Ask HN: Any secrets for reaching a human at large companies?
For the past 2 weeks, I have been failing to reach a human with competency and agency at HPE.
I have a tape drive, and HPE published a recommended firmware update, but firmware downloads are gated behind an active warranty, and my warranty expired a few months ago. Trying to buy a new warranty has been a nightmare.
For the past 3 weeks, I've been stuck in the tar pit of bouncing between departments, contact pages with no contact info, being ghosted on chats, being ghosted in email, managers saying they'll call and then not calling, getting referred to third-party companies that seemingly have no clue about tape drives, waiting on hold for 4 hours just to have my call disconnected, twice (see for yourself: if you call the sales number and press 1, you'll never get a human: https://www.hpe.com/us/en/contact-hpe.html)
I am at the point where I'm considering a 4 hour road trip to an office just to see if showing up in person will get attention on my issue.
Is there an approach I'm missing or unaware of?