Comet wiped my laptop's hard drive - grrrrrr!!!

vicks276

I bought a new laptop from Comet 2 weeks ago for £350. Two weeks later it keeps shutting itself down. Took it back to comet on Saturday, was told they would get through to the manufacturer and they will tell them what to do to fix it, as it is a software problem. would have it back by sunday. ok so far.
They ring me at 5 o clock on the saturday saying they have missed the phone call from the manufacturers, and nobody there on a sunday so will be monday before they speak to them. starting to get little annoyed as I work from home and need my computer.
so monday comes around, I get a phone call from Comet. It's a software fault and they will have to remove it. Will be done by tuesday...
Today I get a phone call. Your laptop is ready "I had to wipe the hard drive to remove the problem". WHAT??? Nobody mentioned this before they did it. Lost all my work information and a load of other stuff I can't get back. As far as I knew they were just removing the program that was causing the problem.
Went to pick it up, said to man that fixed it that it hadn't been mentioned etc etc and he blatantly lied to my face and said he had told me on the phone the day before that he was wiping the hard drive. Just stood there bold as brass and lied to my face, and then stood there in silence with a "what do you want me to do about it?" look on his face.

What can I do? I'm soooooo angry sorry for the long post and if its in the wrong place, i'm just so cross that i've lost everything on my computer. All they had to do was ring me and I could have at least gone down and salvaged some of it.

GRRRRR!!!!!

vicks276

i didn't think taking it in to have some software removed would warrant a complete backup to be honest. and i thought if they were going to do something so drastic they would at least ring me first,

Andybez38

Surely comet should have thought to back things up if they were planning on wiping the harddrive, or at least warning the customer of their intentions.

vicks276

you would think so eh

superscaper

Usually you should be warned but I agree with Al that in the end one should be backing up work anyway. I don't know of any company (except for very exceptional ones) that'd do that anyway. In fact I'd rather they didn't if it was me. I don't want them to have a copy of my stuff. If I were to send off my own PC I'd actually wipe my own stuff off myself (or at least encrypt it all). If you don't backup I don't think you really have any complaint when the basket you're putting all your eggs into breaks. So easily could have been a failed hard drive etc. Retailers/manufacturers when repairing can't be responsible for your personal data.

Backing up isn't something you do when you know something's going to happen to the data. It's just one of those things you do daily in case something happens.

redmike123

Why not sue them for squillions in compensation.

Go on, you know you want to.

maninthestreet

probably not much you can do now, just use it as a learning experience. PCworld sell protable 150GB+ hard drives for about £60 that you can use for backup purposes.

superscaper

maninthestreet wrote: »

probably not much you can do now, just use it as a learning experience. PCworld sell protable 150GB+ hard drives for about £60 that you can use for backup purposes.

And there's this very useful sticky thread explaining backing up. Written by an absolutely brilliant poster
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=597170

unrich

If you kick off like this with just two week's worth of stuff on it imagine how you'll be when the disk dies in a year or two?

chilli_dog

Good stick about backing up, he's got the same user name as you Superscaper!!

superscaper

chilli_dog wrote: »

Good stick about backing up, he's got the same user name as you Superscaper!!

Purely coincidence I assure you. Unless it's a long "lost" relative.