RE: Service and Support - Part II

["Joe Pluta" <joepluta@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> From: Steve Richter
>
> return the system with the broken drive.

Rather than follow your advice, Steve, what I did was call IBM and explain
the situation.  It took a LOT of calls, and a couple of emails, but things
are working out (slowly).

Short version: I have to pay maintenance for the time my machine was not
under warranty.  This is perfectly acceptable to me, and in fact I'm going
to request a maintenance agreement whenever I start a new lease, scheduled
to start the day I go off warranty.  That way I'll never be off maintenance.

Long version:

 1. Called ICC
 2. On hold about a minute
 3. Got a live person, gave her all my information
 4. Was told I was out of area
 5. Was given the phone number for my area
 6. Was transferred
 7. Got voicemail
 8. Used #0 to get out of voicemail
 9. On hold a couple of minutes
10. Got a live person, gave him all my information
11. Waited about five minutes on hold
12. Got transferred to a new live person
13. New person told me I needed to transfer
14. Transferred me to Maintenance Agreement Department
15. On hold for about three minutes
16. Got a live person, gave her all my information
17. Finally, got a reference number
18. A Maintenance CSR "will contact me"

During this time, I was emailing Anne and Marijeanne.  Marijeanne called me
back and told me what my basic options were, which allowed me to properly
explain myself to the Maintenance Agreement Department.  I think we're all
clear on what's going to happen.  The basic idea is that I will get a
maintenance policy retroactive to the time I went off warranty (about 30
days ago).  Once we agreed on that, I got a reference number.  I put the
reference number on the CE ticket.  Hopefully that will help during the
billing process.  And although I had to recite my information three
different times, it wasn't so bad.  Next, we'll see how the billing side of
it goes.

Joe