The Trials and Tribulations of my HP Pavilion dv6000

This morning, I woke up, rolled over, grabbed my computer and opened it as usual. Today, however, I soon realized it was time for another of my periodic go-arounds with HP Customer Support. I got the computer in late summer 2006. It made it until the following May which is when, if I remember correctly, the wireless card failed. Turns out it was recalled, so that was an easy enough fix, once the person on the other end of the phone finally discovered that particular bit of information about an hour after we began our conversation. In July, the battery stopped holding a charge for more than 15 minutes at a time. That particular service interaction took literally hours on the phone, over several days. It began via simple email, before I realized the battery had actually failed. The following email sent to them approximately two weeks after the initial email should sum things up:

Hello,
I am writing because of excessive problems with this service order. After the confusion that resulted in my not receiving the call as stated in the emails here attached, there were further problems. First, I never received a confirmation email that my replacement product was being sent. On Wednesday 30 July, a package arrived at my house addressed to Vickki Schuler. As this is clearly not me, I did not accept the package. On Saturday, I became concerned that I had heard nothing from HP regarding my order status, so I went online and checked my order. Imagine my surprise when not only did I find that the order was in fact in the name of Vickki Schuler whoever she may be, but that FedEx tracking claimed the box had been successfully delivered on Thursday 31 July. I have no idea if it was ultimately delivered to the wrong address or not. All I can say is that I never received a box from HP containing my replacement battery. After this discovery, I called HP Customer Service, with whom I sat on the phone for nearly two hours. I explained my problem no fewer than four times, and was transferred repeatedly. At one point, one woman gave me the number of the HP Home and Home Office center and told me to disconnect and call them. Thought I was somewhat dubious, I did, only to have the representative there confirm that there was nothing that particular department could do to help me with my customer service problem. I was transferred back to customer service, where I was transferred around a few more times. Ultimately, I spoke to a very helpful man who took my information and said he had made notes on my order. He said that someone would be looking into my problem and that I would receive an email from someone regarding my problem. It has been five days and I have yet to hear a single thing. I would appreciate knowing what exactly is going on to remedy this for me. I am still waiting for a replacement for my faulty product that is under warranty, and because of that, I cannot possibly send the faulty product back to you. I do not want to find myself expected to pay for a product that never arrived because someone put the wrong name (and the wrong email address and phone number) on my order. Thank you for your help in this matter, I look forward to hearing from you.

Just under a month after that process began, I had a lovely new battery. In December, my computer stopped being able to locate wireless networks. I chatted online with a helpful person who said the computer needed to be sent for repairs, and that he was having a box sent to me for that purpose, at the address I had just given him. Several days later, I contacted them to see where my box was, only to discover that they were "waiting for me to get back to them with contact information." Long story short, my computer came back with a reformatted hard drive. Now, my computer can't find wireless networks again, and in fact doesn't believe it has a wireless card installed. Poor computer. You help me understand what it must be like to know someone with Alzheimer's. My online chat today was fairly helpful, although I haven't had a chance to do the fixes yet. I was told twice in no uncertain terms that I really should have initiated the chat from another machine so "we" could perform the fixes live. Twice, despite having apologized for only having one computer. This lovely helpful individual also instructed me to 1. take screw driver, 2. open computer, 3. "remove and replace wireless card." But on the bright side she was "sure that these steps would solve the problem," and graciously told me that "Even though if you still face the issue after performing the steps please get back to us. We are here to help you all the time." Wish me luck.