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    DELL ARCHIVE

    Current Archive | 2002-2003 Archive 2000-2001 Archive | 1996-1999 Archive

    ____________________________

    This file is filled with individuals' opinions and experiences with the Dell computer mail-order company, which sells a wide line of computers and products. The most recent experiences are at the beginning of this file.

    If you have bought from them and have not yet made your contribution to this list, simply fill out this form about your experiences with Dell and they will be added to the beginning of this file. Thank you and Good luck!

    Other Experiences with Dell (Most recent first):

    If you'd like to add to this list, use this form. Thank you and good luck! I make no warranties, expressed or implied, about the validity or accuracy of the above opinions or information and disclaim all liability resulting from them. Buyer Beware.

    Micheal's Stooge from USA
    Date - Wednesday, December 19, 2001 at 14:03:39 (EST)

    Unlike most people here I've had the misfortune to actually work for this "company". I have read some of the views on here and largely agree with them all. They only give a shit about getting your money and then getting rid of you. Problems with missing items are due to severe lack of training. 90 % of customer care wouldn't know what you'd be talking about if you mentioned a missing item from your PC.
    It appears they like to hire dumbasses (I guess I would have to class myself in this as I'm still there) with no idea.
    The company is so segmented internally that no one really knows who is responsible for what, and that includes the illustrious managers, whose main priorities include talking, talking, having a meeting to have a talk, and then talking about when they can next talk. Internal problems are rife, albeit small in nature. But these problems are what is making you guys pissed. If you continue to do business with this Corporation then don't expect it to get any better. It won't. That'll do. My list is too long and my time (as far as Dell is concerned) is too short. It's bad enough spending my waking moments in it's clutches then writing about them here. You really wouldn't believe half the shit anyway.

    Is there actually any good companies out there let me know so I can get the hell out of this sodding one.


    Melody Hawkins from Crossett, --Ar USA
    Date - Monday, December 03, 2001 at 01:22:17 (EST)

    I need someone to finance me a labtop computer immediately.I hope there is someone that will be able to help me.

    Stephanie from Calgary, Alberta, Canada
    Date - Friday, November 23, 2001 at 16:12:35 (EST)

    Do not buy a computer over the phone, or on line, FROM ANY COMPANY!!! This appears to be a common scam perpetrated by commissioned salesmen:
    1)The customer calls for a price on a computer, with specific hardware and software requirements.
    2)The salesman provides a very attractive quote, and the customer agrees to purchase the unit.
    3)The salesman writes the order up, but without all the features the customer wanted. The order is shipped to the customer. The price is correct, but the order has been altered from the customer's requirements.
    4)By the time the customer figures out he has been duped, it is too late. No amount of communication with the computer company will resolve the problem.
    5)According to the supplier's records, everything that was included on the invoice was shipped, and they have no obligation to do ANYTHING.
    6)The salesman collects an easy commission cheque, without having done any REAL work. He gave the customer a very low quote to make the sale, then made it balance by changing the contents of the order.

    DELL COMPUTERS DOES THIS!!!!!!!

    I asked for a price on a desktop unit, and clearly requested 'Office 2000' be included in the estimate. When I received the unit, I found that the way the salesman kept the price lower than the competition, was that HE DID NOT INCLUDE OFFICE 2000 ON THE ORDER. Instead, he included a useless peice of crap called 'Microsoft Works'. Now, Dell insists that everything on the invoice was shipped, and that if I want Office 2000, I must pay extra for it. Further, they refuse to refund me for the computer, since this arguement has been ongoing PAST THE 30 DAY REFUND TIME.

    REMEMBER: IF YOU CANNOT PHYSICALLY CHECK THE CONTENTS OF YOUR ORDER, BEFORE YOU PAY FOR IT, DON'T BUY IT!!!!!

    al sumar from USA
    Date - Thursday, November 22, 2001 at 13:48:26 (EST)

    I own an Inspiron 3200 (3 yr warranty). Dell's service and tech support has deteriorated to the point that I no longer call them. Some examples: Multiple returns for battery replacement. Multiple returns for the Dvd drive (it still whines to teeth grinding level, original was quiet). Multiple machine returns for heat problem: Machine freezes when viewing long movie(>1.5hr); they cannot find the problem!. Useless tech support when it comes to pcmcia/cardbus support; does anyone know how to boot win 2k off external scsi disk (connected via Adaptec apa-1480 cardbus adapter). They do not support 2k although the machine was "designed for Nt, 98".

    Kirk Buhne from Seattle, WA USA
    Date - Tuesday, November 06, 2001 at 17:34:47 (EST)

    Dell served me well in the past, but something has changed. Their sales rep promised me speedy delivery of my system in spite of what my confirmation message told me. The system took the full 21 days to arrive.
    Within 20 minutes the computer crashed with multiple problems. The telephone support (which takes at least 30 minutes to reach) was instructing me to take apart and reassemble my new computer (multiple calls, multiple hold times). I was then promised a technician in the morning. I called to find out where he was at noon, only to be told that he would call the next day, not today. Well it was nice to take the morning off, but as I am a consultant, I did this without pay. When the technician did arrive with one replacement network card, he confirmed what I told Dell on the telphone: "this computer has multiple problems". A new computer is now being shipped, as the technician suggested, and will hopefully arrive 29 days after my initial order. I wonder how many hours I will need to spend with customer service fixing the new one. And when will it arrive? When can I meet the courier? The Dell site that tells me that information is down again.
    Perhaps I should have bought from the local computer shop. I spent the extra money with Dell because I thought that the purchase would be hassle free, like it was with past purchases. Dell seems to have changed. They don't really care about their customers like they used to.

    Paul Nielsen from NC USA
    IsNotNull.com
    Date - Saturday, October 27, 2001 at 20:05:37 (EDT)

    As a SQL Server consultant, book author, and trainer, I really push my computer and demand that I works well even when travelign frequently. I have personally owned and used abotu 25 portable computers since the late 80s. I used an original Compaq Portable, an original Toshiba 286 with a plasma display. Several of them were fine machines. My last 4 notebooks and 2 desktops have been Dells (except fo the gamer machine we keep upgrading ourselves).

    My experience has been that Dell notebooks are the best designed. I wore out a Dell display hinge after 2.5 years of openign and closing it about a dozen times a day. Dell fixed it in record time. On one system I was beta testing for Microsoft and blew the eprom 3 times in a row. Each time a Dell tech support rep came out and replaced the motherboard.

    In short, the folks on this site who are complaining and the exception. I am a highly informed and critical computer developer, and report only good experiences with Dell.

    Paul Nielsen from NC USA
    IsNotNull.com
    Date - Saturday, October 27, 2001 at 20:05:22 (EDT)

    As a SQL Server consultant, book author, and trainer, I really push my computer and demand that I works well even when travelign frequently. I have personally owned and used abotu 25 portable computers since the late 80s. I used an original Compaq Portable, an original Toshiba 286 with a plasma display. Several of them were fine machines. My last 4 notebooks and 2 desktops have been Dells (except fo the gamer machine we keep upgrading ourselves).

    My experience has been that Dell notebooks are the best designed. I wore out a Dell display hinge after 2.5 years of openign and closing it about a dozen times a day. Dell fixed it in record time. On one system I was beta testing for Microsoft and blew the eprom 3 times in a row. Each time a Dell tech support rep came out and replaced the motherboard.

    In short, the folks on this site who are complaining and the exception. I am a highly informed and critical computer developer, and report only good experiences with Dell.

    Allison from USA
    Date - Sunday, October 21, 2001 at 15:45:00 (EDT)

    I have never in my life delt such incompetence as i have with dell. They have the most horrific customer service and their computers are expenive and do not even work properly. I recommend to every one out there, stay far far away from the worst computer company in the world or trust me, you will regret it.


    Ian Templeman from Edmonton, Canada
    Date - Friday, October 19, 2001 at 18:40:12 (EDT)

    This is not about Dell, but HP.
    There is not HP section here.

    Like someone else who posted here, I work for convergys, except I support Pavilion, a Crappy line of HP computers.

    Convergys has a 12 minute rule now, not 18 minutes.
    Every 15 minutes you are in a call, they send someone to glare at you, in an effort to get you off the call.
    They punish you if you are mosr than five minutes for a break or lunch. The sanction you if you take a 16 minute break, or even worse....a 32 minute lunch.
    To them, it is not "You helped the customer" .... it's "you were 7 minutes, ten seconds late to take your break"
    then there is the HP side of things.

    Every three days it seems like, they are changing the rules....policy changes do not even get the chance to dry on the paper, before they are sending us new ones.
    Everything they are doing seems to be in an effort to screw over the customer. We used to send out a phone card or two if we took a while fixing your system over the phone, now...we tell the customer "we are sorry for the time and expense" even though the customer KNOWS we don't give a damn.
    They almost fired me because I didn't say something stupid at the end of the call.
    They (HP) want me to say "Thank you for calling HP customer care" at the end of EVERY call. Now, I don't know about any of you, but if I had called up...say my bank, and they said that to me???? I would be pissed off...I would be thinking "THANK YOU, for treating me like a number"
    If they want that, why not a prerecorded message???
    I work at the Mcdonalds of the Tech industry.
    I will tell you why.

    They are MORE concerned with adhering to ALL procedures and policies, than ACTUALLY helping the guy on the phone.
    At mcdonalds, they are more concerned with how you close the bag of food, and what you say to the guy after you give him his change, than they are about making sure the burger is not flat as a pancake, or that the fries are not ice cold, and actually getting the drink order right.
    where I work, they are MORE interested in making sure I am drinking out of a convergys cup, instead of a pop bottle, making sure I take a break ON TIME, than making sure that the customer who needs a new mouse, or monitor actually gets the item in question. MORE interested in making sure that the logo of NIKE on my shirt is LESS than 3 inches square and getting me off the phone in less than 12 minutes, than making sure that the guy on the other end of the phone will not have to call back for the problem in question or making sure that I "speak with a smile in my voice".

    I would advise everyone who is reading this to NEVER buy an HP computer.
    The person you call for tech support will be overworked, underpaid (we only get paid 10.00/hour canadian...which works out to 6.42/hour in american) so they are not going to give a shit about your problem, or your phone bill, or your info that you don't want to lose. They will find the quickest fix, and send you on your way. You might call in for one thing, and end up deleting everything on your computer, because doing that is faster than fixing your problem. The management has one motto for all of us "Prove functionality" if we can prove the computer works...well, you are now up shit creek, because at that point, we don't give a dman, and would actually like for your computer to STOp working, and give you nothing but headaches.

    So, if you are looking for a good computer, with some good tech support, look elsewhere, if you are looking for a crappy system, useless programs and uncooperative tech support, with no sypathy for your problems, buy HP pavilion.


    Stuart Wilks from London, United Kingdom
    Pickavance Consulting Ltd
    Date - Friday, October 19, 2001 at 07:59:32 (EDT)

    I ordered two PC's from Dell, as our supplier Gateway has ceased trading in the UK. They duly extracted several thousand pounds from our credit card account, and told us our order would arrive shortly.

    Three weeks later - one PC appeared. Phoned to ask where the other was- Dell claimed that an attempt had been made to deliver it, but the courier couldn't find the address - it would obviously be the same as the other PC!!

    So - after numerous calls to Dell & Target Express (couriers) - I hope one day I will get to see a new PC in my office!

    PS - we wont be using them again!

    Fred Jeffries from Akron, OH USA
    Date - Sunday, October 14, 2001 at 12:23:23 (EDT)

    The computer was purchsed with a 3 year 24 hour service policey, might as well have been purchsed with "toilet paper"
    No service and the thing hasn't worked for over a month, bout a new unit, from another company...
    I have never delt with such people as dell "tech support"
    I am waiting now to see what they will do, if they fix it I will donate it to a local high school, if they don't it is small claims court....

    Terence Verney from Amsterdam, Netherlands
    Date - Sunday, October 14, 2001 at 05:54:35 (EDT)

    This is a warning to everybody who might be considering purchasing a new PC. My advice will be to avoid Dell like the plague! I've never experienced such bad service and poor quality equipment before. Prior to buying my Dell Dimension Pentium IV system in February this year at a cost of Dfl.6.500,- (Six Thousand, Five Hundred Dutch Guilders), I had a Gateway G6-400. That was a tale of woe all by itself and to cut a long story short, Gateway finally replaced the entire machine some six months later. But as a previous correspondent has already remarked, once bitten, twice shy so I wasn't going to buy anything else from them.

    I decided on the Dell system as the best alternative, but once again, the story is very much the same. Within three weeks the hard drive and motherboard had to be replaced. Some two months later, the Santa Cruz soundcard for which I had paid extra for failed, followed closely by the videocard, again an upgrade to a better version. Not long after that, the 19" Trinitron monitor for which I had forked out an additional Dfl.685,- (Six Hundred & Eighty Five Dutch Guilders) gave up the ghost. What happened next was that Dell replaced it with another defective unit! Once again I complained and lo and behold, what did I get? Another defective monitor! Subsequently, on 30th June this year, Dell offered me a third monitor, but this time a plain beige model which I refused to accept. My reason for doing that was because the Dell Dimension Pentium IV system is matt black and a beige monitor simply didn't match the rest of the the system. Since then, in spite of repeated phone calls and registered letters threatening legal action, I'm still without a monitor and we're now in the middle of October for God's sake!

    This is absolutely appalling! I thought I was dealing with a bona fide company when I chose Dell, not some backstreet merchant whose only intent is to relieve you of your hard earned cash and then disappear into the night. But that's the way it seems to me now. I've now placed the matter in the hands of my lawyers. With my agreement, Dell was given ten days to supply me with a new monitor. They subsequently phoned my lawyers to say that they would deliver a new monitor to me within 14 days. That period expired last Friday, 12th October without the agreement being honoured.

    I will now be instructing my lawyers to declare the whole purchase null and void and to demand a full refund of the purchase cost.

    But to reiterate, if you intend to buy a new computer system, don't go to Dell unless you're masochistic and enjoy throwing money down the drain!

    Stephen Rawlins from London, United Kingdom
    Date - Friday, October 05, 2001 at 10:03:16 (EDT)

    Where do I start, I have NEVER in all my time as an IT proffesional encountered such inept service as Dell, I dealt with Ireland and was disgusted by their attitude and lies!
    They debited my card twice for a start, sent me a foulty machine, refused to replace it, sent out 3 (Three!) engineers to fix it, none of them had the slightest Idea what to do!
    I was then told to replace the RAM which I did, although goodness only knows how replacing ram can make a faulty modem and keyboard work!
    I got to the stage after weeks of calling and calling that I felt the early stages of a nervous breakdown and had to pull back.
    When I finally felt up to the task of confronting them again, I was fobbed off at every turn, I was prommided that supervisors and managers wou;d call me back, they NEVER did, I was told to fax their head office and was told that that would definatley elicit a reply, it never did, The way to get through to a manager is to call the US head office and get a name of one of their top people, then call dell UK and give them the name that you got from the US, and tell the person that you speak to that you are the PR for this person and that they are staying in a london hotel, then give them your phone number and tell them that you want a call back straight away, they get back to you within 10 minutes!! then when youve got their attention let it rip.
    This gets you some measure of satisfaction, but in the end I felt that it was better to let it go, I am over £1000.00 down due to my experiences with Dell, I dont have the energy to start it all over again, if any Dell personell read this, please don't contact me as I have now put this behind me and have learned a valuable lesson which I have shared with many many others in the IT industry.
    The moral of the story isonce bitten, twice shy,

    Michael Donofrio from Gulfport, Florida USA
    Date - Sunday, August 26, 2001 at 19:29:49 (EDT)

    Can ANYONE inform me WHERE I can get a main manual for the Dell

    Meena from Montreal, Canada
    Date - Friday, August 17, 2001 at 11:47:26 (EDT)

    I purchased three Dell Latitude Notebooks from Dell in April 2001. One for myself and the other two were for my colleagues. The other two are running/working perfectly, where as mine is a total lemon. I have gotten the hard disk changed twice and the motherboard has been changed twice. Now I get a new error on my machine. It does a core dump and restarts the computer but freezes it until the DELL LOGO appears.

