DON'T buy a Surface Pro if you travel internationally

Attention every business person who is thinking of buying a Microsoft Surface to use when travelling. IN MY OPINION, YOU SHOULD NOT!!

Microsoft's stance on service toward me from a Warranty service aspect has been atrocious! In July, I bought 2 x Surface Pros in my home country (England). So obviously my Surface Pros had U.K operating systems. Shortly after that I was posted to Sweden for a work contract for 6 months. 

After only 1 month, one of the Surface Pros stopped working. Great quality! So I went through the painful process of dealing with Microsoft with warranty issues. Eventually I was told that I had to send the Pro to Microsoft's European service centre in The Netherlands. Microsoft said it was possible that I might be issued a replacement device. So in the error report I made online & also in a separate note I included with the Surface Pro, I decided to mention very clearly that I am English, the Pro was from England & the OS of the Pro was English. I said I wanted my device returned the same way.

3 weeks later the device was returned to me from The Netherlands. And the damned thing had a Scandinavian operating system. There was no information or correspondence in the box. Nothing at all - just the device. So I reported the problem to MS again & was contacted by a Microsoft service agent (who was in Ireland) by telephone. I explained the problem to him. He told me that Microsoft's service policy is "to return any device with the operating system in the language of the country it was SENT to them from". How stupid is that? I explained to him that I would accept that MS has such a policy if I HADN'T explained very clearly in the error report that I was not from Scandinavia & that I wanted the device returned the same way as I bought it. He then told me that

• despite the silly policy - there was "no reason" that the staff in The Netherlands couldn't return it to me with an English OS, especially if I had explained it. He said the service department for all regions is at the same location, so he himself was puzzled. His only assumption was that they had been overly stubborn in sticking to the general policy.

I called Microsoft's Sweden head office in Stockholm. After being passed around for over an HOUR, & talking to various people who couldn't help me or couldn't find the right person to help me, I ended up talking to the receptionist at the main switchboard again. So I just gave up. 

So I tried MS Service again. I created another error report & sent the device back to The Netherlands again. This time I included a more detailed letter in the box that was very clear about what happened, & even what the Ireland service adviser had told me. I gave them my phone number & email address & asked them to call me if they could NOT do this for any reason it, so I could talk to a member of their management about it. 

2 weeks later I have received the device back - SCANDINAVIAN OPERATING SYSTEM AGAIN!!  No note, no comments - nothing. Just a device that is wrong AGAIN.

I called the shop in the UK where I bought the 2 Pros from & they refuse to accept the device back because I am outside their 28 day policy. I asked if I could swap it & they refused because "we can't do anything with a device that has a Scandinavian operating system"

I'm not going to give up. I have asked Microsoft for help 4 times & been ignored at every stage. So my next step will be to contact the national newspapers & ask if they are interested to run an article about this, to warn all international business people that Microsoft is not as supportive to as they might be expecting. Can you imagine being on a business trip to China the next time your UK or US device breaks down? My advice is that you had better start learning MANDARIN now, because that's probably the language it will be returned in!