watchdodogg MAXIMUM PC TAKES A BITE OUT OF BAD GEAR
out of business several years ago.
Consumer dissatisfaction with Portable,
and its owner Wesley Forrester didn’t happen
overnight. The Better Business Bureau rates the
company as unsatisfactory due to the number of
unanswered complaints. In the last 12 months
alone, Portable racked up some 32 complaints to
the BBB. At web-store rating site Resellerratings.
com, Portable’s overall rating has plummeted
as well. Although Portable’s lifetime rating was
a so-so 5.17 out of 10, in the last six months,
it’s dropped to a dismal 2 out of 10. Numerous
complaints sound rather similar to this one: “I
was quoted to have an LCD screen repaired on a
Micron laptop. After six months of back and forth
dialogue, which resulted in a final admittance
that they could not repair the unit due to their
inability to locate parts, they sent back the laptop.
However, I am still waiting almost three weeks
later for a refund of $175. They shouldn’t be quot-
ing jobs if they don’t have the parts in stock to
make the repair. They should not take six months
to finally admit they cannot fix the problem as
promised. And they definitely should not take
three-plus weeks to issue a refund.”
The Dog tried to contact Wesley Forrester
through email, instant messaging, and by trying
to track him down using several public-informa-Hewlett-Packard is recalling about 135,000 notebook bat-
tery packs that might overheat, melt, and pose a burn or
fire hazard. About 85,000 of those batteries were sold in
the U.S. The company said an internal short can occur
in the battery cells, which would cause the meltdown.
The company has received 16 reports of overheated batteries,
with four them occurring in the U.S. The bad batteries were used
in both HP and Compaq notebooks and were made between
March 2004 and September 2004. The batteries were sold in HP
Pavilion models: dx4000, dx5000, zd8100, ze4100, ze4100/xt1xx,
4200, ze4200, ze4300, ze4400, ze4500, ze4600, ze4700, ze4800, ze5155, ze5200, ze5300, ze5400,
ze5500, ze5600, zv5000, zv5200, zx5000, zx5200; HP Compaq models: nc6000, nc8000, nw8000,
nx5000, nx6130, nx9005, nx9008, nx9010, nx9100, nx9105, 9000, 9005; Compaq Presario mod-
els: 1100, 2100, 2500, R3000, R3200, X1000, X4000, X5000, X6100; and Compaq Evo models:
n1010v, n1050v. To check your battery, remove it from the notebook and look for a bar code.
Just beneath it you should find a series of numbers which constitute a production code. If the
production code begins with GC, IA, L0, or L1, the battery is part of the recall. The company
says consumers should stop using the recalled batteries and immediately contact HP for a free
replacement cell. Visit http://www.hp.com/support/batteryreplacement or call 888-404-7398 between 7
a.m. and 7 p.m. central time, Monday through Friday, for more information.Recall Alert
Batteries used in the
Compaq nw8000, as
well as other models,
are being recalled.tion databases, with no luck. That’s a pretty good
indictor that Portable is down for the count. Still,
there’s a slim chance Portable hasn’t totally
vaporized. When dialed, the company’s number
is in fact busy, not disconnected, so is it possiblePortable is simply suffering a massive connectiv-
ity problem that has disabled its website and
phone system? It’s wishful thinking, but even if
Portable comes back, the Dog recommends that
consumers steer clear. Woof.