    This is extremely time consuming. I need a reliable machine that won't crash on me all the time. I have lost some of my work which cannot be recovered.

    I spoke to a gentleman at the Dell Tech support... all he told me is to change the RAM in the computer... Why can't they just send me a new machine? It's a brand new machine!!!

    My recommendation... DO NOT BUY A DELL NOTEBOOK! Stick with Toshiba.

    Pete from Denver, CO USA
    Date - Thursday, August 16, 2001 at 20:46:43 (EDT)

    I just bought a brand-spankin' new Inspiron 8000 Laptop on ebay for ~$2,800.00

    It's fully loaded w/ 512 ram, Geforce video, DVD/CDRWcombo.. THE WORKS.

    No, I did not buy from Dell directly because I couldn't afford to. Especially when I saved over $1500. The seller had 170/170 positive reviews and threw in some nice extras. I've had the notebook for over a week now and spend about 8-10 hrs per day in front of it, working and GAMING.

    I stumbled upon this list lookin' for a Dell fan-site because I AM SO IN LOVE WITH THIS NOTEBOOK. I just had to comment on how excellent of a product it is. I have FreeBSD, Windows2000, and (ew) Redhat linux on it and have had no trouble finding drivers and getting all of my software running on it.

    I never had to deal with dell directly at all.. and I'm hoping I never have to.

    I'm sorry all you people had to vent out your frustrations and I'm glad you found this place to do so.. Now you just have to put up with my happy post. and NO, I don't work for dell :P

    chris from USA
    Date - Friday, August 10, 2001 at 20:43:40 (EDT)

    i worked as a sales rep in the computer industry for 3 years and would like to comment.

    if you are shopping for a computer, i am fully confident that there are 4 major pc vendors who's product and services are about the same. 99 times out of 100, the computer will be just fine. as for service, all tech support and customer service branches of the company will be under staffed. companies invest mostly in sales and marketing.

    if you are one of the unfortunate customers with a problem,
    expect long hold times and poor service due to lack of employees in customer service and tech support.

    my recomendation to someone needing a computer:
    contact direct companies because you have more flexibility with your configurations. research on the companies web site first so you are educated about the product and have a good idea of all the promotions and what the price should be around. once you speak with a sales rep, tell them what you want and that you are ordering today (this will get their attention). once the sales rep ask for payment tell him to take $50 to $100 off the order. If you are ordering, make sure there is no delay, and pay with a credit card. i guarentee you they will discount at least $50.

    never order something that is on delay. most computers will be on a 4 or 5 business day lead time. meaning the computer will take about 4 or 5 buisness days to build. most of the time, it won't take that long. however, if something is on delay, there is no telling when it will ship. very risky. don't do it.

    do not lease or do a purchase plan from anyone. you will get ass fucked on interest and there are hidden fees.

    hope this helps.

    companies i recomend:

    Compaq
    Dell
    HP
    if you like cows, Gateway

    good luck!

    CQ from USA
    Date - Saturday, July 28, 2001 at 03:05:16 (EDT)

    Well I posted here a couple years ago when my brother bought his Dell back then, it was a touchy machine, still is but at that time the major problems had not happened. Within a year of having the computer which he paid $3500 for, the hard drive one day upped and died. At first it made a whiny noise then it died. We always had concerns about the harddrive from day one as it was a little noisier than other computers we had seen. Well within a year, the piece of sh*! IBM hard drive failed, yes IBM hard drive. IBM refurbishes many of their hard drives and they do not tell people about it, in fact we found that out from IBM. Which fits Dell real well as that is what they are often doing folks. And that is why so many of their computers have problems, in my view. They have been sued over this matter in the past and they claimed that they would stop this practice but I don't believe them. Well they did send out a tech to replace that hard drive,and in six months that "new" hard drive they put in also failed. So they came out again, and replaced it with another one and that time my brother got ahead as they gave him a better and bigger hard drive. Oh yeah, one thing you might want to notice when these techs come to your house, do you see them take NEW parts out of the box?? If not where did the parts come from…. So after a year or so he was a little better off with his PC than when he first started. The computer was always touchy, still is even under Windows 98 which we upgraded to. I would attribute it to the mother board which we also looked into. It is an Intel mother board which as we found out many people had problems with. I like Intel CPUs but I do not like
    Their motherboards. As we learned about things… we found out that the motherboards are OEM of course and they modify the motherboards from the Original ones. So what does that mean? It means that if you buy a motherboard from a store by itself it is a better motherboard than the OEM motherboard-they are similar but not the same. So what does that mean? It means that when you have companies like Dell and Gateway that in my view do not know what they are doing, they have to make alterations to the motherboards, and they also have to make stable BIOSs for the computers to operate properly and this is where they fail. My brother realizing all of these things as well, tried to update the bios from Dell which was provided by them on their website. The Bios did not work right when he installed and he could not get the old Bios back once he had made that move because they didn't offer it. So, he had to get the Bios from Intel for that motherboard which was a way better BIOS than what Dell offered anyway. However, it was really BIOS for Intel Original motherboard, not OEM. But it worked, and that is what he has on it now. Still unhappy with the noisy hard drive and still some mystery behind that we believe it may be a factor due to the controller on the motherboard-who knows. He opted to put more money into the system and now he has 2 7200 RPM drives he bought----screw Dell just have to fix it how you need it now--- bought a nice Ricoh DVD CDRW, updated the bios as mentioned, and he is now on Windows 98 up from 95 which was originally on the computer, and he also went to max 384Mb memory. So three years later, a lot of nightmares and talking to truly idiot people at Dell he has an all right computer. It is still very slow, but some of that can be attributed to the 300mhz cpu and 66 mhz bus. You cannot get the name of the companies that contracts to fix Dell's PC they will not tell you and they have full authority to decide whether or not you need a repair. Their diagnostics they give for those computer are very weak, and I will get more into that soon. So there is a lot to piece together there about Dell. Also I can tell you from reading their message board at Dell's website, a lot of people have the same exact problems. Very negligent support system, although they can be helpful for minor issues, very aloof and no real interaction with their customers---if you really want good support don't look to them, customers having to go above and beyond the call of duty to get their computers to work right, frequent harddrive failures in their PCs for some reason, why I don't know all I know is that when they get noisy they are old drives and many people complain of this in Dells even when they are brand new, a problem which I might add is not that common in most PCs, and distribution of PCs that are very buggy due to in my view, poorly made Dell Bios, OEM motherboards that Dell screws up, and poor testing of integrated components, and finally a sort of big brother attitude from them to fix it on your own and F off. In addition they do not really take time to offer updated drivers for the components of the system, so you can go figure all of that out too. Some people do get lucky and get a good Dell, I don't doubt that either---and you would think that Dell would have learned and changed things well it doesn't appear that way.

    As mentioned in my previous message in 98, I felt it was best to go to a store to buy a computer due to the personal help, and responsibility that you could impart on the vendor such a Best Buy etc. Well running into so many complications on my brother's PC, it being more of an endeavor to constantly fix it than using it, I opted to buy a computer on my own learning from this in the way that I mentioned in 98 and that is what I did and it has gone pretty well. I looked everything over about computers for several months, and went to a lot of stores. I wanted more stability and quality, reliability and manufacturer responsibility than I did to just have all the latest bells and whistles, I wanted a deal where if I had any problems I could take this thing, put it on someone's desk and say fix it-under warranty. So I went with a Compaq 5716 from Best Buy and I have a 3 year extend warranty through Best Buy on everything on the CPU. I wanted a computer that was everything that my brother's was not. I wanted a computer that was fast, reliable, not frustrating, had a quality, quiet hard drive not one that sounded like it had rocks in it, good expansion possibilities, and all that back up by good support all around and that is what I got. Some people have problems with Compaqs too, but it is usually on their el cheapo lower end systems--- even then it is a lot of user complaints, software issues, not hardware issues. You can buy the cheapest thing from any company and it won't be so great. If you visit Compaqs support forum, 80% of the problems are only software related, novice users problems---in other words windows related but Compaq helps people through those too, as opposed to Dell which will not help you with a Windows issues, Compaq has never given me that line. The software on it is a breeze from heaven really, everything is on a couple CDs if you need to reload everything to original software, and the system and bios is very solid and stable. They are very prompt and professional about their service, polite, and better knowledged than Dell's support staff. I have had no problems with this PC after almost 18 months of heavy usage for my business. I only had a problem with the keyboard from frequent typing where one of the keys was loose, and they sent me a new keyboard within a few days, no questions asked and a thank you. I had scratched one of the software CDs and the same thing, obliged to send you new ones. If there are new drivers that need to be updated they go through the trouble to find it and put it on their website. On their support forum, as opposed to Dell which answers less than 10% of the questions---and people getting into a rage on Dells website and threats of lawsuits, Compaq answers 90% of the questions, and the ones they don't are just repeat questions. I love how my computer was built by Compaq, a real solid machine, nice motherboard by VIA, just a fantastic computer. They have cheap ones too no doubt but they have some real nice PCs too. It was my choice because of what the computer offered, COMPAQ name, and advice of others such as a CPA that uses only Compaqs in his work. Well, it works good for me too. Best Buy has a certified Compaq repair center where you can get done what needs to get done fast, and right but I have never needed them yet. Big contrast to what my brother went through with his Dell, he could build 20 PCs on his own now if he needed to from everything he has had to learn to get his computer to work right--- think changing a hard drive is just so simple--- you might want to think twice on that because it is not. But he has had to do that and about everything else. My sister bought an HP and it is so so, after 4 years the harddrive went out on that. My other sister has an NEC and it is not so fast or great, but it has had no hardware failure in 3 years and still going fine. COMPAQ tests their systems for reliability and ease of use before they mass issue a final model, they have worked closely with Western Digital in the development of components for hard drive controllers over the years, and they write their own BIOS which is solid in my view. This combined with high quality NEW components an effort to bring innovative ideas to their PCs, and excellent support makes COMPAQ who I will stick with now and in the future for computers. I simply would have no reason to buy a different brand. Moreover Compaq has been making PCs longer than anyone except IBM and apple, then Dell finally came on the scene. COMPAQ does know what they are doing when it comes to computers. Apple is another company that has some very good computers in terms of hardware reliability and overall quality. The extra price on those is worth it in my view, as they run great and 10 years from now it will still be running. Some people swear by IBMs too but I have not had personal experience with them. There is only one way you can make out with Dell, if you have any question about your PC when you buy it return it immediately before those 30 days run out and get your money back or they got you. If it does not work out, you can join their hoards of pissed off customers which they ignore. If Dell has screwed you over, if they have hurt you, I urge you to treat yourself to a new and better PC in this time of affordable computers going the route I did and put it behind you. My brother swears that he will never by any computer again of any brand due to this misery with Dell, it is too bad that the computer experience had to be that frustrating for him and I tell him that it doesn't have to be that way. I put heavy use on my Compaq and it returns me with a quality computing experience, where I am getting the things done on the computer for the reasons I bought it, not spending time worrying about it's operation. If I buy a computer in the future it will again be a Compaq or an Apple. I too used to think Dell was a good company before we went with them, but if people would look a little deeper they will find some real negligence and I believe gateway is the same way. Cheaper is often not better. Not always, but often there is a strong correlation between price and quality. Dell sounds like a good deal in it's adds and they do offer all the latest bells and whistles, but they fail to combine that into a overall stable, reliable system and then they top that off a real negligent and demoralizing approach to support. Even in the man that paid $10,000 for his computer, the same pattern of problems exists from the hardware, to the stability, and support. Oh yeah, and also about the diagnostics on Compaqs versus Dell, it is day and night. COMPAQ offers a real serious diagnostics utility on their computers, I mean comprehensive, Dell's is a real anemic utility that does not stress test the system therefore it will not give you much back as to what is going on anyway. Not only does Dell's diagnostics tell you very little, it does not run the real heavy stress tests like the Compaqs do which is the only way you're going to know if there are some problems. Dell's does a stress test but it is anemic and pathetic. If that issue concerns you about Dell's, you may want to try a store bought diagnostics that does some real work. If we would have run Compaq's diagnostic on my brothers Dell when he first bought it, those faulty harddrives would not have had a prayer. Then we could have said see! It is a piece of junk now authorize to pick it up and give us our money back. Why does Dell act the way they do? First because they know they are at fault and have something to hide, and they make money by screwing people with these computers that have problems, it is sort of like working with a mechanic that lies to you, it's always your problem and not theirs. I hope that it comes back on Dell someday. Truly professional companies do not treat their customers this way. They should be embarrassed by the things that people post on the Dell forum and they don't even engage to solve the problem. And you know something folks, there is no point of suing them, you will lose, they cover their butts pretty good in all the fine print, they keep records on all their customers and try to see how they can put it back on you-they constantly are building a case against you from day one-the higher you go in their system the more you will get bucked, although I can tell you my brother did get better help from them when he worked with their corporate support than just the regular team. Michael Dell is grinning from ear to ear. Just migrate away from them and to better products. Look into the real lawsuits that have been against Dell through the years and you will find some interesting things. They are the Philip Morris of the PC business in my view. Sorry about the length but hope it helps someone. Good luck people.

    Charles A. Gage from Grand Rapids, MI USA
    Date - Tuesday, July 17, 2001 at 21:27:01 (EDT)

    Dell's desktop PC's are considered par-excellance in my book. I support over 400 dell systems and i have made perhaps 20 support calls on the desktops over the last 3 years about half were for microsoft crap the other half was for hardware that was promptly replaced the next day. One note however, the laptops from two years ago suck and are prone to LCD problems. However the newer laptops are great. As far as desktops go i would never buy from another company.

    Paul Tilley from London, United Kingdom
    Date - Wednesday, July 04, 2001 at 06:22:29 (EDT)

    For my business, I have placed two orders with Dell, the second order was really giving them opportunity to illustrate that the experience of our first order was a one off (and to use the discounts they had offered because of the calamitous handling of the first order!).

    However, if the first order was an exception to the rule, then it is because the handling of it was not as bad as it is usually. I struggle to comprehend how an organisation can be as rude and inefficient as Dell, and still have any customers at all.

    We have suffered...

    - Delivery to the wrong address
    - Orders being rekeyed (invalidating our tracking numbers)
    - Orders being inexplicibably taken out of production
    - Rude individuals that do not return your calls or contact
    you again when they say they will (Gary O'Brien for anyone unfortunate enough to know of him)
    - Delivery timeframes that are more than double those anticipated
    - broken assurance after broken assurance

    So for any small IT businesses out there, DON'T BUY DELL, spend the extra money on a proper service, it will save you thousands if your staff can't work without the equipment.



