Dell Total satisfaction? Don't think so

[alexpronko]

Just needed to vent. Ordered 2001fp, arrived today, of course terrible backlight problem in both upper right and lower left . Spots about 3-4" in size. So I open a chat with Dell and 1 hr later he finally sees the ligt and agrees to send me replacement. But wait, than he wants serial number, I'm at work and don't have it, well sh..t out of luck. He says he needs that and can't ship one without it. OK so he assigns case number and all I have to do is give them serial later. I come home open chat, since monitors do not have tags I had to give Laptops tag just to get into chat. I give case / order /serial number and what I get back? What's your TAG number sir?. Don't have one, bla bla bla, your tag is from portables contact them. I say I did they send me to you a-hole. Than he tries to go through "troubleshooting" again. I thougt I'm gonna loose it. WTF do they assign case numbers, isn't the previous session there? Might as well not have them. Bla bla bla, another hour later, what's your TAG number? I wanted to reach over and strungle that silly as.. Hindu.
That will teach me buying from Dell. Buyer beware.
I'll stick with HP, may be more exepensive but sure as hell it's easier when problems arise. They send me 3 (Yes three) F2304's in replacement when I had problems with them, did I say free overnight shipping? Did I said it only took 10 min phone call each time. Did I say I did not have to learn the other persons language since I was talking to good o'le boys in Nova Scotia. Did I say that they called me right back when we got disconnected in the middle once?
Well as it is HP gets my business now.

 

[Slider19]

You should just call them.

 

[alexpronko]

You should just call them.

I read about the call horror stories so I figured I try the chat. Boy was I mistaken.
Will try the call next time if I need to , see what happens

 

[offtone]

Yeah, "TAG Number" = "Case Number" You have one of those. Should've given them that. Yeah it's stupid about the ambiguity with the two terms for it, but now you know. And hopefully so do others.

 

[alexpronko]

Yeah, "TAG Number" = "Case Number" You have one of those. Should've given them that. Yeah it's stupid about the ambiguity with the two terms for it, but now you know. And hopefully so do others.

But I did, yet he still proceeded to ask me for the service tag, I just couldn't take it anymore...

 

[wpeng]

I fully stand by the opinion that DELL sucks nuts. I had a similar experience, except I was actually patient enough to mess with customer service for 5 hours. I tried both calling and internet chat. I've found the most reliable way to get things done is by email, even though it will take a couple of days longer.

Not that it matters, though. I will never buy from DELL again.

 

[buttchin]

I called during prime time, held for about half an hour, talked to the dell guy for like 30-45 minutes, and they sent me a replacement 2005fpw, no problems whatsoever.

 

[wake6830]

Oh man, don't even get me started on dell. My girlfriend ordered a laptop through them for school, using a credit card her great aunt gave her for school expenses. For whatever reason, the original card didn't go through so she had to use her own. Well, the order comes shipped to my house (where she was staying) under her name, ordered by her great aunt.

About an hour of use in, the monitor freaks out and is totally shot. My girlfriend doesn't know crap about computers and gets frustrated really easily, so I offered to handle calling to try to get a fix or have the screen replaced. HUGE MISTAKE.

I spent probably a total of 36-48 hours over the next few weeks trying not only to get the screen replaced, but to get them to even talk to me because my girlfriend's aunt was the registered owner. I got them to transfer ownership to me several times, but every time I called after that we would go through this debate of whether or not they could help me because I wasn't the registered owner, even though I had just had them change it!! ARGGHGH!

The screen was replaced twice - the first time, they put in a wxga screen even though the computer had come with a wsxga screen. The second time, they put in a refurbished (!) wsxga screen, but lost one of the rubber dots around the edge of the screen and couldn't replace it. He had to call dell to have them ship me a replacement.

In order to get the screen replaced, I had to call dell to get a service number. Then you have to call their subcontractor to make an appointment. Then the subcontractor tells me he can't come to my address, because it's not the address on file, and I have to change it with dell and then call back and make a new appoinment. ARGHGHGH! I don't want to have to coordinate between dell and their subcontractors just to get the right address on file! This required probably about a dozen hours over a period of a few days to fix.

I finally decided that I couldn't deal with it anymore. Were the computer to have a problem in the future, it would be a mega-ordeal just to get them to recognize who was the proper person to be on the account. So I had to return it. They tried to tell me I couldn't return it, because it was after the alloted time period (it wasn't), but I just told them I didn't care, because I'd only had a working computer for about an hour of that timeframe and the rest of it was wasted trying to help them with their record-keeping and communication with their subcontractors, which I was not responsible for. After probably 3 hours on the phone, I was able to finally convince someone to take it back and refund the money to my gf's credit card.

A month later, I finally received the rubber dots for the edge of the screen. A few weeks after that, I received a bill for like $60 dollars for the tabs, which I obviously refused to pay.


So the lesson with dell is, don't buy anything from them unless you have to. And if you get into a frustrating situation, just stop for a second - tell them exactly your problem, what you want them to do and when, and that you will need to speak to a supervisor if they can not do that for you. I got nowhere with them until I gave up explaining things and just started telling them exactly what I wanted them to do and that I wanted them to do it right now.

 

[alexpronko]

I called during prime time, held for about half an hour, talked to the dell guy for like 30-45 minutes, and they sent me a replacement 2005fpw, no problems whatsoever.

Lucky you. Judging from the numerous posts over here this is not a norm. Although you will eventually get a replacement the whole process is a little bit aggrevating and time consuming to say the least.
So 30 + (30 to 45) gives an hour to hour 15 for what should be a simple matter.
Not to plug HP here but on 3 different occasions I was done in 20 min getting my replacement (that includes hold tikme which was about 5 min tops) and I called at 3 different times - at night, at noon and in the morning.