Well, my Tungsten C is off to the Palm repair center at Laredo, Texas. I shipped it via UPS 2nd day (afternoon). With insurance, it came out to $12.06. I thought about sending it next day afternoon, but it would have been $26.27, and there was no way I'm going to pay that much after having paid $499 for my device.
Of course, Palm offered me an advance exchange for $39.99, but that to me was ridiculous as well. I can be without Palm for a few weeks (I still got my Treo 180 and Sony NX60, plus a few classic Palm's), but I can't imagine how other folks who don't have any spare device supposed to deal with this withdrawal.
I have a bunch of wireless adapters/cards, and this is the first time I have to deal with this issue. I suggested to Palm they should reexamine their repair/exchange policy, especially when it clearly involves "negligence" on their part, but don't hold your breadth.
Stay tuned for future updates.
Ken, I hope your C gets back quick and works as intended. I know how it feels to be without your primary machine!
Mike Rohde
Thanks. I hope so, too. I will keep everyone posted.
I found out that my new Tungsten C is one of the machines that is losing it's MAC address. I took the option of paying the $39.95, since I have no backup machine that would hold all of my data, and I use my PDA everyday at work. I tried in vain to get Palm to waive the extra fee, since clearly this is a "recall" and is due to their error.
I still intend to talk to the powers that be at Palm, and see if I can get a refund of my expedited fee. Though I have doubts that my efforts will be effective.
I think that Palm's handling of this situation is very poor marketing, since most of the people affected by their mistake are generally the "leading edge" purchasers who affect others purchases, Ken being an excellent case in point. And this is my fourth Palm, starting with my old Pilot 5000, so I have been around awhile.
And Palm, this has left a very bad taste in my mouth.