    Some Guy from Monterrey, Mexico
    Date - Thursday, June 14, 2001 at 16:44:58 (EDT)

    We bought about 25 Dell Lattitude CPx Systems.
    3 of them had severe LCD deffects.
    1 had problems with it's DVD drive.
    4 had trouble with the track-point buttons. (breakage).
    1 had trouble with the closing clip. (breakage)
    At least 12 of them needed repairs in the first month of use.

    We will never buy dell computers.
    Cheap Dell is equivalent to expensive IBM in the end.



    Andrew Jowett from USA
    Date - Friday, June 08, 2001 at 11:45:31 (EDT)

    3 years ago I bought a Dell Latitude online and it took 5 weeks to deliver.

    Now, for the last 7 days I have tried to update and buy the latest and greatest Latitude but I am foiled every time.

    They wont accept my VISA card even though I have topped it up with over 6000 dollars!

    I am currnetly 'on the road' travelling being a freelance computer guy
    and my VISA card is from my home country.

    The UK office wont accept an Australian VISA card. How about that.

    Stuff them I wont buy it then.

    RL from USA
    Date - Wednesday, June 06, 2001 at 04:20:06 (EDT)

    Here's why I'm writing. My DVD drive (Hitachi) is failing on my 2-year-old Dell desktop. 9 out of 10 times my drive won't read any CD-ROMs/DVDs. I consider myself fairly experienced with computers.

    The tech support walked me through everthing they were required to. However, because the drive read the Dell Diagnostic CD-ROM once (in boot mode under DOS) he declared the drive was working. Never mind that I already told him that it does work occasionally, never mind that it won't work in Windows even with all start-up/autoexec/etc. disabled at start-up, or that we had gone through all the reinstall/reset drive already and it still wouldn't work in Windows. Never mind that the drive makes noises and falters while spinning the disk.

    The tech declared that the drive was working, and that "Windows must be corrupt, you need to reinstall Windows." WHAT???? That is his solution? I told him I wasn't going to re-install my entire system for a failing hardware problem. And that was it.

    The next day I took the drive out an put it in someone elses computer (not a Dell, not the same Windows configuration). Same thing it doesn't work (no surprise.)

    2 days later I called Customer Support, and asked for Warranty Repairs. I was told there is no such thing, that technical support had to authorize Warranty Repairs. I told them the tech gave me the wrong info, that I had verified it was the drive and not Windows. The guy got off the phone to talk to his supervisor, and they said I had to go through tech support and I was transferred.

    I told the new tech guy I had already gone through the whole spiel, and that it was not Windows. We argued for a while, he got off the phone to his supervisor and he told me they were filing it under "Customer Disatisfaction" (in other words, not under Warranty Repair, because it couldn't possibly be faulty hardware could it?) and they were sending a "new" drive.

    I asked if by "new" they meant "refurbished" and he said yes. I said I didn't want a refurbished drive, I wanted a new drive. He passed the buck, saying it wasn't his decision, that was policy. I was basically told to take it or leave it (but nicely, not in those exact words.) They then took my credit card number and said I would be charged $129.00 if I didn't return the bad drive. $129.00 for a "refurbished" drive, what a rip!

    So now we'll wait and see. I'm not holding my breath that this "new" drive will even work (or even reach me for that matter.) If it doesn't I'll have to go buy my own.

    I don't think companies should be allowed to get away with this. Don't believe anything you've read about their "great" customer support. As long as it doesn't cost Dell a dime they'll support you!

    I also recommend systems to people, both individuals and businesses. Dell is off my list.

    I am also a stockholder, and I'm ASHAMED to hold any Dell stock. I'll be selling it ALL very soon. I don't believe in this company anymore, and that was before I read the numerous complaints about Dell on the Internet. (See http://www.planetfeedback.com/ and http://www.ecomplaints.com/ for more Dell horror stories.)

    If Dell cares they can e-mail me at rliston@hotmail.com for my account info.


    ds from edr, India
    Date - Monday, May 28, 2001 at 21:33:08 (EDT)

    good

    Marianne Lare from USA
    Date - Wednesday, May 23, 2001 at 08:05:24 (EDT)

    So upset with Dell. After purchasing an expensive system (over $3,000) the mother board "died". They replaced it, but one day after the warrantee ran out the button on the front broke and when we purchased a new bezel(not sure of spelling)it stripped the floppy disk drive. After at least 20 calls at approx. 2 hours each (mostly on hold), there is no satisfaction! They tell me I can buy a new mother board AGAIN at my own expense! I'm purchasing through a different company and hope you do the same.

    Paul Ha from Vancouver, N/A Canada
    Date - Tuesday, May 15, 2001 at 00:53:52 (EDT)


    I just started a job with a really big hi tech company (which for obvious reasons I can not name) that sells to home consumers and companies.

    I suppose I was naive, but I was quite surprised to learn that no tears are shed over the complaints of home consumers. The profit margin on a $2000 computer system is extremely small. Think about what it costs for labour and resources to service the complaint of one home consumer. It is not worth it to the computer seller to try not to lose the customer.

    Even if you turn off a few other potential buyers, it is still not a big deal. The only people who are really worth the effort of keeping happy are the people buying hundreds of systems.

    This will apply no matter which company you buy from.

    Melvyn Ciment from Silver Spring, MD USA
    Date - Thursday, May 10, 2001 at 11:19:35 (EDT)

    Dell Service is Punishing

    Dear Mr. Dell,

    For 3 months Dell has been providing me "warranty" service on a flat panel screen that falls out of adjustment with a black vertical boarder about 3/8" after reboots. My personal computer consultant is convinced that this due to a faultily designed flat panel display. In the course of this service on my screen, Dell technical support has:
    1. Replaced the screen
    2. Replaced the video card
    3. Replaced the screen a second time
    4. Replaced the motherboard

    In the course of these actions, I have spent many hours on the phone listening to recorded messages promoting Dell's "on-line" web technical support. I can testify that their telephone estimated time of "6 minutes" is more like "20 minutes".

    When I summarized this history to the most recent technical support person, Cameron, after taking my information and telephone number, and after explaining the above, we became disconnected. Well, at least he knew my telephone number, and of course, I could not get back to him, as I would be put into the cue. Well he never did call me back
    My theory is that Cameron did what most "successful" on-line service people do. Hang up on the difficult ones and go on to keep up your productivity.

    I later learned that service reps do not have call-out capability. This means that the burden is on the customer to make repeated efforts at reaching some representative who will have pity on them and respond to their call. The customer service representative, Sam, my next stop in the Dell service web, ultimately strengthened my suspicions as he spoke of "metrics" that they all confront.

    Guess what? I do believe there is a part of Dell that cares. In my frustration, I contacted sales for companies with more than 3,500 employees worldwide. The person there actually stayed on the line until he had handed me off to Sam, in customer service.

    After describing my problems to the very friendly Sam, he said, I will get you Michael Dell if necessary to solve this problem, but right now I need to put you into customer support. I pleaded with him to get me the very best support person, since they had messed up my case. You see, with each call to Dell you encounter a new technical support person who invariably contradicts the prior person leading to the checkered history of retraced and wasted steps.

    Well, Sam, (Badge #390666) said, don't worry, I will connect you to the best. He then proceeded to put me into another half-hour cue for the general support.

    By the way, the last service representative, Mr. Stephen Brooks, the field technician from UNISYS, put in a new motherboard and in the process disabled my network connection. Well, I had his wireless number and gave him a call. I am still waiting for his callback!

    After one hour on the phone with Stephen (Badge #313258) he is deleting software parts of the network configuration to try and get my network working. In the process, we are now unable to boot… I panic and call my consultant who rushes over and finds that the helpful Stephen has deleted some necessary pieces. You see Dell guys really don't deal with networks. They try to be helpful, but in the process mistakes happen. But they always try and remain courteous, or hang up.

    With my software restored, my consultant has concluded that the newly installed motherboard has a defective network card and that was the reason my network wasn't up. Come to think of it that makes sense as that was the last thing changed! My consultant has had experience talking to Dell's "check-list" technicians, and fears that they will inevitably say it is the software. So he will bring a different network card over tomorrow to prove that a good hardware card will work.

    Getting back to the screen. Stephen's parting advice was that it is a software problem and since all the hardware related to the video has been checked, then all Dell can do is to check on the software. This means we need to re-install Windows. The Dell guy assures me this is needed. I ask him about my settings. Doesn't this entail erasing the hard drive (to be backed up) and then reinstalling Windows? That he says is my problem. He will try to help to recover the prior settings from the saved backup.

    Would you go down this path with a Dell technician over the phone on your computer after one of them has erased essential networking software that he wasn't familiar with? Moreover, who knows what the next technician in the Dell cue will suggest when it comes to restoring my computer's settings.

    Is this a service warranty?

    Sincerely,

    Dr. Melvyn Ciment
    Consultant
    Silver Spring, MD 20902


    Email Address: mel@ciment.com



    Vikki Hrody from Westchester, IL USA
    Date - Tuesday, May 01, 2001 at 00:38:32 (EDT)

    My God, where do I begin. I ordered my $10,000 dollar workstation (Yes, I said 10 big ones)from Dell in December of 2000. Naturally, I expected some delays, but after one month of waiting...it arrived. Thanks to UPS, the box was wet and kicked in the side. But not just any side, the back of the machine looked like King Kong had stuck his fist in it and with his nails, gouged the vital organs of the back till it lived no more. That was understandablely not Dell's fault, so I waited again, until I finally recieved my workstation in the mail. From day one the applications installed would unexpectedly quite, and a mysterious error log was being generated. Tech support could find no answer..."it must be your software"!

    I have had a bad soundcard replaced, a new cd-rom, and tech support has paid a wonderful visit to my house.

    Is the machine working...NO!

    I did not buy this machine to play games, I create them. I did not buy this machine to look cool animations, I create them....and after telling Dell the importance of this machine, and how I saved up the wonderful 10G to puchase this (and even how Dell was my final choice because I felt it was most reliable in my sceptical world, they still had the balls to say it was my software. PLEASE. I have contacted all of my software manufactures, and worked with them to solve any issue with their merchandise..and yes, DELL, it is you.

    After calling the tech department more than 12 times, I finally had enough, and contacted them once more. They sent a tech out to my house to replace my mother board...to help prevent these interesting Application errors. The man was tugged and tugged at the machine, trying to dislodge to mother board...HEY STUPID, REMOVE THE CD-RW and CD-rom. Then he continued to put a new one in, and replace the components, of which he flung to the side in a damaging fashion. Nothing working? Machine wont start? The fool did not seat the components properly, and contiued to see if he could remove them and fix the issue...nothing....so he calls his tech support and works with them...on MY GOD DAMN PHONE. Finally, after whispering..SORRY I CALLED, I SHOULD HAVE CHECKED THAT...THANKS, he removed everything again and replaced it...geeeee seating problem solved. But wait, the asshole finds out that the screws do not fit in the processor casing....so he pushes and pushes and pushes, scratching away at my mother board underneath. He then removes the processors, and flings them, YES, he freaking flings them on the side and they slam into one another....he then tugs like the mother board is silly putty, to try and get it to strech and fit. If he would remove the memory and the video card..he could do this easy..but no ( MY CASE IS NO TOTALLYOUT OF WACK and the back of my machine wiggles as well as the front). AFter all this, the fool puts it all toghether and the machine starts, but it rattles and it makes the loudest sound...I cant work on it without music because it gives me headache, and sometimes, I want to cry because I feel raped and my machine has been violated. There is a burning smell that comes from the back and I know something is bent, scratched, and not right. Dell will not honor this and give me a new machine.....They claim that the 30 days are up, and that those 30 days start from your invoice....REALLY, because I technically did not get my machine till the end of January....and my invoice ( I PAID FOR THIS) in the beginning of December. DEll says that counts, and refuses to budge. I am considering a law suit, and as of today, AM. I cant stand this. NEVER EVER EVER EVER buy a Dell.

    NEVER


    moss from London, United Kingdom
    Date - Thursday, April 26, 2001 at 10:52:24 (EDT)

    March 5th is when I ordered a dell 5000. They extremley
    effecientley took my money in a matter of days.

    26th April and still no laptop. I do however have a 50 pound bill, loss of income of 1300 pound, I'm a programmer.

    And no-one not even managment bothering to give a shit.

    It came to a point where I had the delivery people
    phoning me up and saying the laptops on it's way...
    and me like dumb fuck leaving work early 3 fucking times
    to wait for 5 hours whilst someone phones me up and
    says "It's commin ", sniggered and put the phone down
    on me.

    I'am NOT talking bullshit. These muthafuckers have so much on my fucking nerves and caused me so much stress that I'am
    going to the BBC watchdog and I'm gonna take these fuckers
    to court for loss of income.

    I had fucking managers phoning me up and telling me that
    the laptop was comming for weeks, even promising me upgrades and "good-will-gestures".

    Buoy are they fuckin with wrong guy......
    I'm a unix/linux man, damn they are gonna get it

    DO NOT FUCKIN BUY DELL, MUTHAFUCKERS!

    C. S. DiNardo from Manchester, CT USA
    Date - Wednesday, April 25, 2001 at 21:04:29 (EDT)

    I have purchased 5 Dell machines over the past 4 years, largely as a result of their sterling--and completely fictional--customer support reputation. I believe this qualifies me for the "fool me twice, shame on me" award, as I have had repeated hardware problems with each and every Dell, desktops and laptops. All were bleeding-edge, top-of-the-line computers, all cost in excess of $3000, and ALL were riddled with defective hardware, out of the box.
    I will say that Dell's techs are, by and large, courteous and well-meaning; however, it is screamingly obvious that the company line precludes them from offering any substantive help, particularly in regard to bad hardware.

    This "put 'em through hoops" mentality requires the end-user to spend futile hours on the phone, going through the most basic diagnostic procedures, only to be told to "download new drivers" or that it's a "software incompatibity problem"...regardless of the system, symptoms, or expertise level of the owner. In one instance, a Dell tech had the gall to tell my PC-adept, 16 year-old son that he (the purported tech) couldn't assist my son, inasmuch as the OEM OS was Win95, and my son had upgraded to Win98. NOT true, as he could undoubtedly see from the "Dell Service Profile", but it achieved the tech's end. My son gave up, and now uses that particular PC for parts, when he can find one that works. He has since built his own high-performance machine, which cost us half the price and a fraction of the aggravation---and WORKS!!!

    The latest is my XPS 866, a $4000+ desktop which came with a DOA DVD drive. After too many frustrating, unproductive hours on a support call, again to a very pleasant,but less-than-competent tech, I simply replaced the drive at my own expense. So, in the end, I suppose my calls to tech support DID result in my acquiring a working drive....

    Scott Pattee from Eugene, OR USA
    Date - Tuesday, April 24, 2001 at 20:39:45 (EDT)

    Ah my horrific experience with Dell. I ordered the machines Dec 15th or so, bought 2 machines. The first arrived in a realtively short amount of time, and has worked pretty good considering it has Win ME on it. The 2nd machine didn't arrive until January 3 and right out the box what bless my screen is PNP Error with the internal Ethernet. I look on the back of the machine and one of the lights is yellow, i pull the old dell handbook and it gives me the color coding for the light saying that it's error "Other". So i think ok, i'll just reload the os on the machine.

    I was able to boot to safe mode after many restarts, and reloaded the os.

    That intial message didn't reappear prior to booting for a couple of days, but the ethernet adapter was not responding and windows would inform me of this every time i would boot.

    I attempted to reload the driver each time and it would recognize it but not want to work.

    Fairly busy during the week so i attempted to work with it unstead of just giving up.

