The Saga Continues (Was: HP Tech Support Story)

A subsequent email exchanged produced the following result from another
"support" person:

--------------
Hello Nick,
Thank you for contacting HP Total Care. I am Karl from printer email support
team.
I understand from your email that you would like to know the difference
between the HP Photosmart B209a, B209b & B209c All-in-One printer.

I greatly appreciate that you have forwarded your concerns and given me a
chance to assist you with this issue. I will provide you the appropriate
information.

Nick, I would like to inform you that there is no much more difference among
the B209a, B209b, B209c All-in-One printers. These are the three skews or
versions of the HP Photosmart B209 All-in-One printer model.

If you need any further assistance, please feel free to contact us back.. We
will be glad to assist you.

Have a Great Day.
------------------

So, after deciphering this person's message, I decided to hook up the
printer, install the software, and Live Happily Ever After® ( "®" notation
blatantly adapted from Tom Stiller's "(tm)" notation.)

However, 'twas not to be: After setting up the machine and installing the
software, I found that I hadn't much of clue how to operate it. The "manual"
wasn't/isn't much of a manual, and its instructions petered out very
rapidly. Nevertheless, though I succeeded in getting it to print as well as
copy, I could not for the life of me get it to scan: It simply can't seem to
"locate" any "scanning device." And when I attempted to do scan directly
from the machine (instead of via my Mac), it immediately threw up a display
message on the machine's display panel indicting that there was an error;
that I should attempt to scan from my computer; and to read the manual for
further information (words to that effect).

I thought perhaps there might be a conflict with the old HP software (from
my previous HP printer, which this one replaced), so I trashed all of those
files. No help. I finally decided to call tech Support.

Apparently there is only one call center that is populated with techs who
know Macs, and that's in Canada. I ended up chatting with a very
knowledgeable tech who (based on my brief description of the problem) was
confident it was a minor problem that could be resolved quickly. But after
walking through it all with me with no success, she decided I should
uninstall all vestiges of any printer files installed by the current as well
as previous installer. After doing so, she had me repair permissions, and
reinstall the current software. Unfortunately, it simply didn't work.

After three hours on the phone, she indicated she was out of ideas, and
would need to see if she could research it further. The biggest challenge,
as she saw it, was that since the machine is so new, she (as well as most of
the other techs there) haven't had much experience with it.

That was 2 days ago. She was supposed to call me yesterday, but didn't. When
I attempted to call the call center, I got a recorded announcement
indicating that "due to technical difficulties beyond our control," one of
their call centers was knocked offline, and all other call centers were
overloaded. It told me I could wait in a long queue, call back later, or
"visit us on the web." It then hung up on me.

<sigh>




In article C6D44398.46850%nicknaym@[remove_this].gmail.com, Nick Naym at
nicknaym@[remove_this].gmail.com wrote on 9/14/09 7:01 PM:

I picked up an HP Photosmart Plus printer this weekend (haven't even opened
the box). It's a warranty replacement for the HP Photosmart C4280, which was
a no-cost option when I purchased my iMac last year.

When I went to the site to get some more info about this new product, I was
asked to select from among the following three models:

? HP Photosmart Plus All-in-One Printer - B209a
? HP Photosmart Plus All-in-One Printer - B209b
? HP Photosmart Plus All-in-One Printer - B209c

I was unaware there were three different models, and there was no obvious
indication of a model number on the box (nor, for that matter, in the
newspaper and online advertisements). So, after mousing around the site in
an unsuccessful attempt to find out more, I called HP's toll-free
customer-support number. After an hour on the phone, being bounced from one
support person to another (none of whom could answer the "How do these
models differ?" question), I was finally disconnected. At this point, my
curiosity about the technical differences (if there are any) was supplanted
by irritation.

Doggedly determined ;) , I then sent a message to the online tech-support
folks via the HP site, relating my unsuccessful attempts (on the site and on
the phone) to discover how the models differ, and specifically requesting
"Can you please explain to me what distinguishes the three models from each
other?"

Today, I received the following email "explanation":

-----------
Hello Nick,

Thank you for contacting HP Total Care.

My name is [name deleted to protect his/her job security] from the email
technical support department and this reply is in regard to your query
related to the HP Photosmart Plus All-in-One Printer.

I understand from your e-mail that you would like to know the difference
between HP Photosmart Plus All-in-One Printer ­ B209a, B209b and B209c.

Nick, I would like to inform you that each model is capable of its own
features, like one will be wireless capable, one will have duplexer, it
depends on the product.

You can get complete information on each series at the time of purchase as
it depends on the accessories.

If you need further assistance, please reply to this message and we will be
happy to assist you further.

Thank you for being a valuable customer.
-----------

--
iMac (24", 2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 2GB RAM, 320 GB HDD) ? OS X (10.5.7)

.

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