First Service Call to Toshiba Goes ...

.. not so well.

After detailing the issues with my Tecra M4, including a stress fracture by the hinge, a dent in the case from a freak drop (it was in the padded backpack at the time), a broken latch, and a small colony of dust bunnies under the screen ... the support rep "Victor" proceeded to ask for my "Ship To" address. Hang on now, I've got On-Site service, so why is anything being shipped? Apparently my on-site service wasn't being shown in the system with my warranty.

Victor puts me on hold several times, and even asks to call me back at one point (which he did very quickly), only to inform me that my on-site service is effectively useless when combined with a SystemGuard extended warranty. Apparently, the on-site technicians aren't equipped to deal with damage like mine. I then asked him why you sell the on-site if you can't use it, and he said that I probably could, but this case in particular would be difficult.

I told him that shipping wasn't an option, I go back to school next week, and I'm not going without the laptop. I asked for the location of an authorized service location, and was given the same spiel about them not being equipped to handle my level of repairs. I'm fairly livid at this point, and basically demanded the phone number for the closest repair center, and the number for the warranty department so I could make sure that on-site service was included in my profile.

So far, I'm starting to see why people can't stand Toshiba service. I never had these problems with Dell, but then again, Dell doesn't offer a Tablet PC.