    A week later the system decides not to even boot so i give tech support a call. They say they can have someone out there in a few days or i can wait 2 weeks for a new machine.

    I tell them at this point, I want a brand new machine. I noticed that case itself is extremely flimsy and was fairly irratated with the tech, trying to get me to not order a replacement machine.

    He tells me to Wait 10 to 15 business Days, This is January 14.

    I wait patiently, thinking dell is a good computer company and i have nothing to worry about.

    Feb 1st rolls around, hrmm no computer. Called into see the status on my machine they said machine was still being "processed", i said processed for what? they said for verification.. I went ok... And she gave me a set of #'s so i could watch the progress of my machine on there site.


    I watched the progress on the website until it says shipped and waited 3 to 4 business for the machine to come.. It didn't. I call up dell to see what the hold up was, this is Feb 16th, The CSR says the machine has "fallen through the cracks" and was NOT shipped and gave me YET another new batch of #'s.

    This point i'm fairly pissed and i'm watching the status of my machine for yet another week and a half and it seems to be stuck on assembly. Called back yet again on Feb 27th come to find out it's been lost YET AGAIN and that and would not ship for yet another 2 1/2 weeks. This point I grew very Angry :). I requested that i do not want there computer and that they should take it back.

    A dell supervisor Janey Spellman offers me a 350 dollar credit (which she doesn't follow up on). I tell her that I thank her for her offer but i do NOT want the machine.

    She puts me on hold and has the audacity to tell me that I am PASSED my 30 DAY RETURN PERIOD.

    I tell her i've barely had a working machine for a WEEK!!!

    I told her that i am interested in a dell inspiron notebook and maybe we can work something out.

    Eventually what would happen is traded the Dimension for the inspiron notebook 8000, good notebook (only thing that dell is good at)

    I had a few other questions, she gave me her email address and of course no extnesion. The homeconnect phoneline network (which is total crap)network the promotional items,
    it costing me 100 dollars for the PACKAGING of the dimension back to Dell. Some form of compensation and some sort of apology.

    I repeatedly sent this email, with no avail. Just pregenerated BS. Finally fed up i called in to try to get there extensions so i could give Janey Spellman a piece of my mind. And her supervisors extension, Briana Cahill.

    I have repeatedly, and i mean REPEATEDLY left messages for either one to give me a call. AT work and at HOME, they have yet to get a hold of me as of April 23rd.

    I have received no credit, and i'm still trying to get my bill sorted out.

    BTW the labtop is pretty damn cool, just wish i would of got it instead! and saved myself a lot of pain.

    I work in tech support for an isp, and when people ask for a new computer i told them to check out dell. This you can guess is not happening anymore.

    Dell needs to have a MAJOR shake up happen.. Some people who work there are damn nice but the system they do business is a total fuck up.

    Hope they can get it straightened out until then, For God's sake don't buy Dell... (unless you want a notebook!)

    Scott

    Andy theaker from United Kingdom
    Date - Wednesday, April 18, 2001 at 13:09:07 (EDT)

    Another Dell experience!!
    4 weeks ago I purchased a Dell laptop as a business customer in the UK on receiving the laptop which I purchased against a spec in one of thier published marketing flier when it arrived it did not match my order spec I was told it would be sort and that the part was going to be dispatch it wasn't and was never ordered I have made more than 20 calls and been on hold for 6 hours that’s right SIX hours I'm no further forward than when I started. Everyone I have spoken to have promised to get back, no one has ever! everyone gives out their phone number but are either on another call or are out of the office I'm told to either leave a message and their get back or I could try yet another customer service rep who has no authority to change any thing and wants to put me though to the original sales person who is avoiding me like the plague! she is either out on the phone or unavailable can no one make a decision from me and sort out the companies bad service.
    Does any one have the e mail address of any of their board members if can you post them to this site so we can all let them konw of the very poor service they offer.......
    One very unsatisfied customer!!!

    Robin and Daniel McGowan from Washington, PA USA
    Date - Tuesday, April 17, 2001 at 02:02:20 (EDT)

    We recently bought a Dell computer, my husband thought it would be a good idea since I go to Nursing School and we have four children. He investigated his options and thought that Dell was the best choice. We have had nothing but problems ever since we got this computer, not able to sign on to the Dellnet that was to come with the computer. The Dell support team tells us that it is something that we are doing, "we have too many cookies?" thats why we are not hooked up to the internet. What the hell does that mean? Then my mother bought her grandchildren some games to play on the computer and they told us that the games were not compatible to this system. I have several friends that have computers and their children play games and have never experienced this!. I'm pissed off and ready to have them take this computer back! Don't need the aggrivation.

    Tom Anders from San Francisco, CA USA
    Date - Friday, April 06, 2001 at 12:57:24 (EDT)

    Dell Update! Customer Service Still Sucks!

    Well since I posted the previous message last night, Dell has screwed me again. Was waiting for a technician to arrive to fix a computer for my home this time. Called back after not hearing seeing a tech. I had being assured that a technician had received the part and scheduled for a visit today. Call technician - they have no tracking number no part. Then do the Dell wait on hold dance - Dell says the part never went out to begin. Ask to speak to a supervisior - and ask that person for the name of the person in charge of customer service. "I don't know - send a note to sales@customerservce." Like hell - ask to speak to the supervisor in charge on duty right now. On hold as I right this but he reports that the part has indeed gone out - despite what I was told an hour again. I ask them what type of koolaid are they drinking over there. He puts me on hold and says he needs to look into this further. I wait as I right this....another 5 minutes.... Supervisor comes back - yes part has not been dispatched. Can not find out why its been held up but assures me he will take charge of this personally. Gives me his phone ext and says to only contact him. Says he will call me as soon as he can resolve the matter which should occur today. Let's make some bets if this is the end of it? I'm making a bet against..that this order get's lost and I start all over again. Will update progress or lack there of on this site.


    Tom Anders from USA
    Date - Friday, April 06, 2001 at 02:29:47 (EDT)

    Dell Onsite Warranty is a Joke!!

    My company purchased 25 Dell Inspirons with onsite service warranty. The company is obliged to either ship a replacement part or have a technician visit to make repairs. Of the 12 times we have requested parts/repairs - not ONCE has Dell lived up to this obligation. In 9 instances, we had to call back to track down what happened to the order and basically start the process all over again. Frequently the delay ran into weeks!

    In once case, a computer that turned out to be a total lemon and had even been sent to the factory was obviously beyond repair. Dell said our only option was that they would repurchase the computer for $1500 after we had just spent $2800 less than 8 weeks before.

    In short, the mystique of Dell customer service is a joke. I make a point of telling everyone I know in business who make purchasing decisions to avoid Dell. Suggest that everyone spread the word!

    Diana Jamrog from Livonia, MI USA
    Date - Friday, March 30, 2001 at 16:54:36 (EST)

    After doing a considerable amount of research, I ordered my Dell computer (Dimension XPS B1000r)the end of September '00 and received it at the end of October '00. What sold me was their supposed reliability and support. It is the fourth computer I've purchased and by far, the service and reliability has been the worst. I had difficulty setting up my printer and after numerous calls decided to figure it out myself. On January 3, '01 my hard drive crashed. What followed was a nightmare of bad tech advice from it was my Windows that had gone bad and would have to be reinstalled to it could be fixed with one of the disks sent with my machine and to call back. The waits on the phone were horrendous. One wait was 2 hours and 20 minutes to speak to a tech. When they finally did acknowledge that it was a bad hard drive, their in home service consisted of a service man coming in, physically removing the old hard drive and replacing it with a new one and out the door in five minutes. I had to format, install Windows, drivers (many of which on the disks supplied for my system were the wrong drivers). It took close to a day and a half to do and was extremely frustrating. This past Tuesday, almost exactly three months later, the second hard drive crashed. This time a great tech (Jennifer) who diagnosed it right away, told me my controller card may have had something to do with the hard drives crashing and ordered that along with a new hard drive. I asked for a preloaded hard drive this time and she forwarded me to customer service who said they don't send out loaded hard drives then rescinded after my tale of woe and put me in touch with a technician. He said they couldn't do it because I had Windows 98 on my system and they don't load 98 any longer. I offered to buy Windows ME and he said he still couldn't do it. So, I swallowed my frustration (after almost and hour and a half on the phone) and said okay send the blank hard drive. Two days later the service tech shows up with the controller card but NO HARD DRIVE. I'm further behind now with work projects, will probably have to take another day off. In light of everything I've read in so many places, I still can't believe what I've had to go through with Dell and my computer is still non functional. The more people I've talked to, especially those that have bought their computers in the past year to year and a half, the more similar problems I've heard. I just wish publications were more reliable with their recommendations.

    Allen Scheid from IL USA
    Date - Tuesday, March 13, 2001 at 13:18:21 (EST)

    I have been a big fan of Dell for many years...Have bought a couple computers over the years... But no more.

    I have been trying for months to get a response on how to pay off my monthly loan on my new computer. I have written letters, sent faxes, and called... waiting hours on the line with no response from a live person.

    Dell is losing it and I don't think they care.


    Donna Heroy from chicago, IL USA
    Date - Wednesday, February 14, 2001 at 17:12:15 (EST)

    On November 21, 2000,I ordered a Dell computer for an employee as a Christmas gift. It never arrived for Christmas. When I contacted Dell in Jan 2001, I was told that the order was cancelled [no explaination as to the reason] but I was never contacted. I was upset that this gift did not come in time. Dell asked me to place the order again, but I requested that Dell do "something" to make up for the fact that no one contacted me and the gift did not arrive on time. I was told by customer service that "something" could be done after the order was placed. But of course, the sales folks do NOT have access to the notes that customer service makes. To make a very long story short, I placed the order and asked for a color printer and surge protector to be sent as no cost to me. To date, my employee still has not received this. She has received the system as ordered. But to follow up on the printer and surge protector, I have had to call and talk to a number customer service reps. Although they each give me their number, they don't seem to record notes or name in my record. So each time I call I must go through the whole situation again. Each one promises me that the items will be sent, but each follow up call reveals that they have not in fact been sent. I get a different story each time. "Another step to be done" or "I need to send an email" I have even talked to "supervisors" who promise to document the poor response and service, but it seems that they do not. To date I have spoken to these folks: John Slagle [85059], Mark [no number given], Nathan [who PPROMISED to call me back to handle the problem but never did...his number is 312678] Mike [42888] is the only guy who ever called me back; Jennifer [no number] Dan [311542] who claimed to be a supervisor and would record the fact that I had to call so many times...he only recorded that fact that I said that I was going to contact the media!; Sue [13761] and Arlene [30902]

    I cannot understand how Dell gets away with this!The recorded message claims to record your conversation for training purposes. Someone better turn the switch on.

    RAUL GONZALEZ from FRESNO, CA USA
    Date - Tuesday, February 13, 2001 at 05:43:48 (EST)

    I WANT TO DO DIAGNOSTICS WITH MY OWN COMPUTER

    chris miner from ottawa, N/A Canada
    Date - Thursday, February 08, 2001 at 17:19:46 (EST)

    never had want to buy a computer

    Julian AF Bradbury from Cheshire, United Kingdom
    Date - Tuesday, January 30, 2001 at 11:38:49 (EST)

    Dell UK refurbished laptops are ok, but their UK repairs
    seem to be outsourced to another company. Their QC in the
    repair isn't brilliant. I had a I7k-366LT which would not
    switch from mains to internal battery due to a failed main
    board 1 month in to ownership. Otherwise rock solid.

    Couldn't do without the machine as my ThinkPad had failed,
    so had to suffer for a few months. Eventually borrowed a
    US colleagues Latitude and the I7k sent for repair. They
    even replaced the 15" screen for a few dead pixels that I
    hadn't mentioned, but the PCMCIA slots are now tight due to
    a circuit board underneath (2 back to back) buckled upwards
    making use of both PCMCIA slots near impossible/straining.

    However the repair has worked fine and this m/c sees 12hrs
    a day usage if not more. A 3mm slab of anodised aluminium
    alloy underneath adds stiffness & better cooling (P-II 366).

    Aside: their UK corporate sales is not good at all. They
    truly need to overhaul the staff & plain processes. From
    warranty advice of going-out-of-date service plans, to
    basic ticketing, logging & escalation of problems. I'll stop
    short of calling Dell UKs staff clueless but they are not of
    much use to the US corporation as value-added. However, they
    are quite Saintly when compared to Sony UK service which is
    more akin to beg on thy knees for the privelidge of service.

    The most important think Dell should do is 1-stop-CS in
    /both/ the UK *AND* Ireland. So those ringing the UK do not
    explain their problem only have to re-explain it 4 times
    to those in Ireland. The person answering the phone in the
    UK, and I don't care who it is, should have access to a PC
    to enter the details, ticket it and it pops up on a CS rep
    in Ireland who acts on it. No re-explaining problems, no
    failure to return phone calls. Don't ever Fax Dell UK as
    they will not forward it to Dell Ireland and seem to be in
    a fairy-tale land of no doors/windows/phones/humans.
    I suspect the Ireland operation doesn't have Fax-to-desktop
    CS either, there's too little basic streamlined automation.

    Also Dell could do with making ThinkPads for IBM, that way
    IBM can focus on the things it should be doing ;-) Such as
    manning 500,000 UK voice mail boxes with 6.253 people.

    UK Operations needs to tidy some things up, or US Ops need
    to pay them a surprise visit & BPR a few very simple areas.

    Ed Bott from Edinburgh, United Kingdom
    Dell Auction
    Date - Monday, January 29, 2001 at 12:49:08 (EST)

    Here's a warning..

    I bid on a Dell notebook and won on the 14th. December, 2000, got the e-mail telling me so etc. I was so pleased to be finally getting a decent laptop as I am a network engineer and a decent laptop is pretty much part of the tool-box these days.

    Guess what, to-day is the 29th of January, 2001 and Im still waiting! I phoned two weeks ago and they said that someone had cancelled my order by mistake! So as an act of good faith they are going to upgrade the processor! Gee thanks... just send me the darn laptop! They promised me that I would have it in 7-10 working days.... yeah right!

    I cant even get anyone on the phone long enough to cancel the order, no-one wants to speak to me. As soon as I give them my order number the music goes on until I get fed-up and hang-up.

    What a way to run a company! Todays episode beats all... I work for a rather large corporation and we buy our laptops from yes you guessed, Dell. So I ask one of the managers for a phone number in corporate sales thinking that maybe I will get someone to speak to me. So I phone the number and I get this guy who tells me thats terrible the way you have been treated etc and apologies etc. He tells me he's going to transfer me to the customer care manager in Bray Ireland right away! So I get the music again for another 10 minutes and a girl comes on the line "can I help you" I say yes and have to explain everything to her blah blah ... So i say to her can you help me out? She replies no.. Im just the receptionist! Can you beleive that! She says Ill get someone to call you.. Haha yeah thats right Im still waiting for the call. What a can of worms!

    I just want to cancel the order and buy a laptop from Compaq! Icant even do that because they palm me off to the girl at the front desk who cant do anything! I give up..

