THE tale of a customer who spent three months trying in vain to have his Hewlett-Packard laptop repaired yielded a gusher of same-here e-mails.

Most ended with a variation of “I’m never buying another H.P. [fill in the blank] again.” Only one e-mailer, Robert John Bennett of Düsseldorf, Germany, managed to pivot from this unhappy sentiment to a pretty good punch line: “I gave up and bought a Toshiba laptop, which has worked like a charm for three years, and put the H.P. in my storeroom in the basement of my apartment building. The storeroom was later broken into and the laptop stolen. The police investigated, and the excellent German insurance policy covering household effects reimbursed me for the full price of a brand-new computer.”

Then the kicker: “I, of course, feel sorry for the thief.”

That rare mix of frustration and comedy – the Haggler’s favorite cocktail. Which brings us to a new letter:

Q. McAfee can’t seem to resist messing around with my e-mail. Here’s the story: I had been using McAfee, which sells antivirus software, on a PC for a while, but I stopped when I switched to a Mac. Months later, thanks to McAfee’s murky opt-out policy, I realized that the company was still charging me for a subscription. Or trying to. My credit card had expired, and I ignored McAfee’s entreaties to post new credit card information, thinking that would end the subscription.

Unfortunately, McAfee continues to monitor my e-mail, providing daily reports of messages it has intercepted and quarantined. Some of the quarantined e-mails are come-hithers from Russian women, who are apparently very lonely and would feel much better if I just clicked on their link. But others are important to me, so I’ve contacted McAfee several times, requesting that it stop performing this service that I don’t pay for and don’t want.