Dell customer service lies, don't buy a Dell.

[JDragon]

Well I have a little for both sides of this...

ON the delivery / shipping side, the person you talked to that promised shipping "X" probably was wrong in doing that, becuase they were new or just wanted to get an angry customer off the phone. I know this becuase I see it on a daily basis at my work. (my department ships replacement Cell/PDA's) The part that sucks for me is I have to deal with the people when they call back after said problem. Half of the time, the rep will promise one thing, but then just ship the normal way out of habit. Or they promise something special but do it to late and the request arrives after shipping is done for the day. (as mentioned above)


Now on the other side, What ever you do do not get a Dell Insperion 6000 if you want to be able to use a PC card with it. The motherboards they had in them are crap from the factory and have to be replaced if you want to use a PC card (at least our cards). I deal with Cellular PC aircards at work, Dell even admitted it was a problem and gave us a code to give customers when they had to call Dell to get the motherboard replaced. A flipping 30 digit code, that when you talk to tech support they don't know what the h@ll you are talking about.

SO once you get someone that knows, and they send a tech out to replace the motherboard, the tech brings the same model MB, which does not resolve the problem, and you get to start over again. (i've seen this happen 3 times personally when trying to help customers)

At this point if I have a customer with said laptop I tell them to return it or our card, cause it isn't worth the hassel to get them to work together.

 

[Enforcer]

It's worse when Dell tells the truth...

After my motherboard on my Lemon Inspiron 5150 failed for the 2nd time, conveniently one month after my warranty expired, they told me that it would take 4 months to get a new one and that it would cost approximately $350.

And that's the story of how I switched to a Mac. Steve Jobs should pay Michael Dell commission. (And I paid to get the Dell motherboard too, so I could sell the Dell to someone else.)

That said, a small shipping gaffe doesn't really stoke my ire very much, so long as you got the laptop intact.

And yes, I posted to this thread mostly to relate how much I hate hate hate Dell.

 

[KenM]

On a postive note, right after I got the laptop last tuesday, it dod not have the OS or recovery CD. I called dell right away and they said they would ship it out, I got them yesterday.

 

[Vocenoctum]

SO once you get someone that knows, and they send a tech out to replace the motherboard, the tech brings the same model MB, which does not resolve the problem, and you get to start over again. (i've seen this happen 3 times personally when trying to help customers)

I had a problem with my cable once, and they'd send out a tech, who would check all the lines inside, and there was no problem, and the apartment building was getting a clear signal. Somewhere between where it got to the building and got to my apartment, there was a problem. It took them 5 tries to acknowledge their own technicians memos to send out a "level 2" technician to find the problem.

Heck, when I bought a Sprint cell phone online, they had an "instant rebate". Then they billed me for the phone. Then when I called, online promotions transfered me to rebates, who transfered me to rebates et cetera. Finally, they figured out that they had an Internet Rebate department. THey gave me the phone number, with the caveat that if that department didn't pick up, it would simply bounce back to the general customer service! You had to coincidentally call when they felt like answering the phone! I told them to shove their phone, and switched to Cingular.

 

[Einan]

I gotta say, I've had some nice rollercoaster 11 hour phone calls with Dell Tech Support. Three of them, in fact. It took 4 months for them to send me a new motherboard. It all boiled down to the fact that Dell is a HUGE Bureaucracy and doesn't communicate well with itself. So when you change your address with one rep, it doesn't filter through the rest of the system. So after four months of having techs in Indiana call me telling me they had my part and me being in North Carolina, I finally had the tech service guy send me the part. Poor guy couldn't believe I'd want to void my warranty. Same warranty that I'd been waiting four months for service under. He couldn't understand why I wouldn't want to keep the warranty.

On the other hand, the actual laptop, after having most parts replaced during the warranty period, still works just fine. And I made friends with a nice Indian gentleman named Jason. Outsourcing is funny.

Einan

 

[KenM]

I gotta say, I've had some nice rollercoaster 11 hour phone calls with Dell Tech Support. Three of them, in fact. It took 4 months for them to send me a new motherboard. It all boiled down to the fact that Dell is a HUGE Bureaucracy and doesn't communicate well with itself. So when you change your address with one rep, it doesn't filter through the rest of the system. So after four months of having techs in Indiana call me telling me they had my part and me being in North Carolina, I finally had the tech service guy send me the part. Poor guy couldn't believe I'd want to void my warranty. Same warranty that I'd been waiting four months for service under. He couldn't understand why I wouldn't want to keep the warranty.

Einan

What I hated when I would talk to dell about the shipping issue is when I got transfered to a different dept. I had to give the new peerson all my info again, name, address, customer #, order #, ticket #, every fricking time.

 

[Einan]

Heh. I didn't mind that part except that the new person never seemed to have the information that I gave to any of the previous people I spoke with. By the end I was telling a twenty minute story to each new tech.

Oh Dell. You silly, silly, company.

Einan

 

[amethal]

We had a problem with Dell at work.

They wanted cash up front for a new laptop, so we sent them a cheque.

When they got it they noticed the year was wrong (even though it was March at the time, so we should have got out of that habit by then!) We needed the laptop fairly urgently, so they said to send them a correctly dated cheque and they'd destroy the other one.

Of course, they banked both cheques.

That's two mistakes by us - wrong date on cheque, and then not cancelling the first one.

However, it then took 6 months of repeated telephoning to get a refund out of them. At one point, they actually denied having an accounts department, which was pretty hilarious.

 

[Mercule]

I can't say I've ever had an issue with Dell service. But, if my experiences with their hardware are even remotely typical, I can't believe they're still in business.

The first Dell I ever worked with spent more time down than up. Spontaneous reboots were the norm. It hasn't been as bad, since, but they do seem to be somewhat less reliable than a comparably outfitted HP or Gateway. I will never buy a Dell, at least not until their prices match up with the other slap-dash, budget machines on the market.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Heh. I didn't mind that part except that the new person never seemed to have the information that I gave to any of the previous people I spoke with. By the end I was telling a twenty minute story to each new tech.

Oh Dell. You silly, silly, company.

Einan

So true. And when a "technician" would get on the phone they would have me do the same stuff I did before, then do a clean OS wipe and reinstall. Since that would take time they would say "call back if there is still a problem". And since it was bad hardware it would have the same problems...and when I called back a new guy would want me to do the exact same things the other guy had me do. It was frustating! You could never get teh same person and since they just read instructions instead of knowing how to help you get piss poor help at that.