    Watch this space...

    jlevanti from Wolcott, CT USA
    Date - Monday, January 22, 2001 at 11:33:11 (EST)

    I bought a new Dimension 8100 from Dell. It arrived two days after being shipped from their wharehouse. I called and ordered a CD-RW drive afterwards and it too arrived in two days. I was impressed with their service and quick shipping. I even questioned their promotions that they offer during certain periods and explained how they should not change them so frequently. As I found out that after I placed my order, and recieved it, I learned that I could have bought the same system with a free scanner and free shipping. They ended up sending me a free scanner. My friend also ordered a system under the free scanner promotion and he did not get the scanner. He called and learned that the scanner was on backorder. They overnight shipped it to him at no cost two days later. People have had bad experiences with all companies from time to time and I see that some problems appear to be software issues and not hardware issues. Dell is not responsible for software issues on your system. You can get help from Dells partner site ALL.com for this.

    Justin again. from USA
    Date - Thursday, January 18, 2001 at 12:18:09 (EST)

    Ok there is a warrenty that you can purchase with your system that will have a tech agent come to your house and repair hardware and all you have to do is request it. And depending on if you've opened the box or not you can sometimes send back DellWare items. Just for a future note, DellNet is not a part of Dell and anyone using DellNet by MSN it is a MSN account not a DellNet account.

    P.S. E-Mail me, I'm a lonely customer serivce rep =)


    Justin
    -!-( Defender of Dell )-!-

    Louis Wilen from Olney, MD USA
    Date - Wednesday, January 17, 2001 at 00:31:32 (EST)

    I purchased two identical Dimension systems from Dell. One system exhibits chronic problems, such as GPFs, and so forth. The other runs okay (so far). They both run the exact same software (the standard Dell Windows ME load and the Dell-supplied Microsoft applications). Anyone with any kind of logical reasoning skills can instantly diagnose this as a hardware problem. I have run every diagnositc, etc. that the Dell techs requested (and of course, the diagnostics report no problems). I have swapped SIMMS between the two machines as requested. I have waited on hold for hours and been cut off several times. I have spent hours waiting for responses using their on line "Resolution Assistant" feature. I have spent over 12 hours on hold, on line, and so forth with the hopelessly incompetent Dell techs repeating the same tests over and over.

    It is now clear to me that Dell will not replace hardware unless it is essentially DEAD. They simply will not admit that there is a problem unless the hardware is virtually DEAD. If the system gets solid POST errors and won't boot up, then you might get service. For intermittent problems, though, forget about any reasonable service from Dell.

    My next step: A letter to the Attorney General of Texas and to my county's consumer protection division. That should do the trick!

    My recommendation: Buy IBM! It costs about 15% more, but it's worth every cent.


    Shana from AR USA
    Date - Tuesday, January 16, 2001 at 23:18:18 (EST)

    Well i must say after reading all of these different opinions, that i am confused. My two Dell systems have always been supported well and i feel i have been taking care of when problems arised. I will continue to shop with Dell and i hope that these other problems that people are having will soon go away.

    Loyal Dell owner

    Shana

    from USA
    Date - Sunday, January 14, 2001 at 01:27:47 (EST)

    I was having seconds thought about purchasing a Dell. But the more I read these posts I have to wonder how truthful some of these posts are and if people research what they are ordering.

    I know if I am going to drop alot of money on a computer I would do my own research and not just rely on what a sales person tells me. Why would someone buy a computer and not open it for a month. I mean come on!
    I'm still not sure if I am going to buy a Dell or build my own. One thing I have learned is that if you spend time researching your purhcase you WILL most likely find the information you need. So look before you leap. Surf before you spend.

    And for the lady in Indiana who waited over a month to set up her system I found this information in less then 5 minutes just by going to Dells website.

    Total Satisfaction Return Policy
    If you are an end-user customer who bought new products directly from a Dell company, you may return them to Dell within 30 days of the date of invoice for a refund'or credit'of the product purchase price. If you are an end-user customer who bought reconditioned or refurbished products from a Dell company, you may return them to Dell within 14 days of the date of invoice for a refund or credit of the product purchase price. In either case, the refund or credit will not include any shipping and handling charges shown on your invoice. If you are an organization that bought the products under a written agreement with Dell, the agreement may contain different terms for the return of products than specified by this policy.

    To return products, you must call Dell Customer Service to receive a Credit Return Authorization Number. Refer to the chapter titled "Getting Help" in your'system's troubleshooting documentation or, for some systems, the section titled "Contacting Dell" in your system's online guide to find the appropriate telephone number for obtaining customer assistance. To expedite the processing of your refund or credit, Dell expects you to return the products to Dell in their original packaging'within five days of the date that Dell issues the Credit Return Authorization Number. You must also prepay shipping charges and insure the shipment or accept the risk of loss or damage during shipment.'You may return software for refund or credit only if the sealed package containing the diskette(s) or CD(s) is unopened. Returned products must be in as-new condition, and all of the manuals, diskette(s), CD(s), power cables, and other items included with a product must be returned with it. For customers who want to return, for refund or credit only, either applications software or an operating system that has been installed by Dell, the whole system must be returned, along with any media and documentation that may have been included in the original shipment.

    This "Total Satisfaction" Return Policy does not apply to DellWare® products, which may be returned under DellWare's then-current return policy. See DellWare Return Policy. In addition, reconditioned parts purchased through Dell Spare Parts Sales in Canada are nonreturnable.


    Justin from Dell Customer Service from USA
    Date - Saturday, January 13, 2001 at 17:13:29 (EST)

    Hello,
    I am a Dell customer service rep and I would like to appoligize for any inconvenience any of you irate Dell Customers have experienced. I take it upon myself to provided the best customer service I can to Dell Customers. I think that Dell is not a bad company and that they provided the best customer support possible, the hold times are only extreme because of the lack of staffing. Feel free to E-mail me with any questions. Thank you,
    Justin.

    jonny from bergsville, nc USA
    Date - Thursday, January 11, 2001 at 23:08:47 (EST)

    I LOVE MY DELL. service has been outstanding and even my grandma can use it!!!

    Tim from Austin, TX USA
    Subtracts.com
    Date - Wednesday, January 10, 2001 at 20:00:48 (EST)

    Dell is one of the best!! I have owned Gateways and compaqs, and my two Dell systems beat them both in performance and customer service. For every one customer that is dissatisfied with Dell, there are 20 customers very pleased with Dell. Remember, no company in the world is perfect. And if you think that Dell is bad in customer service, just go out and buy a gateway and see what happens. Also know what you are buying. As for tech support, it is imparitive that when the Tech asks you to open up the Chassis, YOU DO IT! Dont be scared of your computer. All of these people complaining about Dell probably couldnt even tell you what RAM is! If you just listen to what the tech asks you to do, not only will your problem be solved, but YOU WILL LEARN something in the process. And that is what Dell is really about, teaching people as best they can for FREE how to work your PC. Also remember that compared to other PC giants, Dell is still very new in the game. And yet the revenue poured in is fantastic.
    So keep on complaining people! Do you really think you will get better service at Gateway or Compaq??? Because if you do, you are dumber than you sound!

    Nix0024 from Cedar Park , TX USA
    Date - Wednesday, January 10, 2001 at 14:05:44 (EST)

    I have two Dell systems. An Optiplex gx100 and a Inspiron 7500 Both have been flawless. I am more than pleased with my produts I have received. One reason, of many, is that I KNOW how to use it. Many of these complaints is no more than a statement of ignorance. For some reason people have a misguided beleife that since Dell has the best rated Customer Service, that they should also proved leasons on how to use it. That is simply an unrealistic view. You can't but a car and get all your road test and driving school through them for free. Dell, since it is such a customer serviced based company recognises this problem and provede WWW.EducateU.com to learn how to use your new PC. But people still choose not to and risk it on there own, than feel that Dell is to blame when there lack of foresight ruins part of there PC. Also people seem to beleive, and the statements I have read on here support this statement. That since Dell is a thriving company making billions of dollars that we should take the loss in all situations, even if not a Dell issue, clearly the consumers inabillity to reason, and if not capable of reasoning to ask a question. If you want to return something later, you could probobly reason that there is a cut of date and same as most companies Dell's is 30 days from the date of invoice. But if you are not able to deduct this for yourself, a simple concise question would have saved your ass. i.e "What is your return policy?" Would have sufficed.
    Honestly, most you making these statements by your own admision are computer illetarate. That being the case, as in anything else do your research. By smart we all know that. But I challange you all to another task use smart know what your doing to your computer. If you don't know now go learn at your local community college. If you choose to ignore this. Please do not call Dell and bitch at them or post trival messages on sites like this because you did not take the time or put forth the effort to protect your 2000.00 investment and now it is ruined.

    Oh and just a side not.
    If you buy the cheapest sytem Dell makes. Don't expect it to do and have the same options as the system that is 3-4X as expensive.
    Thank you for reading this in its entirety.
    Nic

    Lisa Thompson from Hartsville, IN USA
    Date - Tuesday, January 09, 2001 at 12:33:49 (EST)

    On October 20, 2000 I ordered a Dell Computer for a Christmas Gift for my family. I was NEVER told by Dell that I only had thirty days to return it if I was unhappy with it. I ordered it early because I had heard that Dell sometimes takes several weeks to ship, and the salesperson confirmed that it could take up to thirty days.

    I set the computer up in early December 2000 to make sure everything was working properly. Within two days the DVD/CD disk drive was no longer working at all. The pointer was freezing up, and the computer was impossible to use. The first night I called Dell’s Technical Support, I was on the phone for four hours. This includes many long “on hold” periods.

    The first technician I spoke with informed me that since I had downloaded software, my warranty wasn’t valid. I explained to him that I had downloaded some very popular software, and that I hadn’t had a problem with this same software on My gateway Computer. Nevertheless, he informed me that the malfunction of the machine was indeed my fault, and my problem.

    I asked to speak with a Senior Technician, and after over thirty minutes of “hold time”, I was able to speak with him. He told me that it sounded like a hardware problem, and that I would need to open up the computer to see if we could fix the problem over the phone. I told him that I was uncomfortable doing that, and the reason why I purchased a Dell was because of the “Full Warranty”. He said if I didn’t open the computer they would not send a technician onsite, even though that was supposedly covered in the warranty.

    He put me through to Customer Service, where I reached a very loud, overly aggressive clerk, who informed me that she would personally make sure I was stuck with the system, because my thirty days to return it had expired. She yelled so much, that I finally had to become rude myself to get a word in at all. She then threatened to hang up on me, telling me that “Customer Service people do not have to put up with this. I guess the only people required to put up with this treatment are purchasers of Dell Products.

    It is my opinion, that since I had only just opened up the computer, and registered it, that it was obvious I had not been using it Since the end of October. I feel that the company should have been able to realize that I had purchased a defective product, and make some attempt to correct the problem. This company absolutely refused to do anything at all. They went so far as to give me a false address to send a letter of complaint to. I mailed it certified mail, and it was returned as undeliverable. I mailed a letter to the President of the company, and even though I received the certified receipt, no one ever responded to my pleas for assistance.

    I offered to pay shipping, and send the system back to them. They refused. I placed the matter in dispute in the hands of my credit card company. They suggested I send the system back to Dell anyway, which I did. Dell now has the system, and still has not responded in any way to my inquiries. The Credit card company is still investigating the dispute.

    It is my personal opinion that Dell does not provide the support that they claim they will. I would recommend that anyone considering a Dell Computer, check out the hundreds of complaints on the internet BEFORE they make the commitment to purchase one.

    Chris from New York, NY USA
    Date - Friday, December 29, 2000 at 20:38:33 (EST)

    DELL IS A TERRIBLE PRODUCT.

    I bought a refurbished laptop from them a little over a year ago. It never ran right and I was told over and over from tech support that it is a windows problem. Every "fix" they gave me made the problem worse. Finally, and conveniently I might add, a month after the warranty expired, the motherboard went. I was told by customer service, finally, they would pay for installation. Now they are refusing. I am enraged so I am not going to go on here. Suffice it to say that they are not living up to what they told me, they are not standing by their product and te computer never worked to begin with. I am not done however and may just post a sucess story hereafter. DON"T BUY DELL COMPUTERS.

    Zap from longwood, FL USA
    Date - Friday, December 22, 2000 at 20:41:43 (EST)

    Ok I for one have had it with Dell Tech. support. Why you ask? Because I am a Dell Tech. And to be fair to Dell all blame should not fall on Dell. But on companies like CONVERGYS. Yes convergys they are an outsource company for Dell which means we do tech support for dell and gateway, sunbeam, and palm pilot just to name a few.
    This is why it matters. It is said that Convergys has a 100% turnover rate or more of employment. What does that mean to you the consumer? Well they i would say that 40% of the people they hire know very little to nothing about PC's. And then give them a 3 week cram session on how to fix your $3000 system. Yes thats right. And further more they want you to be off the phone with in 18 minutes. And guess what the starting pay is.
    $9per hour. That is below poverty level.
    It is said that Convergys handles 49% off Dell's Tech calls. And with my own ears I heard Convergys say they trained 500 people in 1 month ( and they were proud of the fact that they cant keep employees.)
    Convergys is not the only outsource Dell uses. There is one called Stream and a couple others that I dont know of.
    I feel it is my duty to tell you that when you call you have the right to know who you are talking to.

    And if you want to write a letter to either Dell or Convergys here are the addresses.

    Convergys
    225 International Parkway
    Lake Mary, Florida 32746
    Phone# 407-771-6354


    Dell Computer Corporation
    One Dell Way
    Round Rock, Tx 78682

    Customer Service# 1-800-624-9897 ext.66966


    Thomas Tseng from Los Angeles, CA USA
    Date - Friday, December 22, 2000 at 15:35:11 (EST)



    The following is a message I wrote to Dell. Dell promises next business day service (yeah right), and the letter describes the ordeal that I'm going through with them now.

    December 22, 2000



    Tracking number: AT20001221_0000036904

    To Whom It May Concern:

    This letter is to express my extreme frustration and utter disappointment with Dell's customer services. I began to experience monitor malfunctioning problems with my laptop on Friday, December 15, 2000. On the following Saturday afternoon, I called Dell's technical support services to report these problems and requested service. The man who attempted to troubleshoot my system was rude, impatient, and impudent. After some useless walk throughs testing my monitor capabilities, he recommended on-site service (reference # 15628474). He took down all my information (but had problems helping to identify my DPN#) and told me that actual service would not occur until Tuesday (Dec. 19).

