I have a bit of a story to give context to my post so please bear with me.
I bought a Microsoft Surface Book which has a partially failed keyboard, it is well within warranty so I contacted MS in the UK, I got through to a call centre in the Netherlands & all tests, firmware updates & complete machine reset were done. They were very helpful but to no avail, there are still about 8 dead keys so I asked what was the next move for repair? They e-mailed me back to say that as the machine was 'bought' in the USA I had to contact MS in the USA.
I will point out here that I purchased the machine from a firm called ultrabooks.com in London, which I cannot get hold of so I assume are out of business. The reason I purchased from ultrabooks was that the machine had not at the time been released in the UK & I was going on a ski-ing trip that required me to have a computer with me to keep touch with work. It was despatched direct to me from the USA though I don't know the supplier. I managed to get hold of MS USA after an afternoon's efforts going round & round on websites & call sites (the deliberate obfuscation must be borderline criminal) & eventually ended up speaking to a call centre in Australia. The agent was again as helpful as she could be but the upshot was that the machine is a sealed unit & they don't do repairs but replace.. ..but.. ..they can only despatch to a USA address. The logic of this completely escapes me, I suspect lawyers, but the bizarre thing is that on MS Surface Pad PC products the warranty is international & you can get support locally irrespective of country of purchase. I.E normal warranty service.
I like my Arcteryx & Patagonia mountaineering & ski-ing gear but have found out on numerous occasions that the USA distributors are not allowed to despatch outside USA which is frustrating when Europe has no stock. So I wondered if anyone had found a forwarding service in the USA that enabled goods to be despatched to a USA address & then sent on to UK? I hasten to add that I only ever consider USA sourcing for purposes of availability, I am not trying to save money.
Anybody got any ideas or advice?
Regards
Mike