Soldier takes aim at HP printer

Shreds it

By Ashlee Vance in Mountain View • Get more from this author

Posted in Bootnotes, 30th August 2006 23:31 GMT

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Take it from our boys in Iraq. Automatic weapons are the most effective way to convince a customer service representative about the severity of your product issues.

One US soldier has turned to YouTube - and his gun - to let HP know just how upset he is with their refusal to fix an all-in-one printer. The soldier outlines his problems in a video and then proceeds to obliterate the HP machine on camera by firing away at it for a few seconds. The video has apparently been in circulation for quite awhile, although it failed to gain much public notoriety.

"This is the HP 5510 all-in-one office printer," the soldier says on the video. "It prints. It faxes. It scans. And it copies.

"It also does not work. Let's see how well it deals with my little friend here."

After shredding the machine, the soldier closes by saying, "Alright, HP. I appreciate your support of Uncle Sam and all the soldiers over here in Iraq. Thank you very much."

"What a piece of shit this product is," adds the cameraman.

There's a comic element to the soldier's video and maybe that's all he was after. It has a certain Office Space doused in excessive amounts of testosterone quality to it.

At the same time, it's beyond irresponsible for this soldier to think making a video like this is a good use of his time or the military might. It makes the soldier look foolish and embarrasses the Army.

And the suggestion that HP is somehow not behind our troops because of one bad customer service experience is pathetic.

For the record, HP took care of the attention-seeking soldier.

"HP was aware of the issue and resolved it back in March," the company said. "HP responds to each customer service request individually as appropriate and that response is confidential. We take customer service seriously and are committed to providing good customer service."

Here's hoping our boys don't have too many Dell and Apple laptops. ®

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