    The following enumerates the additional problems I have had with Dell since then:

    w On Monday, Dec. 18, I received a call from a "Robert", who left me a message to request additional information (DPN #) and left me a phone number: (800) 624-9896 ext. 44868. I called back and left two messages: one on Dec. 18th, the other on Dec. 19th. I never received a single call back from this "Robert."

    w On Tuesday, I received no call or indication that my computer was going to be fixed, so starting at 11 am, I called Dell technical support to verify the status of my request. After waiting an hour, I was told the number I called (800) 624-9896 was not the laptop division, but was the desktop division. I was given the laptop division phone # (800) 247-9252. Why would someone call me about a laptop problem and leave a desktop phone #? Incomprehensible.

    w I finally spoke to "Patty" (badge# 304006), who was very helpful, but she mentioned that my request order had not yet been completed. This was utterly unacceptable to me, since I already had interaction (directly or indirectly) with two Dell tech service employees. According to my service contract, I am to receive next business day service; if I didn't receive service until Wednesday (Dec. 20), then this would violate the service agreement in my contract. She completed the information and sent out the part and order. Because of previous hassles I already faced, I wanted to get her name and contact information in case I had to deal with problems again. I did not want to leave voicemail messages that would never get listened to. She said she could not do that, so I asked to speak to her supervisor.

    w Patty put me in touch with her supervisor "Cory" (badge# 69740) who I had a testy conversation with. Cory was also very rude and unhelpful. He said there was nothing he could do and asked what I expected. I said I expected immediate service, and some form of recourse as a consumer so that I could hold someone accountable if my computer didn't get fixed. He said there was nothing he could do about that. When I asked to speak to his supervisor, he said he had many, but assured me that one of his senior level supervisors would call me within the next two days. "How would I know you would do that?" I asked him. It has been exactly two days since that call, and I still have not received a call.

    w A service technician called me on Wednesday, Dec. 20, and told me they would come out between 2pm to 6pm - a four hour timeline. This window of time is completely ridiculous for a business as busy as we are. Nevertheless, I complied. However, I came back from a business appointment at 2:30 pm, only to learn that the service technician already came by, and since I wasn't there, he closed the service order. The next day I paged the service technician, and he told me he returned the part so he couldn't come and fix the computer even if he wanted to.

    w Thursday, December 21, 2000. I placed a call to Dell to reestablish that my laptop needed on-site technical support starting 10:30 am. Once again, I called the "laptop" # (800.247.9252) and punched in the "laptop" option only to speak to someone who took down my service tag# and realized that they were in desktop instead of laptop. How ridiculous is that?

    w Around 11 am, I finally speak to "Carol" (badge# 48147). She takes down my information and sends out another order. However, she can't guarantee next day service. "Why," I stated. "if my contract states I have next day service, I can't receive what it says on my contract?" She puts me on hold to speak to a supervisor about expediting this. She tells me there is nothing I can do. I ask her for a name of someone, anyone, I can write to in order to express this frustration. She has kept me on hold for the past forty minutes, I am currently still waiting as I write this. It is now 11:55 am on Dec. 21, 2000. (I finally hung up at 12:40 pm)

    I've reached the last straw. This is beginning to sound like the movie "Brazil". Despite the seemingly good reputation that Dell claims to have in the area of customer service, I have only experienced one error after another without being able to hold anyone accountable. I have been a loyal Dell customer for the past three years starting at previous organizations I worked with and have been responsible for purchasing. I always recommended or purchased Dell based upon its customer service reputation. However, since this year, when I changed positions into a new business organization, I have only experienced bad service (I have not even mentioned how my credit card was mischarged in our initial order).

    It doesn't seem I can hold any one person at Dell accountable for this poor, dretched service, so I am holding the entire Dell Corporation accountable for this unless I am able to receive some recourse. Unless I receive some recourse or immediate action indicating Dell is taking responsibility for these grievous errors, I will no longer purchase from Dell ever. Moreover, I will recommend to all my friends, family, colleagues, vendors and suppliers, business partners, and media contacts which include the LA Times, Wall St. Journal, LA Business Journal, and Orange County Register to not purchase Dell and inform them of your poor customer services.



    I look to receive your prompt reply on this matter.

    Sincerely,


    Thomas Tseng




    laura stinson from USA
    Date - Tuesday, December 12, 2000 at 13:43:30 (EST)

    I called to order a system on monday and all went well. I then checked back at the Dell website to discover that they have two systems with the same model number. I immediately called my sales rep back to make sure I was getting the speakers and keyboard I wanted. I got his voice mail and left a message explaining. I called again the next morning got his voice mail, left a message about what I wanted. No reply. They don't send any conformation either. I was supposed to receive a copy of the financial agreement via e-mail to review and ok within twenty-four hours. It wouldn't come up since I have a mac and the link for mac users would not work. If you don't respond in 24 hours they consider it approved. I tried to call and couldn't get through, so I e-mailed finance. No reply. I was bumped up to a 15.9% rate rather than their lowest. My financial profile doesn't warrant this. I called on thursday and was told that the computer had shipped already without my requested changes. They suggested that I refuse delivery. I was on the phone for over one hour just to get a refusal number. I was switched back and forth and had to wait on hold each time. I was never given an apology, explanation or any information regarding why I was never contacted. If the sales are handled like this, which should be the honeymoon phase, I can't imagine what their tech support is like. A major thumbs down from me. I can't imagine the joy of owning a dell would be worth one more phone call back to them.

    Suzanne Berger from USA
    Date - Thursday, November 16, 2000 at 02:23:31 (EST)

    Is this DELL’s usual way of doing business? Or have I been particularly unlucky?

    Customer no: 09/1116329
    Dell Order No: 338276293
    Purchase Order No: 101110


    In early September this year I ordered a DELL Inspiron 7500 laptop computer through their Ireland factory outlet telephone line, price quoted £1353.99

    My order was processed by Simon Larkin and I specifically asked for an internal modem to maximise the number of ports available. At the time of the order I was undecided about including a CD Rewriter and initially I did not include this. The subsequent Order Acknowledgement Purchase Order No: 101110(12/9/2000) quoted a delivery for 22/09/2000.

    A day or two later I rang Simon Larkin back and placed an order for the CD Rewriter, and he informed me that as the order was still in the factory there would be no delay despite my late inclusion of the CD Rewriter.

    I acknowledged the invoice by recorded delivery to Dell’s order department at Bracknell, dated 19th Sept.

    By the 27th Sept I was concerned because I had been misinformed by my bank that Dell had already debited my account before delivery of the computer, which was already 5 days late. Consequently I sent a Fax to the managing director at Bracknell with a copy to their Ireland office, informing them that I was prepared to go to the Ombudsman with my complaint – no reply.

    By October 3rd I had neither received the computer nor any reply to either the Fax or the recorded delivery letter, and had not been able to contact anyone by phone. On October 3rd I also sent copies of the correspondence to Simon Larkin who had processed the original order, asking that he ring Mr Berger – no reply.

    On October 5th Mr Berger sent a Fax to Simon Larkin demanding a response to his Fax of October 3rd – no reply.

    On October 6th Mr Berger sent a Fax to Simon Larkin demanding a response and clarification of the situation – no reply.

    On October 10th Mr Berger was informed by his bank that there had been a mistake and in fact the money had NOT been debited in advance of delivery. Mr Berger faxed Simon Larkin and apologised for the error AND asked for a phone call to confirm delivery date for the computer – no reply.

    Subsequently I spoke to several people at Dell but made no progress on the delivery date, all promised to ring, only Mary Lawler came back with a delivery date.

    At last, on October 24th the computer was delivered!

    And Mr Berger wrote to the Customer Care Manger at Dell, Ms Evelyn Lowe, to acknowledge delivery – almost one month later than originally promised and complaining that £59.79 had been added to the original invoice – no reply.

    When the computer was unpacked it was discovered that it had been supplied with an external modem NOT the internal modem ordered.

    On calling the Dell service department I was categorically informed that the Inspiron laptops “only come with external modems” despite evidence to the contrary in the company installation video. On phoning again another service operative told me that laptops come with either internal or external modems. Various customer care managers promised to investigate the situation and ring back – no reply.
    At this stage I lost all faith in Dell.

    Further to this conversation I Emailed Simon Larkin on November 1st for an explanation of Dell’s behaviour and to know what they proposed to do about the deplorable situation that had developed – no reply.

    Yesterday, November 14th I phoned Dell’s Business Computers division and spoke to Brendan O’Dwyer who also promised to investigate the situation, and get back to me…… I’m still waiting, despite a call to his voice mail – no reply.

    The computer sits in my house unused and my bank balance is £1848.51 lighter, and still there has been

    ABSOLUTELY NO RESPONSE FROM DELL to any form of communication

    What further can I do?
    Spend more money on a solicitor?

    I still think the Dell computers look like one of the best around but how can anyone do business with a company that treats its customers with such contempt and just blanks them so completely.

    If you have any advice to offer please email me,

    Suzanne Berger
    Suzanne@berger16.fsnet.co.uk








    .


    John Switzer from Ogdon, CA USA
    Date - Saturday, October 28, 2000 at 02:15:59 (EDT)

    Dell provides 24/7 tech support for customers. You do not have to be "technically inclined" to follow the simple step by step instructions to troubleshoot. There is no need for a "third party" to be involved. The most challenging thing anyone will ever be asked to do is take the side panel off and reseat snap-in components. Every step is done at the direction of a qualified technician. The warranty for Dell's systems states that an on-site technician will be dispatched only if it is determined by troubleshooting over the phone a part needs to be replaced. Not because you downloaded the latest and greatest software from the internet and hosed your system. Not because you can't correctly configure your third party software or hardware. Most issues can be resolved quickly and efficiently over the phone. When you call tech support, be honest about what you have done to the system. It evidently ran right before you started messing with it or you would have sent it back immediatly. They can and will assist you in restoring the system back to it's original configuration. As for the idiot asking for over $2,000.00 in the previous posts here for his time involved; Sir, that isn't even your system. The owner of the system could have and should have worked with the Dell tech support team to resolve the issues. In short, you were not needed in the loop at all. I have personally walked an 81 year old woman through resolving issues with her system over the phone. If only everyone could follow directions. The bottom line is, I just wonder how that dentist client of yours would view you "stealing" his money if he knew that system has lifetime tech support for free and he didn't need you at all to start with.

    Alfred Lewis from USA
    Date - Sunday, October 22, 2000 at 20:02:42 (EDT)

    I have read all the previous comments to mine and I find that I am rather shocked by the horrid experiences that fellow customers of Dell Computer Corporation have endured. My condolences go out to those victims of a customer support nightmare. But I must add my own two cents.
    In August of 1999, I purchased a system from Dell. The system in question is a Dimension XPS T-450 desktop system with Windows 98. Quite frankly, I have never been so completely satisfied with a computer system before. The system was compiled in three days and was shipped the very next day. The total time from the moment I hung up the phone with my sales representative to the moment the computer arrived at my doorstep was approximately eight days.
    Upon opening the boxes and turning the computer on, I found that it worked perfectly with no bad components or conflicts. All the components installed were exactly as related to me by my sales rep. The very next thing I did after the initial test run was to install a secondary hard drive manufactured by Western Digital Co. so that I might transfer all my data from the hideous Compaq I was using (I, by the way, strongly recommend you never buy a Compaq).
    I was thoroughly impressed with the engineering of the desktop chassis and I was able to remove the side panel, install the hard drive (there was even an empty bay with an easy-to-use clip for just such a thing), and replace the side panel within a minute. Upon turning the computer back on, it recognized the new drive immediately and set it to be a primary IDE slave drive. Due to the ease of this install, I decided to simply leave that hard drive in my system as a backup drive and I have had no problems whatsoever.
    It has been over a year, five moves, and countless tweaks to my system since that first day. My system has performed flawlessly ever since and I have put it through almost every pace you could imagine.
    I use my system for DVD viewing (Cinemaster), music composition (Cakewalk Pro Audio 8.0), 3D modeling (3D Studio MAX 3.1), graphics design and editing (Photoshop 5.0), internet browsing and e-mail (Netscape 4.75), word processing (Word 98), and the obligatory computer games (Quake III, Warcraft, Descent, et al). It has never failed me once.
    Despite the horrible instances mentioned before, I must applaud Dell Computer Co. for the wonderful product they have sold me and I would purchase another system from them in a heartbeat. I must also highly recommend them to anyone in the market for a new computer. Given my own experience, how could I do less?

    A former Compaq/Packard Bell user

    Chris Beiderbecke from USA
    Date - Sunday, October 08, 2000 at 13:18:03 (EDT)

    In contrast to the many very tales of maddeningly terrible product and support on these pages, I have had nothing but good luck with both my Dell system and tech support. I've only had to resort to tech support twice, and both times I got quick responses and the techs were courteous and helpful, thought they weren't able to correct my particular problem, they were helpful in explaining what the situation was.
    That said, I have had no major problems at all on my computer, despite having messed up my software and many programs. It's withstood all this, as well as having a hard drive more than 98% full. It's a bit sluggish, but soldiers on.
    The buying experience was fine and went well with no problems. I've even shipped the entire system across the country via UPS ground, and it arrived looking like it had been drug behind the truck through a war zone! I did this twice, and it still performs fine.
    My system was bought in 98, so perhaps it doesn't represent the decline in service that many point out.
    I'm very seriously considering ordering a new S1000r system, and am very dismayed reading the comments here. I can only hope that they're isolated cases, though there's no way to truly know.

    Hank Stern from CA USA
    Date - Friday, October 06, 2000 at 03:36:57 (EDT)

    After >15 phone calls, 4 service rep visits, and countless hours reloading software, my new Dell computer still does not work. Dell is not honoring their service contract. What gets Dell's attention to make good on their contracts? Cusotmer Service says it's not their issue. Tech Service does nothing other than lip service over the phone (if they do not disconnect you).

    Jeff Wooldridge from Houston, TX USA
    Date - Friday, September 29, 2000 at 17:07:35 (EDT)

    If you are going to take your chances with a Dell, at least save yourself some money buy not purchasing the extended warranty. It is worthless. Their tech support is worthless. I type this as I am on hold for 25 minutes and still no answer. I know I have another 30 minutes to go at least.

    I noticed that they have changed their hold music to techno-punk to try and get people to hang up faster.

    Charlene E. Dubois from Vineland, NJ USA
    Monday morning project
    Date - Thursday, September 28, 2000 at 15:44:05 (EDT)

    I would like to know more about them and they work. I never had this problem with my computer before this just happen. Iam new to this would please help me. yours turely Charlene E. Dubois.

    Bob Gearhart from USA
    Date - Friday, September 08, 2000 at 03:46:53 (EDT)

    Dell shipped me a brand new state of the art computer with a defective Sound Blaster Live card. It made a buzzing sound when the speakers were turned on. The computer is a Dell XPS B933r, top of the line when ordered machine. Calling Dell technical support resulted in following their directions right into a reformat of the hard drive and reinstalation of windows. Thats where it was discovered that Dell didn't bother shipping any drivers provided by the manufacturer for the peripheal equipment installed in the computer. (Video Card, etc.) Without drivers, of course the system could not be started properly. Dells high tech people instead of shippping the drivers on CD or honoring the next business day part of the warranty I paid an extra 99 bucks for, tells me they will air bill me a new system the next business day. This sounds like a lousy way to run a company, but hey, they are making a fortune, so I agree. That was on Aug 25th, it is now Sept 8th and I haven't heard where or why my system is not on my desk.

    Talking to Dell tech's is a wast of time as they will lie to you in order to get rid of the call. Dell does not honor their warranty contract, or provide a working system as advertised. I will file a complaint with the BBB and try reopening the governments settlement with Dells misrepresentation in advertising case settled last year.

    Bottom line, don't bother with Dell unless it is to buy a low end cheapo system. They apparantly don't have the expertise to build or repair a high end system. They have demonstrated a complete indiference to your needs by not even supplying you with the software writen by the manufacturer of the hardware you add in the system.



    Randy Warner from USA
    Date - Wednesday, May 10, 2000 at 14:39:09 (EDT)

    As a follow up I did finally get my Dell Computer. I checked Gateway, IBM
    and Compaq and found that Dell had the best deal. I decided to take my
    chances again with Dell and wait it out. But get this, I put in the same
    order (that was on hold for no apparent reason) on Wednesday, May 26th. I
    was told that because they were racing to meet their quotas by the end of
    April it would be shipped before the end of the month. Of course I did not
    believe her. The order shipped on Thursday and I received it on Friday! Go
    figure. They were so eager to meet their quota that they replaced the
    700Mhz, of which they were out of stock, with a 750.

    The system is working fine. So far I am very pleased with it. Let's hope I
    never need to contact support.


