How hard can it be for a computer company to cancel an order that isn't going to be shipping for several weeks? Apparently it's a little too hard for HP.
"I have a customer that ordered a laptop from HPshopping.com and failed to notice that it was out of stock," a reader first wrote me several weeks ago. "She realized ten minutes later when she got the confirmation e-mail that it would not ship for several weeks and tried to cancel the order. But HP states that you cannot cancel an order once it has been placed. That is the ridiculous part. I now have a customer that has a new employee that cannot do anything productive until this charge is off the card so I can purchase a laptop off the shelf."
The reader, who functions as the customer's IT person, tried calling HPshopping.com over the next several days to get the order canceled. A succession of reps refused to let him speak to a supervisor and told him the only thing his customer could do was to refuse the shipment when it arrived. "I find this absolutely mind boggling that I have to wait weeks to NOT get a computer," he wrote. "I have been told that they have it posted on their web site that orders cannot be canceled when placed but I never seen it. I took another quick look but it was in no obvious place."
The reader next tried contacting HP corporate, but his contact there said she was unsuccessful in persuading HPshopping.com to cancel the order. A few days later he received a rather bizarre e-mail from an HPshopping.com informing him first that his customer's laptop "is being built to your specifications and will then undergo rigorous testing," then giving him detailed instructions on how to refuse the shipment when it arrived in about a week.
The laptop finally arrived, a little earlier than expected but after he'd purchased another laptop for his customer. But HP still had one more surprise in store. "It is time for the final installment of my HP ordeal," the reader wrote. "The laptop came in this week and was refused per HP's instructions. I called to inform them that the order was refused, as instructed, to get a return credit. I found out that they are charging us $59.99 for shipping and that there is nothing that we can do about it. I have informed them that I will never order anything through them again which is sad as I have been purchasing a lot of HP/Compaq equipment lately. I cannot believe that they are charging shipping on an order that they would not allow us to cancel. Ludicrous."
12:24:34 AM 
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