Lee wrote, "I ordered a Polaroid 7" Tablet recently from a well-known daily deal site. When I got it, it was DOA. I checked with the daily deal site and they suggested contacting the manufacturer first before asking them for a return or exchange, so I called Polaroid's tech support."

"I explained the lady who took my call that when I plugged the charger in to the tablet, the tablet lit up and displayed the Polaroid logo, so I knew it was recognizing that the charger had been connected. It would then display a blue screen that said 'Internet Tablet' for a few seconds then it would flash several times and turn off. It would then proceed to turn on again showing the Polaroid logo and start the cycle over again. It would do this continuously and never boot up. Her response was 'So, if I understand you correctly, your saying your tablet is sluggish?' After several seconds pause I finally managed to say 'Well, if you consider not booting at all "sluggish", then yes.'"

"She finally gave me the URL for their download page for firmware for my model tablet and suggested I reflash the firmware. This made sense since faulty firmware could easily keep it from booting. I thanked her and ended the call."

"Now the real fun begins. I went to the site she gave me and tried to download the 263MB firmware file (I assume it had the full Android 4.0 OS in it). After about 5 minutes I had managed to download about 20KB of the file and it ended saying it was successful. Obviously 20KB is a bit short of 263MB, but I tried to open the zip file anyway with the result being WinZip telling me the zip file is corrupt. I tried several times and couldn't download the file."

"In the mean time I decided to read the instructions on the website for downloading and flashing the firmware. The instructions were very detailed and included many screenshots that they said I would see. Including (but not limited to) the attached image. There were many such screenshots that were equally as entertaining to read. The URL, in case you’d like a good laugh (and cry) is http://southerntelecom.com/polaroidsupport/firmware_guide_pmid701c40.html."

"Since I couldn't download the firmware file, I sent their support a message via a form on their website. I included the URL of the file on their server I was trying to download and asked if they could email the file to me as an attachment. When I tried to submit the support request, I was informed that my support request was rejected because it appeared that I was trying to advertise to them in my message since I had included an URL. Bear in mind that the URL was for their server. So apparently I was advertising themselves to... themselves."

"So, at the end of the day, I still have a DOA tablet and I've wasted a couple of hours of my day, but at least I've had a good laugh. That counts for something, right?"

 

"Another $30 million and I'll have all the MS points I'll need," writes Dean M.

 

"Online advertisers' 6th sense-like ability to target ads is almost scary," remarked Erwan.

 

"I wasn't alive in 1969, but if Macy's thinks that my next payment is at the beginning of the Unix epoch, who am I to argue?," wrote Canan.

 

"I really wanted to help get to 10,000 signatures on an online petition," writes Alistair, "But a few people made it impossible for me."

 

"It was a hard-fought victory, well deserving of the highest honor in the land," writes Aaron.

 

Dmitriy wrote, "When Salesforce gave me this error, I knew it was time to go home."

 

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