    Randy Warner from USA
    Date - Tuesday, April 25, 2000 at 11:27:51 (EDT)

    I ordered a Dell Dimension XPS T on March 27th. Just prior to the original delivery date, it was delayed by one week. I received an e-mail that a ‘major component had to be redesigned’. I replied asking for more clarification and was finally told the truth, the video card was not in stock. After two more weeks of watching the delivery date get extended each day by one additional day, I was told to cancel the order and reorder with a different video card which I did. One day before the scheduled ship date of the new order, it was delayed again for another week. This time they could not explain the delay and suggested that I ‘wait it out’. By now it had been over a month of waiting.

    Getting a supervisor is nearly impossible. Their first line of defence is a customer support team that insists no one is around to take a call. In fact, one support person, Irene Stewart, went as far to tell me that all, yes all, every single supervisor and manager, were in an ‘off site’ meeting. She said she would have her manager, Cirilo Franco, call me back. Irene hung up on me when I insisted she give me Cirilo’s extension so that I could leave a message.

    It is obvious that Dell intentionally leads you on with delivery dates hoping you’ll wait that one more day, or one more week, until they finally get something in stock. I figured that if this is the support I get when trying to buy the computer, what can I expect if I encounter any problems if and when I ever get the computer? CANCELED!

    Sang Wong from Fort Lauderdale, FL USA
    Date - Tuesday, February 15, 2000 at 17:24:32 (EST)

    Hi,
    I am a DELL ( or is it HELL ) customer and found them to be a company mired in bureaucracy and run by people who are trained to be rude. They don't have a single service center in the entire state of Florida which is inundated with their computers. It's impossible to get help or buy a part without proving ownership through a service number - so forget about buying a used DELL computer - you will spend weeks looking for the original owner and praying that he's kept his original receipt. They have managed to do well by saturation advertising and keeping very tight control on their costs - time units of up to 0.1 hr are used for tracking the time spent by employees - now that's time-and-motion cost control. If you want to go to HELL buy DELL.

    Yours Truly,


    Sang Wong, FT Lauderdale, FL

    Neal Pollack from Carbondale, CO USA
    PressPlay Computer Consultants
    Date - Friday, February 11, 2000 at 02:28:03 (EST)

    As Paul Harvey would say here's "the rest of the story",
    My Response:

    Subject: Re:
    Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2000 16:56:44 -0700
    From: Neal Pollack
    Organization: PressPlay Computer Consultants
    To: Tessa_Stephens@Dell.com
    References: 1

    Ms. Stephens,

    Since our last communication, one of the five desktop systems I
    recommended to Dr. E.C., DDS, went down due to hard drive
    failure.
    Counting Mr. K.'s computer from our initial correspondence, that's a
    failure rate of 33 percent for six computers in under six months. Not
    exactly a laudable record. To add to the dissatisfaction, the next day
    on-site service for which Dr. C. paid, is apparently fiction rather
    than reality. I called tech support yesterday, 9 February, 2000 at 11:45
    AM and spoke to Scott #70862. He assured me that a technician would be
    at the site today 10 February, 2000 with the replacement drive. As of
    3:56 PM today, the technician and drive had not arrived. I called tech
    support, spoke to Chris #56343, and he told me he couldn't locate any
    information and would have a manager call me. When asked why I couldn't
    speak to a manager at that time, he replied that his manager was not on
    the premises, but I would get a call back within 24 hours. By my
    timekeeping, that is the day after the next business day. That is not in
    keeping with the terms of your warranty and, I again, remind you that
    this comes under the legal definition of fradulent misrepresentation.
    Since you claim that you can do nothing to reimburse me for my loss of
    income or credibility, please forward the email address of your
    superior, Rick Chase, Vice-President of Customer Service and Support, so
    I may forward all documentation to him via email.
    We are also communicating with VISA to enlist their aid in resolving
    this issue.
    In the meantime, you may find the information at this site interesting:
    http://www.grohol.com/computers/dell.htm

    Thank you for your continued attention to this matter,

    Neal Pollack

    As of this time, 10 February, 2000 6:00 PM, the replacement drive has not arrived. Communication with Dell has resulted in the following information: The package missed its connection with Airborne Express and will not be there until tomorrow-maybe.

    Neal Pollack from Carbondale, CO USA
    PressPlay Computer Consultants
    Date - Thursday, February 10, 2000 at 21:48:43 (EST)

    This was my initial correspondence with Dell following fruitless phone conversations
    with tech support and customer service. Since I wasn't getting any place going up the
    chain of command, I thought I'd correspond with the person whose name was on the box.
    Needless to say, in light of my experience, I don't recommend Dell computers and would strongly dissuade anyone from buying any of their products. (I have not used the clients' names, customer numbers, etc. to protect their privacy and the correspondence from my deaf neighbor was a direct quote from her email).


    25 October, 1999

    Mr. Michael Dell
    Dell Computer Corporation
    One Dell Way
    Round Rock, TX 78682

    Re: Mr. F.K.

    Mr. Dell,

    I am an independent computer consultant working in the Aspen area. Up to two years ago I was also building custom computer systems. The hardware business got so competitive that I stopped building and started subcontracting the work. I would advise my client as to the best configuration for their needs and have a local vendor assemble them. I would then pick them up, deliver and install them. I offered my clients a one year on-site parts and labor warranty, frequently, with same day service. Several months ago, my builder assembled a small network system for a local business. When I set it up, I found that one machine was DOA, the others had ISA modems rather than the specified PCI modems, none of them had CD audio cables and the machine that was to be the server did not have the hard disk partitioned as specified. To get everything to the original specifications cost me six hours of unnecessary work. Considering the slim margin on hardware and the bid I had submitted, I lost money on the installation. I asked my vendor what he was willing to do to compensate me for the time I lost as a result of his sloppy work and, after some negotiation, he gave me a Relisys 19" monitor. I thought that was equitable, but was not encouraged to continue doing business with him.

    After extensive research of the first tier vendors, I decided the best course of action would be to recommend Dell systems to my clients. My decision was based on Dell's engineering, reputation for quality, customer service, technical support and price. I meet with the client and determine their hardware and software needs, order the system from Chris Hosack at Dell Home Systems (Ext. 68845), and the peripherals from Thomas Isaac at Dell Marketing (Ext. 47305). When the system arrives, I set it up, install software and configure it for them. If they have a support, technical, or hardware issue, they call Dell and it gets taken care of.

    That was the theory, but as Leonardo DaVinci said, "The supreme misfortune occurs when theory outstrips performance". My complaint is in regard to my client, Mr. F.K. and the unsatisfactory manner in which his support issues were handled. Mr. K. has a home office in Aspen and he uses his computer to communicate with his companies located all over the world. All his companies purchase computer systems from different vendors. He was looking forward to buying all his various companies' computer systems from one vendor so there would be some consistency throughout his organization thereby facilitating purchasing and technical support. He uses the computer mainly for word processing, email, fax, spreadsheets, contact management and appointment scheduling. He is a typical user and not technically inclined. He doesn't care how it works as long as it works. His old computer was pretty much on its last legs and he asked me to recommend a new system. Without hesitation, I recommended Dell and, with the assistance of Chris Hosack and Thomas Isaac, I configured a system and obtained a quote. Mr. K. purchased the system and called me when it arrived. On 21 September I dismantled his old system, unpacked and set up the new system, transferred his data, installed his applications, restored his desktop, configured his peripherals and got him up and running. I was very happy to be working with a 600MHz Pentium III with a 17" flat panel display and felt he had a cutting edge system that would serve him well for many years.

    Wednesday, 22 September: I received a call that the computer was shutting itself down. I told Mr. K. to call Dell Technical Support and that they'd help him with it. He called back a short time later and told me that they wanted him to make adjustments to the UPS as well as the computer. He couldn't understand what they were talking about and called me to do it for him. I made a service call, set the dip switches on the APC Backups 500 to allow for more variation in the line current, tested the UPS and made some adjustments to the power management settings on the computer. I plugged the computer directly into the wall outlet and it seemed to be working properly. I then plugged it back into the UPS and it continued to function properly.

    Thursday, 24 September: I received a call that the UPS was beeping constantly and the computer would not start. I believed there might have been too great a load on the circuit due to the laser fax machine in the same room. Mr. K. called his electrician and was told that the computer had its own 25 Amp circuit. I made a service call, disconnected the computer from the UPS, and plugged it into the wall outlet. It worked and I concluded that we had a faulty UPS. I replaced it with a second one that Mr. K. had, plugged the computer into it and it worked properly.

    Saturday, 25 September: I received a call that the computer was shutting itself down and had to be restarted. Sometimes it would not start. I made a service call and disabled ALL power management functions. That seemed to solve the problem.

    Wednesday, 6 October: Mr. K. called and said the computer was making a "clacking" noise and shutting itself down. Eventually, it wouldn't start at all. Since this was a definite hardware problem, I told him to call Dell Technical Support. He called back a short time later and told me that they wanted him to open the case and "do things inside the computer". The technician blamed the problem on the internal JAZ drive I had installed and told him to take it up with me. That was buck passing, bad technical support, and an insult to my professional competence. It also undermined my client's confidence in my ability. As I had explained previously, Mr. K. is not technically inclined. He called me to help him. When I arrived, I opened the case, called Dell Technical Support, held the phone inside the case and was told by the technician that he suspected the hard drive was defective. He told me it would take three days to have it replaced. I asked him why it would be three days rather than the advertised "next business day" and he told me that we were within the first 30 days and the drive would come with all the software preloaded, but would have to go to the factory first.

    Thursday, 7 October: Mr. K. called and told me a Dell Authorized Technician would be out the following day at 10:30 to install the new hard drive.

    Friday 8, October: I arrived as the technician was finishing the installation of the hard drive. The drive had come without the operating system or software preloaded and the technician had to perform that function. This was contrary to what I had been told would be done and resulted in a breach of your warranty. That drive should have been installed on the previous day. When the technician left I began to load Mr. K.'s applications, install his peripherals, restore his data, and reconfigure everything. At that point, I discovered that Office 97 SBE had not been installed. That was software that was part of the original configuration and should have been restored within the 30-day period of ownership. I reinstalled Office 97 SBE, as well as several other applications, restored his data, installed and configured various peripherals, restored the desktop so Mr. K. would be able to find things on his computer. Everything seemed to be back to normal and I left, feeling that we had finally straightened out all the issues.

    Friday, 22 October: I received another call from Mr. K.. He told me that the computer was whistling and he had called Dell Technical Support only to be told that he had to take this up with the person who installed his system. He asked him if he meant the Dell Authorized Technician who had replaced the hard drive and he said no. I had to make yet another service call. As I'm sure you could predict, the whistling had stopped, but this was yet another example of the buck passing that is passing for technical support.

    Aspen is an 80-mile round trip from my office. The only route between my office and Aspen is Highway 82 and it is into the second year of a seven-year construction project. On a good day, the round trip takes two hours. Since Aspen is such a great distance, I charge a two-hour minimum for service calls. Essentially, every time I make a call to Aspen, it's half a day. I did not think it fair, ethical, or good business practice to charge Mr. K. for the abovementioned calls. He purchased the system in good faith, paid for it, and paid me for advising him what to purchase, setting it up and transferring his data. There was no reason for him to pay twice to have his applications reinstalled, his peripherals reinstalled, his data restored, or his system reconfigured. Since I am not in the employ of Dell Computer Corporation, it is also not fair, ethical, or good business practice for me to work for free to maintain my client's, and your customer's, faith in Dell Computer Corporation. I've been working with computers long enough to understand that all components, particularly mechanical ones such as hard disk drives fail. I also understand that they may fail right out of the box, after several years, or any time in between. The hardware failure is not the issue. The issue is, that as a result of your hardware failure, and inadequate technical support, a loss was incurred. Customers of Dell do not have to take a test or sign a statement regarding their level of technical expertise relative to computers. All they have to do is be able to pay for them.

    The only question is who has incurred the loss? As I've demonstrated by my actions, I don't believe Mr. K. should have to pay me to solve Dell's problems. He shouldn't have to pay me twice to do the same work because of Dell's hardware failure within the first two weeks of ownership. Therefore, unless Dell Computer Corporation compensates me for my time, I will have incurred the loss. I took this matter up with Janet (Ext. 48917) in your Customer Service Department. She told me that Dell didn't pay outside consultants to work on their systems. I told her that I understood that and was not debating the "letter of the law", but rather the "spirit of the law". What we were discussing was what Dell was willing to do to maintain customer satisfaction, increase sales to an existing customer, and encourage consultants to continue to recommend Dell products. She told me there was nothing she could do about it. I asked to speak to her supervisor and she transferred me to Jonathan Malek (Ext. 83918) and he told me the same thing. I asked to speak to his supervisor, intending to follow the chain of command until I spoke to someone able to make a policy decision rather than recite the party line. I was transferred to Diana Weisfeld (Ext. 60866) and left a message on her voice mail. She returned my call the next day, but I missed it. I called her back several times since then and left messages on her voice mail. She never returned my call. In my last message to her, I told her that if she didn't return my call, I would correspond directly with you.

    Here is a list of my expenses:


    Wednesday, 22 September:
    Round trip to and from Aspen 2 hours
    On site service 2-hour minimum
    Thursday, 24 September:
    Round trip to and from Aspen 2 hours
    On site service 2-hour minimum
    Saturday, 25 September:
    Round trip to and from Aspen 2 hours
    On site service 2-hour minimum
    Wednesday, 6 October:
    Round trip to and from Aspen 2 hours
    On site service 2-hour minimum
    Friday 8, October:
    Round trip to and from Aspen 2 hours
    On site service 4 hours
    Friday, 22 October:
    Round trip to and from Aspen 2 hours
    On site service 2-hour minimum

    I have spent a total of 26 hours either troubleshooting your product, travelling, or doing whatever was necessary to give my client the functionality he was expecting from the computer I recommended to him. At my rate of $90/hour, that is $2340 that I feel Dell Computer Corporation owes me to compensate for faulty hardware, inadequate Technical Support and useless Customer Service.

    On my recommendation, Dr. E.C., DDS, purchased a server, five desktop computers and assorted peripherals to upgrade his office network. I'm leery of unpacking the computers and setting them up since I'm no longer confident in the quality of the product. Your reply will determine whether he keeps them or sends them back for a refund.

    I recommended a system to Mr. R. P. Again, I'm awaiting your reply before I tell him to purchase the system.

    The following cases seem to indicate a trend in the decline of Dell products and service. While it's comforting to know that I'm not alone in my inconvenience, it's disturbing to see that such a highly respected company is not maintaining the standards for which it's become world famous.


    Cases:

    #1
    Letter to the editor "Small Business Computing & Communications" October 1999

    THEY WANT ME, THEY WANT ME NOT...

    I felt the need to respond to Kevin Hogan's article "They Want You" in the June issue. Last August, I purchased a Dell computer for a bricks-and-mortar retail shop. I explained all of my requirements to the salesperson, including the fact that the users would be basically computer illiterate, that the computer had to connect to the cash register and two printers (a receipt printer and a regular plain paper printer), and needed to be able to run a DOS program, which was going to be the company's main sales and inventory control system. She persuaded me that Win98 could efficiently run all Win95 based programs, as well as DOS (no!); oversold me on memory (16GB - even Dell's tech support was surprised); did not spec two parallel ports for the printers; sold me an all-in-one laser printer/fax machine that did not support DOS; plus many more details.
    It took us nearly a month to figure out the printer problem, and eventually we had to return the all-in-one.
    MacAfee Virus Scan was included in the purchase but did not work with Win98 (the customer must download an upgrade from the Internet, but we were not connected to an ISP).
    The Dell salesperson began to be unavailable. I tried leaving messages with her supposed manager and her backup, but no one returned my calls. I complained several times to tech support, some of whom were very sympathetic, but unfamiliar with how programs interface with each other. One tech support person said that we really should know what we need to buy before we call. Customer service refused to extend the 30-day evaluation period.
    I have since encountered many people who have similar stories. One person said that he has to pretend he's a major corporation before he gets any decent customer service with Dell, even within the warranty period.
    I may be the only person taking the time to tell you, but I am not alone in my disgust with all things Dell, especially when I hear it so well praised in the marketplace. I cannot recommend Dell to anyone, not with the experiences (plural) that I have had.

