Support Company offering onsite support

[Jodimyatt]

Recently Purchased a sever in February, and spent a bit more than needed to get a higher specification then need at the time of purchase.
On Friday it went wrong and needed a hardware call coming from a support background I understand from time to time things go wrong so rang the help desk (as I have one years free on site support.)

Explain what is wrong and that I could replace the part myself and invoice them for the amount as it is only about £40.00, therefore a waste of an engineers visit.

They tell me no if I touch the server I invalidate the warranty, so think fair enough you throw money away.

Some spotty little kid comes out with no clue spends 4 hours on site and does not fix the problem despite me telling him what it is.
This was Friday, Yesterday someone comes out and again does not fix the problem but orders the part I said all along it was finally this morning the engineer and part turns up and it is working.

Does anyone have any experiences with Support companies similar to this and can I claim compensation for the amount of downtime.

 

[Webstuff]

I'd be very surprised if their various contracts don't already cover this. Unfortunately, most big companies are exactly the same. Generally, when buying a PC or something similar, I ignore warranties (except free ones) and do any work myself, having experienced the "what a cpu?" type of 'specialist' beforehand. I would (personally) contact them in a formal manner in regards to their appaling customer support, and explain that this caused you a loss of earnings. If they aren't willing to do anything, and their contract(s) protect them, simply repeat your complaint (formally) on forums that deal with this subject matter. At least, thats what I would do...

 

[Jodimyatt]

And what a surprise after posting the post this morning it went again.

The warranty was a free onsite repairs one for a year. Though if I fix it my warranty is invalid though its a 2 min job to do right, its principal now, plus something major might go wrong leaving me out of pocket for something small at the moment, its got a seal on the back so if I remove the back the seal is broken and they know its been tampered with.