An unfortunate support story that must be told - Page 2

Sorry it took so long to respond. We have been trying to deal with this mess in the best manner possible and are currently working out logistics with ATS for customers who still have active warranties. Anyway to answer a few of your questions, ATS has not affiliation with PCT as a company. The only involvement with them was in the past with the sale of Extended warranties(Sager did not offer them at this time.) For quite some time now not a single new warranty or service has gone through ATS for their lack of support.
Fatal- At no point did you talk to or deal with a REP from PCT. John, Ed, and everyone else you spoke with was from ATS, which has now gone under.

We will do our best to offer everyone support and we are working feverishly for a solution to past warranties and it will be posted and sent out as soon as we come up with one. All current and future warranties are through Sager directly and there will be no hassle of 3rd party companies or lack of support.

If anyone has questions please E-mail me at Charles@pctorque.com. Thank you.

Normally this would not be an issue, but I believe you were the victim of a new tech(Ed) over at ATS who may not have been familiar with proceedure. The Extended Warranty only becomes active after the manufacturers warranty ends(this is the case with any product) The line you called was a tech support line but you mistakenly got taken to warranty coverage by a misinformed tech.
All your trouble have seemed to stem from a simple misunderstanding, which is now compounded by the fact that ATS has is going bankrupt. Luckily if you are still under Sager's 1 year warranty you can contact them for factory service which is really the most desireable outcome.

I am in the same boat as everyone else. I recently had what I believe to be a motherboard failure, and knowing that I was out of the Sager 1yr warranty, immediately contacted pctorque. So after multiple phone calls not returned from their sales department, and of course the continued problems with the fact that PCT support lines are "down" (how convienent, right while ATS goes out of business). So finally I get a reply PCtorque basically telling me the following (pasted from email):

Sorry for the delay. Unfortunately, it has just been made aware
to us that ATS is declaring bankruptcy, and is defaulting on numerous
agreements and contracts to our past customers. This explains the lack
of support an tech lines, leaving PCT out to dry. While ATS is a
warranty provider, PCTorque is a marketing organization. PCTorque
resells products from industry solution providers. All products offered
by PCTorque are serviced by that respective 3rd party, whether that item
sold be a notebook computer, a software package, a peripheral, an
accessory, or a service contract.However, we are currently working to
come up with a solution to help those customers that were affected by
this but we can make no guarantees. We sincerely apologize for any
inconvenience this may have cause you but ATS' company actions are
simply out of our control. PCT has the best interest of it's customers
at hand. We are doing everything LEGALLY possible to ensure warranty
service experiences the least possible amount of downtime As soon as a
proper solution has been found it will be posted on our website as well
as our forums. If you have any other questions please let us know. Thank
you.

1-800-346-6986 | Admin@PCTorque.com
http://www.PCTorque.com

SO...here is my arguement, and I don't know if it stands or not. PCT should do whatever it is they need to to take care of those of us with this "outstanding" warranty, at least by getting it fixed by Sager and them footing the bill. I was never aware of "a third party warranty" and I didn't pay any money to them, only the 3200 dollars to pctorque. I use this laptop all the time for school and as a matter of fact, have a lot of important information that will be difficult to access since my Hard disk were in RAID 0 config. Outside of even that, I bought the laptop to have something "fast" i could work on. Well now I can't work at all.

So here is my question, "What is PCT going to do to reconcile this, and how long is this going to take." Cause until then, I am out of a laptop and a warranty. At the least, PCT should refund us the money we paid for the warranty, especially considering I have yet to use the extended warranty.

That's my two sence

PM me if you actually start legal action I may want to join you

I am going to see if they get something together for our warranties. I suggested in an email to Charles that maybe they convert my 3 year extended from ATS to the equivelant of Sager whether that be a year and half or two or whatever, and then give us the option to buy the difference. I would be okay with that...I just want my laptop fixed...which is why I bought the warranty...from PCTorque...not ATS...which is another thing...I paid PCtorque all that money for my laptop...what they do with it is their deal...I didn't pay a third party for the warranty...I paid PCtorque and I think LEGALLY they should have to repair our laptops.

I'll let you know if I go legal.

I'm no lawyer... but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night!

Seriously though, I don't think there's much one can do from a legal standpoint when a company goes belly up but there are some worthwhile and tangible actions one could still take.

1. If you made your purchase with a credit card, contact the credit card issuer and dispute the warranty portion of the bill. Simply point out that you were not provided the service you paid for, and give them the supporting documentation (emails, etc.). Credit card issuers have a good track record adjudicating internet purchases gone bad in favor of the consumer. They often give refunds and pull the funds from the original companies’ accounts.

