HomeSearchMerchandiseAboutMichael HorowitzMy Computerworld Blog

PC Connection

PC Connection is a computer retailer mainly via mail order catalogs

December 15, 1999. They sent me a letter to sell me something. I wanted to buy it, but couldn't.

At the end  of December, 1998, I purchased a laptop computer from PC Connection. In the middle of December, 1999 they sent me a letter to buy an extended warranty on the machine. The laptop (an IBM ThinkPad 560) came with a one year warranty. However, at the time they mailed the letter, it was already too late to buy an extended warranty. PC Connection has two different vendors that offer to extend a warranty (at least for my machine) and both of them require you to sign up 30 days before the end of the warranty. In my case, this would have been Thanksgiving, 1999, which was two weeks before PC Connection mailed the letter.

I e-mailed customer service about this more than once. No reply. Eventually I called them on the phone, a few times. There was confusion about the service contracts they offered and their terms and requirements. Eventually, they admitted their mistake and offered to rectify it by selling me a service contract from a vendor called Service Net. I had to pay more for the contract because the original warranty had already expired. Nonetheless, in the middle of February 2000, I signed up for a two year service contract. 

 August 17, 2000.  The computer dies

The computer died today and I called ServiceNet about fixing it. PC Connection comes into play again because they made a mistake in issuing the service contract. They issued it with February 2000 being the purchase date of the computer rather than the purchase date of the service contract. Service Net therefore thought the computer was still under the original IBM warranty. Service Net called PC Connection to straighten it out. I called PC Connection to straighten it out. This did not happen quickly (as of this writing it did not happen at all). Eventually someone at ServiceNet trusted me and they started to process the claim. 

PC Connection also issued the service contract with two computers on it. I bought it for only one computer. The other computer listed on the contract is one that I have never seen in my life, let alone own or purchase.