Hewlett Packard HP Newly purchased HP Pavillion DV6000 Warranty is not a warranty, apparently. Palo Alto California

For the last few days, I've been getting blue screens of death on my year-old HP Pavillion DV6000. I figured the software was corrupted and (since I am completely legitimate and own all of my own software) decided I would call them and figure out how to use the partition to restore back to a fresh system.

I called and was immediately informed that my laptop was out of warranty by 19 days. I asked if I could purchase a warranty and was told that I could. I was told they had two options available:
1. For 50 dollars I could have a single incident handled. This included a window of 14 days during which problems would be covered.
2. For 100 dollars I could get a full year of phone support.

I figured this was a no-brainer and purchased the $100 plan. I was sent along to tech support. The tech had me check my Hard Drive and it immediately came up with some kind of error code. The tech told me my hard drive was defective. I asked how I would resolve this and was told that I could have HP fix it for a charge.

I explained that moments before, I had purchased a warranty. He informed me that this covered phone support ONLY. Had I purchased the $150 plan, I would have been covered. I explained that my understanding of what I had purchased was a plan which covered the hardware and would allow me phone support, not simple email correspondence and that had I been told there was a $150 plan, I would have purchased it. I then asked if I could simply upgrade to the $150 plan but was told that I could do so but it would not cover my current problem, since that problem had been reported under the $100 plan option.

I immediately escalated it, but this is completely unacceptable. I cannot understand why I would pay HP for something I could do myself or ask a friend. I really feel that they are misrepresenting what this service is.

Dfkaplan
Yuba City, California
U.S.A.