Re: Can someone who has purchased a Wal-Mart "Balance" laptop please email me?

From: Lewin A.R.W. Edwards (larwe_at_larwe.com)
Date: 10/27/04 

Date: 27 Oct 2004 13:33:54 -0700

Update on this situation:

> 2. The $598 machine sold as "1600+" is actually running at 1.1GHz,
> which would make it a 1400+. It has been confirmed that it does not
>
> 3. The $698 machine sold as "1800+" is actually running at 1.2GHz,
> which would make it a 1600+ if it was an XP-M. There was never a

I was called today by the operations manager at the Wal-Mart customer
service center. There was an urgent meeting today with the vendor this
morning. (I would *love* to have been a fly on the wall. Bet there was
blood on the floor). One of the main issues at this meeting was to
determine if it's every single laptop affected (actually there is a
third intermediate model, CN6301, available on samsclub.com, which is
practically certain to be in the same situation). The upshot, although
he didn't tell me this in QUITE those words, is that the vendor is
going to be eating every dime of Wal-Mart's expenses in fixing this
situation.

As far as what that fix is going to be, I don't know yet, because he
didn't have full info himself on the results of the meeting. But the
ops mgr said specifically that Wal-Mart will put a notice on their web
site and send out a mass email to all the affected people telling them
what the remedy is and giving instructions for upgrade return, rebate
check, or whatever it might be. As far as that goes, I'm happy with
the way things are proceeding. And they are proceeding about as fast
as I could reasonably expect.

I am, however, NOT terribly happy that the three affected models are
still being sold on walmart.com and samsclub.com. The guy I spoke to
today said that it's not as simple as just editing an HTML file, this
data is extracted from vast and mysterious databases and loaded en
masse periodically. Plus they want

I am also NOT happy that all of a sudden from work (and often from
home), when I go to walmart.com, I get a message saying "Sorry!
Walmart.com is temporarily closed for business". Strangely, when I ask
a friend (or the abovementioned ops mgr) to visit the site, they have
no problems accessing it at the exact same moment I'm trying to access
it. Clearing cookies makes no difference. I wonder if IP addresses
that I've logged on (in the sense of, entered my email and password)
from are being blocked.

As far as my specific case goes, I'm sending back the (unopened)
second laptop tomorrow. It isn't clear to me what my restitution is
going to be at this point. The situation is still developing.
Obviously, the fact that I'm still without a laptop (and going to be
without for at least another two weeks, probably) also has me a tad
PO'd.

More news when something transpires. I think there will probably be a
final answer on what's happening later in this week.

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