After all HP AU now at least lists their Phone Number under HP Support where as previously they just listed it under Support in the Melbourne Phone Book with no reference to HP and in the one case where I wanted them the Books that came with the Tape Drive that HP had just absorbed the company didn't have any Phone Numbers for Warranty Claims.

But being a Good Reseller I sent SWMBO to ring the place that I ordered parts from and she was greeted with Where the_FUCK did you get this Phone Number?

I simply refused to believe her which I know is stupid but I found it incomprehensible that any company would react that way so I stopped doing what I was doing and got on the phone to them. I got exactly the same thing when I rang them.

The girl by this time was more than a bit _Pissed OFF and if anything was even shorter that what SWMBO got. I just asked for the State Mangler and when through the same thing with him.

But he insisted that the Phone Number was in the book so when I offered to come over and get him to show me where it was he backed down and gave it to me. I just looked up the Phone Number as at that time they had Yellow Pages on CD and you could reverse look up a Phone Number. The only listing was under Support in the Melbourne Phone Books. I confirmed this by grabbing a Melbourne Phone Book and looked it up there under Technical Services and sure enough there was the Support listing with no reference to what it was about or who it was for. Needless to say I doubt if they got many phone calls as no one else would have known who they where. The same thing was in the White Pages which was even of less use if that is possible.

That Phone number also didn't appear in the Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide or Perth Phone Books. At the time the Hobart Phone Book wasn't available so I couldn't look in that but I doubt that it appeared there.

So what do you have to complain about? Now HP Support is listed in every Phone Book in AU and while the people who answer the phone are as useful as_Tits on a Bull you can at least call HP Support without problems and easily.

Of course they are a complete waste of time like with a HP SCSI Scanner which caused the Partition Information on the HDD to disappear the girl on the other end of the phone insisted that it only took about 5 minutes to reinstall after their software failed so why was I overcharging the customer by charging for the 12 hours it took to recover the Data on the HDD and then reload the system?

I just suggested that maybe her Technical Staff should come out and have a look see to try to fix the issue as I was obviously completely lost and didn't understand how to do anything and I would just stand around to learn from them. In the end the owner of that place had to stop me from climbing down the phone and strangling the woman on the other end of the phone. I already had Airline Tickets for the trip to Melbourne so I could kill her.

After the incident with the Connor Tape Drive I stopped selling any HP Product and have never dealt with them again. I find it easier that way and no real problems with Warranty Work now arises. Granted I have to repair things that break under warranty and I can not give my customer a new product when the old one breaks a week before the warranty expires which at first they are not overly happy about but when I point out that when the replacement unit breaks and they are no longer in warranty what do they think happens they just shake their heads and say Good Point.

Col