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  • Report:  #2267

Complaint Review: Memorex Corporation - Torrance California

Reported By:
- Norman, OK,
Submitted:
Updated:

Memorex Corporation
23610 Telo Ave Torrance, 90505-3180 California, U.S.A.
Phone:
310-891-1680
Web:
N/A
Categories:
Tell us has your experience with this business or person been good? What's this?
My problems all began in January of 2000 when I purchased a Memorex CD-ROM drive from Buy.com (a truly good business). I received my CD-ROM drive having purchased a name-brand drive, because I previously owned a generic drive which only last two years. I expected a name-brand drive to last longer. Boy, was I wrong! My new Memorex drive lasted exactly 3 weeks before failing. It was a shock, but I dealt with it accordingly getting my receipts and packaging prepared to have the drive fixed under warranty. The problems begin.

First, I'm merely a student in college and steer away from extra costs. Therefore, I do not have long distance service, so I began my research for Memorex contacts on the Internet. I thought for sure a company such as Memorex would have a toll-free number for customer service. I prefer being able to explain my problems vocally rather than attempting to describe them in text, but a toll number was all that was available. Fair enough. My final choice was to simply write their tech support an email (a technical support document is able to be filled out on their webpage).

Four emails later and three months of waiting, guess what? NO REPLY! This alone is enough to make the average person hopping mad, but the stress continues. I had to resort to calling technical support's long distance number by using 10-10-220. Fair enough. The phone response was quick and proper. The needed information for returning the drive for inspection was finally obtained. One problem, I'm expected to pay the return shipping, $12.00. Fair enough. I promptly repackaged my CD-ROM drive in the ORIGINAL RETAIL PACKAGE which I had saved and procured from storage.

My CD-ROM drive returns! I'm a happy man... temporarily. I open the package that my drive was sent in, and guess what! Only the drive is in the plain cardboard box with styrofoam peanuts, no retail packaging! Memorex has just managed to take me for 4 months without a CD-ROM drive, $12 for return shipping, and also kept my retail packaging. If you've purchased a 48X CD-ROM drive from Memorex lately, perhaps it came in MY packaging. My mom always told me to put my initials on everything I owned, but I never thought it would go this far.

Well, at least I have a working CD-ROM drive now. Or do I? I quickly cranked that puppy out and back into my computer system (I must mention these quick facts also: Since the removal of the CD-ROM drive when it was not working in my system, I had also purchased a new motherboard and upgraded my operating system from Win98 to Win2000.). As I'm booting up my computer, I take a look at the technical report that was shipped with my drive and to my surprise NOTHING had been done to my drive. "Dear Valued Memorex Customer:TERRY WELCH Thank you for sending your equipment in for service!" "In providing quality service for your unit we have performed a RIGOROUS DIAGNOSTIC TESTING PROCEDURE... your unit works properly," read the reports sent with the drive.

Ok, perhaps I'm stupid, but I would really hope that in my four years studying Computer Engineering and my fourteen years of PC experience I would know how to install and run a CD-ROM drive. We'll give Memorex the benefit of the doubt and see if this puppy fires up when the operating system has finished booting. NOPE! Still spins and spins and spins. Sure, the drive is recognized and installed correctly, but no it does not read any CD's. I assure any skeptics out there that the IDE controller works (my CD-Writer is working just fine off of the same controller), the IDE cable is just fine (CD-Writer is also on this cable), power is fine, the drive is recognized and installed properly according to the device manager, the drive is recognized in explorer, but when you access it, no results except for constant spinning and a final message of "Drive contains no CD." I'm even running it off of another motherboard nonetheless!

Well, wrapping up my story, I resort to using the good ol' 10-10-220 again and calling the technical support line. I, of course, immediately demand someone in charge. As always, they are "not in" or "unavailable." So, I am transfered to their messaging machine in which I am promted to "leave (my) name, number and message and (I) will be contacted immediately." I'm sure you know the conclusion to this. Days and no contact. Yep. I'm guessing I just got the big ol' shaft from Memorex. $70 gone. That's 10% of my monthly salary as a research assistant for the school. I hope the tech support at Memorex had a grand ol' party and bought a keg with my hard-earned money.

Pissed-Off,

Terry Welch



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