2. File a complaint with the BBB. Although it won't impact ATS it will affect the reseller who chose to do business with ATS and sold you the ATS warranty. Despite claims to the contrary, the company that sold you the warranty bears some responsibility, even it is only a moral one that impacts their reputation.

3. Spread the word. Detail your misfortune on every online merchant rating outlet available. Besides this board there's ResellerRatings.com, Laptop Magazine, Bizrate, eOpinions, Slickdeals, and many others. Repeated bad ratings on these sites *do* negatively impact sales. It's not unheard of for a business to tell try and ride out a bad situation but telling customers, "Sorry, we can't help you," when, in fact, they can, although at significant expense. Sadly, negative publicity is sometimes needed to elicit appropriate customer service from these companies.

4. Never buy a consumer electronics extended warranty from a 3rd party provider. Check out the BBB, Consumer Reports, and other consumer rating sites to see how poorly 3rd party consumer electronics warranties are rated. If you can't get an extended warranty directly from the manufacturer then you're better off skipping it and paying to fix it yourself or replacing it. I know, it's advice to close the barn door after the cows are out, but it's worth repeating.

There is something especially troublesome about this situation. The only two reasons I can think of that PCT would tell it's customers that it can't/won't support the extended warranties that ATS has defaulted on is because the choose not to or they can't afford it from a business standpoint.

Neither possibility bodes well. If it's because they choose not to then that's not the kind of company I want to do business with. If, on the other hand, they can't afford to take on what may be tens of thousands of dollars in charges to cover this loss then that may place them in a 'fly-by-night' category that I'm also not comfortable doing business with.

PCT has done right by me in the past, but that was the old PCT. My jury is still out on the new PCT. I’ll wait and see how this shakes out before I come to a final opinion about them

#4

I didn't buy awarranty from a 3rd party. PCT did not say anything about an ATS Warranty. They (the old PCT) just said 2 years additional warranty with onsite service

I just may be am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer and am not offering anyone any legal advice in any way. This is just my own tale and my own possible plans on how I may proceed.

That said, you may be right about not being able to do anything against a company that goes bankrupt except try to get a portion of whatever assets the company has at the time of bankruptcy.

Regarding the warranty itself, in my case, I bought it through PCtorque, but the warranty was was a contract with ATS. PcTorque promised to do nothing nor did Sager. ATS is the only entity that has wronged me. Doesnt look good since that may mean they are the only compnay I can go after and are bankrupt.

A little research left me with a little hope though. In my situation, I sent them my laptop in September of 2006. According to the Tennessee secratary of states office, ATS lost its status as a corporation in August of 2006, before my computer had any problems at all. That might make a big difference....

When ATS was a corporation before August 2006, liability was shielded from owners and agents of the corporation. As a non-corporate entity, any liability from the business transfers to the people owning and running the business and their personal assets including things like houses, cars, bank accounts and other personal property. My casue of action concerning ATS may be attributable to a single event, a breech of contract occuring after or during September of 2006. So, it may be that liability for this cause of action is not limited at the ATS corporation as it may have been if they were a corporation at the time of the cause of action, but it may actually attributable also to the people behind ATS.

That may include a Neal Labovitz who is listed as the registered agent of the old ATS corporation and others. A written request to the Tennessee Secretary of state's office may get me the names and addresses of the corporate officers of the old ATS corporation as well. One of those people just might own at least a portion of a house or car or stereo system or box of cereal, which just might be sold to pay back the debt they owe me.

I too have been hit with this problem.

I realize however, that these companies that used ATS probably are doing the best they can. I would hate to be in the situation where they are being held responsible when all they did was sell a product or a service.

So, the post above made me start thinking. So I started to DIG!:

Neal Labovitz seems to be the attorney for ATS Warranty, probably a friend of the owners as he seems to be a petty BANKRUPTCY attorney out of all things. Their fall back maybe when the end inevitably came?



The 2 owners that someone mentioned above are a (1) David Shoro, Pres. and a (2) David Gunsul, VP

(http://www.midsouth.bbb.org/commonre...ompid=13001368)


Ats Warranty, Inc.
4895 Outland Center Drive, Memphis, TN 38118
(http://yellowpages.superpages.com/pr...HiTQ%3D%3D.htm)

The more and more I search and read, the more I think they've been doing this for years and simply changing their name when they can't front the bill... OR they steal it? I'm not one to place judgement, but seems these two are a couple of crooks.

Ardent Technical Services was their name when I bought my laptop and this warranty. Not sure when they changed to ATS Warranty, but either way... Just thought I'd add a little fuel to the fire!

Ardent Technical Services

vs

ATS warranty

hmmm.....