Should the SPIN513 actually be on sale.....Im fuming!!!!!!

TJHooker

ACER: Disgusting service and inadequate products!! Dont buy ACER   

On 16th September I purchased an ACER Spin5-13 from Box.co.uk

After a failed delivery and a lying delivery driver, I finally received my new laptop a few days later than planned

Then the gruelling set up process started, which took hours and hours of updates and software changes

The following morning, which by this point I'd owned it less than 24hours, I was ready....so I plugged in a USB stick or two to access my files. 

But wait...it doesnt seem to recognise anything over 32GB, no 64GB usb stick, external hard drive, external SSD, nothing! Back onto Box for a resolution.

There wasnt one, they simply said speak to ACER. Hours and hours of online chat support later and still no resolution, they had absolutely no clue as to why it wouldnt work. So they told me to return it to Box for an exchange. 

Back to Box, they wouldnt facilitate that without authorisation from ACER, a DOA. Back to ACER. Ping ponging later and Box finally agree to take the clearly faulty laptop back for a full refund....not an exchange. I had to return it, await confirmation, get the refund and then simply buy another one from them. Absolute waste of time and major hassle!

The new SPIN5 does accept memory sticks and drives over 32GB. Well done ACER, your machine can do basic things now....

However, I started to notice that the Intel i3, 4GB ram, 128GB SSD laptop was so crazily slow and underperforming with even more than 5 chrome tabs open. Nothing else, just on the internet doing a bit of surfing, perhaps a google maps up....basic, simple tasks....it couldnt handle. It freezes, makes a loud noise like its working too hard to try and compensate for the tasks its doing. The memory on the task manager always shows as 90% in use +.......unbelievably poor performance. 

So I contact ACER again and ask about a RAM upgrade, which can usually be done quite straightforwardly by swapping one out and a new one in. Its usually the cheapest way to get more performance. It would cost between £70-£105 to upgrade the memory. I ask for technicaly confirmation from Henk against ref number: 181031-001572 on 31/10 who confirms, in writing that my model can accept the new memory and never mentions any invalidation of warranty, simply says, yeah sure you can upgrade, go ahead. 

Uncertain of his advice, I look for a second opinion from ACER chat support, this time from Ramon on 02/11, against ref: 181102-002723 who again confirms I can have up to 16GB RAM and the existing memory is removable so I commit to buying a new RAM module to upgrade it to sort out some of the performance issues. 

I wanted to let ACER know about all of my issues, so asked the next adviser who I escalated it to, called Henk, whos chat transcript is suspiciously not been automatically forwarded to me on 05/11 to confirm the complaints procedure and contact email address, which he gave as pop.requestuk@acer.com. In an email to their escalations team I asked them to look into my issue and consult the history going back to September to see that im having nothing but a poor experience with their device. By now, two faulty laptops potentially and some advice given which I was unsure about. 

The reply from Luke Milne in their Escalations Team, whilst semi thorough, did not clearly look at the history with my poor experience, didnt refer to the advice given by Ramon in writing and he simply confirmed that there is a single slot and that I can only put up to 8 GB of memory in. 

Luke, whilst now apologetic for the misinformation given, again does not address the issue I originally had, and simply says 'im free to upgrade it with a single 8gb module', and does not state that in doing so will invalidate any warranty. 

The Escalations team member then goes on to say that there are two slots and one is now integrated: 'The 4GB SODIMM is integrated and putting an additional 8GB will total 12GB for the overall system memory. 16GB modules per slot are not supported and as such I cannot guarantee if this would work with the device.'

Yet again, I've received conflicting advice and no resolution. As such, I asked for further escalation on 06/11. 

The call I took on 07/11 from Gemma Tapper, supposed Escalations Deputy Manager, was aggressive, non customer focussed and abrupt. She simply said it sounds like you've bought a machine that isnt suited to your needs. If you call a 4GB, i3 brand new laptop that cant handle 5+ simple tabs in Google Chrome not suitable, yes I guess it is. But that is such a basic requirement its absolutely unbelievable that they should make such assertions. What would they possibly expect this machine to be capable of if it cant even handle a bit of net surfing???

Gemma was shocking at customer service, or lack of. She spoke over me, shrugged off every concern I raised and cast doubt over everything I'd stated to her as they hadnt seen the machine for themselves. Im shocked that this person is in a management position and she absolutely should not be speaking to customers in the way she did. She was dismissive of any of the poor/wrong/terrible service I'd been given and said well if you upgrade it, you invalidate your warranty...something none of her colleagues mentioned. She went on to sigh at least three times during our conversation, at which point I asked her to refrain from having such a lack of customer focus which she just shrugged off and raised her voice about. She kept repeating, there is no legislation for human error. Which I totally understand, but when its repeated and in such a poor manner and then you're presented with such an unprofessional individual such as Gemma, it simply falls on deaf ears. 

If your machine that you sell for a minimum of £350 cannot handle simple, basic tasks, you simply shouldnt sell it! 

Gemma simply stated its probably another hardware failure, my second on the same machine, within two months, and makes no apology about it whatsoever. She simply instructed me to send the machine in for repair. No consideration about the impact of this, the hugely time consuming and quite frankly, absolutely inadequate interactions with the staff on the chat support line and the so called escalations team. They have failed to address my issues, ignored my instructions to properly look into an issue before providing a response and then in multiple cases, given wrong advice. 

The subsequent follow up email from Gemma again totally inadequately addressed my concerns and she simply provided a snail mail address to write to!

So at this stage, I still do not know if my machine will even accept the new memory on its way, as ACER do not know either. But they do categorically state, despite not doing so up to this point, that even if I do remove the back, it will invalidate my warranty. Gemmas last few words in our shocking, non-customer-focussed conversation, were maybe you'l just have to deal with it or buy another machine......WHAT??? She actually said that!!! 

I will be taking this further.....

DONT BUY ACER!!! They are absolutely shocking at customer service. Shocking. 

Commodore_1995#

I'm sorry for your problem. Here is peer to peer community, in which some users like me try to help other users. I think your Acer is presenting the problem of the disk at 100% here:

Can you tell the exact model of your machine? Example v3-571! That way I can check in the service manual what kind of memory it accepts!