of two senior executives, as well as the imposition of sanctions on the company by both countries.[6] Senator John Heinz of Pennsylvania said "What Toshiba and Kongsberg did was ransom the security of the United States for $517 million."<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toshiba#1939_to_2000" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toshiba#1939_to_2000</a>
I don't know why you are posting this on HN. Anyway you have several options:<p>1. Go to the vendor you bought it through<p>2. Go to your credit card company<p>3. Look up the consumer protection laws of your country and use them