Intermittent working is certainly not acceptable nor would I be letting the matter rest and I am sure you aren’t either.
As to the matter of it being a prize, you did provide something of worth for it, you provided your intellectual property (your 25 word entry) as a incentive to JB to give you the prize. I don’t see this as anything different from any other game of chance prize.
But as I noted above this is not an isolated charging issue with the Surfaces and even if JB try to avoid responsibility for a remedy you certainly have very strong grounds for seeking a remedy from Microsoft, which given the response from JB so far may be the faster route. Even if resolved by MS you should still make a complaint about JB to your fair trading office and the ACCC.
Finally some progress, and no thanks to JB HiFi who decided to ignore my requests for help after the one reply from them askīng me if I’d like them to contact their nearest store for me to try and resolve the issue of the faulty power unit, if that’s what the problem was to start with.
Microsoft Support eventually decided that I was entitled to a replacement Surface PC under warranty. They then sent me an email to say that I would soon receive a shipping label to print so I could drop the thing off at my nearest Quantum Solutions courier office, of which there is only one in the entire country and of course it isn’t in Tasmania. Quantum Solutions then sent me a prepaid Australia Post label and īnstructed me to take it to the local post office instead.
To confuse matters, the original email from Microsoft support said to not include accessories such as power supplies unless specifically instructed. Seeing as the problem involved the power supply and they said they were going to send me a new surface, I assumed that I’d need to include the possibly faulty power supply and they’d just send me out a new Surface PC still in its box which you would expect would have another power supply in it as well.
To confuse matters further, the day before the faulty unit had been successfully delivered back to Microsoft, their online progress form said that they had shipped me a replacement and that it had already been delivered to my home address, which hadn’t happened at all.
Today I had a lengthy online chat with Microsoft Customer Support who said I shouldn’t have sent back the power supply, even though that was the main suspected faulty component. Microsoft’s plan was to just swap the computer and leave me with a still potentially faulty component. So he’s made sure that I’ll be getting a new power supply as well, but it will take an extra 10 days longer to get back to me than the actual computer component will, which I’m told is now in the hands of Fastway Couriers.
I’ll update the post here when next something happens.
Meanwhile, a little over 12 months after winnīng the Surface Book from JB HiFi’s Facebook page, I’ve managed to win yet another prize from JB HiFi’s Facebook page for leaving another 25 word or less comment on their post. This time it’s a Cozmo AI Interactive robot. Hopefully it will last a little longer than the Surface Book prize did and I won’t need to muck about trying to get that repaired under warranty too without actually purchasing the thing to star with.
So I got the replacement laptop. A nice shiny new Surface Book with Performance Base, and my original faulty power supply brick, and surprise, it’s still faulty. Why Microsoft would think that the best solution for a faulty power supply problem is to replace the computer and not the faulty power supply along with it, I have no idea. I’ll have to contact them again on Monday to make sure they’re still going to send me a replacement power brick for the thing. Until then, the laptop will remain in its box. Once they’ve finally given me a replacement power supply I’ll probably sell the lot seeing as I only use it for internet access. I’d do better with a regular laptop that doesn’t have such a high resolution screen that it’s near impossible to read anything with my rapidly declining eyesight, even after you’ve adjusted the settings to make text larger. It would be a good portable drawing tablet but I’d much rather use my Cintiq Companion II for doing arty stuffs. A brand new Surface Book with Performance Base costs around $2400, so a brand new, unused, warranty replacement one should sell for around $1500 which should then get me a decent normal laptop for browsing the net with and a bit of change to put in the bank. More updates as they happen!
Thanks for the updates @NubglummerySnr. With most businesses I’ve encountered, the systems for repair and replacement tend not be as slick as the rest of the sales/supply operation - seems like Microsoft is no exception based on your power cable story. At least you have the replacement PC for now
Finally, I have the replacement power cable. I had to have a whinge on Microsoft’s official Facebook page to get it though. Once they approved my post for public viewing they then asked me to give them my details in a private message so they could escalate it. I had a phone call from the escalations team the next day and they sent a working power brick via a priority overnight courier service which arrived the very next morning. That was a lot of mucking about to get a power brick replaced under warranty, plus it cost Microsoft a brand new replacement Surface Book with Performance Base, which means everything except the Blue-Tooth pen is now shiny and new. Think I’ll just sell the thing now and get a cheaper laptop to replace it seeing as I only ever use the thing for web-browsing anyway.
It’s currently on ebay to see if anyone wants to place a bid on the thing. No hurry if no one does. It’s free to keep relisting it until it does go. Usually bidders punch their bids in during the final 30 seconds of the auction in the hopes that no one has time to place a higher bid and drive the price up. Tried to add a paragraph to explain it’s a new warranty replacement but ebay’s autobots wouldn’t let me list it as new, never used if I did, which it is. They wanted me to list it as refurbished, which it isn’t. So the only solution was to remove the paragraph that explained everything.
Yeah, the dog. It’s the wallpaper on my Windows 8.1 drawing tablet and when I logged in to the new replacement computer to test it, Windows 10 decided I wanted the same picture after finding it buried in the cloud somewhere. Reinstalled it all back to factory settings, including a complete wipe of the C drive once I was done and put it back in its delivery box.
