gateway computers

i got screwed by gateway and was wandering if anyone has had the same problem and how they were able to handle/rectify it. i purchased a notebook from gateway, and also paid for a warranty. even though my warranty was still good, gateway (the division that my purchase falls into) got bought out by another company (mpc) which went on to file for chapter 11. so when i called gateway for technical support, i was initially given the run around of my serial # being non existance in their system, and then finally someone decided my warranty got transferred to mpc, so now i have to pay for all the technical support. and for the icing on the cake, gateway recommends i pay their tech support to do it, instead of a third party tech.