    -C. CHIN, VIA e-mail

    #2
    Email correspondence with a neighbor 25 October 1999

    My message:
    >On another note, I'm glad you contacted me since I'm composing a letter
    >to Michael Dell and would like to include your experience in the letter.
    >If you could describe it briefly and include your name, address,
    >Customer ID, Order number, and Service Tag number, as well as the date
    >and the name of the technician with whom you spoke.

    Her reply:(sic)
    DON'T REMEMBER THE DAY....IT WAS I THINK EITHER IN JULY OR AUGUST....AND
    THEY RECORD EVERY CALL...SO THEY HAVE ALL THE INFORMATION ON FILE.....THIS
    WAS THE FOURTH TIME I HAD THE SAME PROBLEM.....AND THE FIRST TIME THAT I DID
    NOT RECEIVE A friendly SERVICE.....ThisTECHNICIAN KEPT TELLING ME EVERY 15
    MINUTES "HOLD ON" AND THEN WOULD DISSAPPEAR FOR 15 MIN. AND SO IT WENT
    FOR A TOTAL OF ALMOST 3 HOURS.....AT THE END HE SAID "I CAN'T HELP YOU BEC.
    YOU ARE DEAF AND YOU CAN'T HEAR THE SOUNDS YOUR COMPUTER MAKES AND YOU NEED
    TO CALL A TTY NUMBER. THOSE PEOPLE KNOW HOW TO HELP YOU"

    NEAL THE PROBLEM IS, I DON'T USE TTY, I USE VCO THAT MEANS I SPEAK over the
    phone AND I READ WHAT THE OTHER PARTY SAYS AND WHICH IS WRITTEN UP BY a
    RELAY COLORADO agent..I WAS ANGRY THAT AFTER THREE HOURS HE TELLS ME THIS
    AND THE TTY NUMBER HE GAVE ME WAS A LONG DISTANCE NUMBER FOR ME, NOT A TOLL
    FREE NUMBER. so I did not keep it. THE PROBLEM I HAD WAS THAT AFTER
    TURNING ON THE COMPUTER MY MONITOR DID NOT TURN ON, JUST A TINY PULSATING
    LIGHT ON THE TOP LEFT SIDE, SO DELL TELLS ME ALL THE THINGS I HAVE TO DO
    AND NOTHING WORKED....BEC. WHAT THEY SHOULD HAVE TOLD ME WAS very simple,
    just TO PRESS THE BOOSTER BUTTON ON MY COMPUTER.....AND THEN I WOULD HAVE
    GOTTEN SOMETHING ON MY SCREEN TELLING ME HOW TO SHUT COMPUTER OFF. WHEN
    THIS same thing HAPPENeD LAST WEEK......FOR SOME UNKNOWN REASON THIS
    MESSAGE DID APPEAR BUT NOTHING HAPPEND WHEN I PRESSED NUMBER 3 to shut
    computer off....SO AT THE END, I JUST TURNED OFF THE COMPUTER PER HAND. by
    pressing ON only TWO DAYS LATER HAD THE COURAGE TO TRY AGAIN AND VOILA IT
    WENT ON. BUT I SHOULD NOT BE SCARED EVERY TIME I TURN ON MY COMPUTER THAT
    monitor WILL NOT WORK because Microsoft 98 did not connect properly (THAT
    IS WHAT DELL TOLD ME THAT HAPPENS) AND MONITOR WILL NOT GO ON....I SHOULD
    NOT HAVE TO PRAY TO GOD EVERY TIME I TURN MY COMPUTER ON ASKING HIM PLEASE
    LET IT WORK. (A friend told me to press the booster button bec. for some
    unknown reason...sometimes computer does not go on the way it s hould)

    I BOUGHT MY COMPUTER ON Sept 14, 1998. I just want to be able to
    turn on my computer and know that it will work...every time...and without
    prayer. By the way, when I bought computer in Sept 98 I asked if they
    had a special phone line and phonenumber for hearing impaired people and I
    was told no, I'm sorry....I did not have any problem with that since I use
    Voice Carry Over (VCO). OK? Hope this helps....keep me informed.
    Best regards, R.

    Ms. R.B.
    Carbondale, CO

    #3
    I just heard that a non profit organization in Texas has put Dell Computer Corporation on 30 day notice due to support issues.

    In conclusion, Mr. Dell, I just want to know what a company that is reputedly selling $30 million a day on the Internet is going to offer as compensation to encourage a computer consultant earning $90/hour to continue to recommend your products. Who is more capable of absorbing the expense of making this situation work out to everyone's best advantage?

    Thanking you for your time in this matter, I remain,

    Sincerely,

    PRESSPLAY COMPUTER CONSULTANTS


    Neal Pollack

    CERTIFIED MAIL Z 330 319 723
    RETURN RECEIPT REQUESTED

    After several weeks with no response, I sent the following letter:


    27 November, 1999

    Mr. Michael Dell
    Dell Computer Corporation
    One Dell Way
    Round Rock, TX 78682

    Mr. Dell,Apparently the attached letter got lost in spite of certification. Since that time, I had my clients Dr. E. C., DDS and Mr. R.P. purchase the systems that I had recommended, hoping that my initial experience with Mr. K. was an isolated instance.

    I had ordered an Iomega 2Gb. Internal JAZ drive for the PowerEdge 1300 server. I was told by Thomas Isaac at Dell Marketing (Ext. 47305) that the SCSI subsystem in the server would not interface with the JAZ drive's older technology and I would need an adapter. I told him to provide one. The system included a server and five desktop computers. I was replacing the entire network in the dental office. Between the time of purchase and actual setup, more than 30 days had elapsed. We were trying to coordinate upgrading the system with a planned five-day shutdown of the office. When I went in to set the system up, I found that the SCSI adapter provided was Male/Male and what I needed was Female/Female. I spoke with Mr. Isaac about the mistake and he didn't seem to get the point. After a protracted conversation, he discovered that I was correct, but past the 30-day return time. I stressed the fact that the order was placed in good faith and he had provided the wrong part. We finally arrived at an understanding and the part was sent at the last minute.

    When I finally got the system set up and attempted to configure the electronic insurance claims filing module of the dental practice software, I found that it would not work with the modem provided. The software was only designed to work with conventional modems using COM 1-4. The modem provided would only operate on COM 5. I had specified, when ordering all systems, that I didn't want a Winmodem, but rather, a conventional hardware based modem. I was assured by my sales contact, Chris Hosack (Ext. 68845) that hardware based modems would be provided. Customer service proved useless, but a conversation with Mr. Hosack finally achieved the result of getting the modem replaced with the one I had originally specified.

    When setting up the system for Mr. R.P., I encountered the same problem, instead of receiving the specified hardware based modem, the system came with a Winmodem. Their point of sale software would only work with a conventional, hardware based modem on COM 1-4 and would not work with a software based Winmodem. Another conversation with Mr. Hosack straightened the problem out, but not without a great deal of inconvenience and a degree of customer dissatisfaction.

    On a positive note, the one person in your customer service department who seems to grasp the concept of customer service is Isaac Villarreal (Ext. 60994). His commitment, competence and genuine desire to perform the job for which he is being paid should not go unnoticed. If all your employees were of his caliber, I wouldn't have had to write this letter. Please see to it that his extraordinary talents are appropriately recognized.


    Thanking you once again for your time in this matter, I remain,

    Sincerely,

    PRESSPLAY COMPUTER CONSULTANTS


    Neal Pollack

    CERTIFIED MAIL Z 267 172 340
    RETURN RECEIPT REQUESTED


    First response from Dell:

    Subject: Regarding your letter
    Date: Fri, 14 Jan 2000 09:00:02 -0600
    From: Tessa_Stephens@Dell.com
    To: nealstar@pressplay.net

    Dear Mr. Pollack,
    I am writing on behalf of Dell Computer Corporation, in response to your
    letter received on December 03, 1999. Thank you for writing about your
    concerns. Customer feedback is our most important tool for evaluating the
    quality of our service.
    Thank you very much for your generous recognition of our representative,
    Isaac Villarreal. We are grateful to any customer who takes the time to
    share a positive experience he or she has encountered with Dell's
    representatives. Isaac is the kind of employee who sets the standard for our
    entire work force. Additionally, I wish to assure you your letter has been
    forwarded to the appropriate Director here at Dell. Dell takes pride in
    recognizing those employees who go "above and beyond" in our quest to
    provide our customers with the best quality, service and support in the
    industry. I sincerely apologize if all our representatives were not as
    helpful.
    We value you as our customer, Mr. Pollack, and your satisfaction is very
    important to us. If you have any further questions or concerns, please do
    not hesitate to contact Dell Customer Service at 1-800-624-9897 or Dell
    Technical Support at 1-800-624-9896. Alternatively, you can contact Dell via
    e-mail to obtain answers to many service and support-related questions by
    visiting our web-sites at http://www.dell.com/ and
    http://support.dell.com/ .
    Sincerely,
    Tessa Stephens
    Executive Service and Support

    My Response:

    Subject: Re: Regarding your letter
    Date: Mon, 17 Jan 2000 08:36:45 -0700
    From: Neal Pollack
    Organization: PressPlay Computer Consultants
    To: Tessa_Stephens@Dell.com
    References: 1

    Dear Ms. Stephens,

    Thank you for finally answering my letter of 25 October. I think the
    fact that it took almost three months to tell me that you were getting
    around to address my concerns just reinforces the validity of my
    complaints about your customer service. While I appreciate your
    acknowledgement of the one positive aspect mentioned in eight pages of
    correspondence (Isaac Villareal), it is more important to me to have the
    balance of the issues addressed. Inadequate support on your part has
    cost me more than $2000 in my time to preserve my clients' confidence in
    Dell products. That is a greater concern to me than you acknowledgement
    of my acknowledgement of the superior performance of one of your
    employees.
    Could you please tell me who the "appropriate Director here at Dell" who
    will be addressing my issues is and when I will be hearing from him or her?

    Thank you,

    Neal Pollack

    Dell's next response:

    Subject: Regarding your concern
    Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2000 15:33:28 -0600
    From: Tessa_Stephens@Dell.com
    To: nealstar@nealstar.com

    Dear Mr. Pollack,

    I am writing in response to your e-mail message of January 17, 2000.
    In my initial message to you, I was responding to your letter dated November
    27, 1999. I apologize that I was unaware of your letter dated October 25,
    1999 regarding technical issues your client was experiencing with their
    system. I have since located this letter and would be happy to address your
    concerns.

    The information you were previously provided by Dell representatives
    was correct. Dell does not provide recompense for third party technical
    support that our customers may incur. Dell strives hard to provide our
    customers with systems and components of the highest quality and lowest
    failure rates. Please understand, however, that this does not guarantee
    absolutely trouble-free performance. We regret that our customer encountered
    technical problems, however, any charges incurred is a matter between our
    customer and yourself. Dell is not liable for charges that have been
    accrued for your services; that is a matter between you and your client.
    As a result, I must respectfully deny your request forcompensation.

    Thank you for your attention to this matter. If you wish to send
    correspondence to be reviewed at the highest level of Customer Service, you
    can address it to Rick Chase, Vice-President of Customer Service and
    Support. Please understand, however, that this issue will be referred to me
    or one of my colleagues for final resolution.

    My response:

    Subject: Re: Regarding your concern
    Date: Fri, 04 Feb 2000 16:32:18 -0700
    From: Neal Pollack
    Organization: PressPlay Computer Consultants
    To: Tessa_Stephens@Dell.com
    References: 1

    Dear Ms. Stephens,

    Thank you for your response. While we appear to understand each other,
    my concerns are still not being addressed to my satisfaction. Possibly
    the following will encourage you to reconsider your position:

    1. I host a show on a local radio station. It is a computer related call
    in talk show. We have a live feed on the Internet through Webradio. We
    reach a potential 140 million listeners. I have been relating my
    experiences with Dell to my listeners and have been soliciting them to
    share their experiences with your company.

    2. Your market share is down 5%. You claim it is due to limited
    availability of parts. I believe it is due to dissatisfaction with your
    customer service and technical support. I'm sure you are aware of the
    fact that a satisfied customer will tell 3 people while a dissatisfied
    customer will tell 8 people. Given those statistics, how long do you
    think it will take before your market share is down 10% or more?

    3. I believe your treatment of my hearing impaired neighbor, Ms. R.B,
    is in direct violation of the Americans with
    Disabilities Act. I will be investigating the possibilities of enlisting
    the aid of the Federal Government in the resolution of this matter.

    4. I am no longer recommending Dell computers to my clients. While that
    will only result in an immediate loss of $1-200,000 per year, I am sure
    they will share their reasons for purchasing computers from your
    competitors with their friends, family, neighbors and business
    associates.

    5. As a result of your intransigence in this matter, I will join a class
    action lawsuit already in existence based in part on fraudulent
    misrepresentation of your warranty.

    Neal Pollack

    Dell's Response:

    Subject:
    Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2000 13:42:30 -0600
    From: Tessa_Stephens@Dell.com
    To: nealstar@nealstar.com

    Dear Mr. Pollack,

    I received your e-mail of February 4, 2000. While I can appreciate your
    position, I must once again reiterate the information I provided previously.
    I assure you that Dell stands behind our Warranties and Service Agreements
    for our systems, and we encourage our customers to contact Dell's Technical
    Support should they encounter any technical difficulties with their systems.
    We regret when any of our customers, including your clients, encounter
    technical problems with their computers.
    In fairness to all our customers, however, we must respectfully decline your
    request for compensation for your time.

    Sincerely,
    Tessa Stephens


    Neal Pollack from Carbondale, CO USA
    PressPlay Computer Consultants
    Date - Thursday, February 10, 2000 at 20:25:41 (EST)

    Before adding the sordid details of my negative experiences with Dell, which
    will run to over ten pages, I'd like to know if anyone has started a class
    action suit yet. If so, please contact me as I'd like to join it. If not, please
    contact me so we may begin one.

    Wally Flint from Marina del Rey, CA USA
    Date - Tuesday, February 08, 2000 at 15:10:25 (EST)

    A quote from an earlier post on Dell service: "LESSON: Don't buy from Dell. Once they have your money, that's it. You'll never get a straight answer after that."

    Absolutely true. Don't pay any attention to the reviews in the magazines. I did my research and bought from dell because of their reputation from service. I bought an inspiron notebook which turned out to be a lemon. The screen became very dim. Had a 3 year extended warranty. They wouldn't pick it up as promised in the terms of the warranty because I lived in a rural area. Had to drive one hour to deliver it myself. They returned it two weeks later (warranty promises 3 days) but it wasn't fixed. Three months later the screen was dim again. Called tech support and told them I thought it was a hardware problem (I'll spare you the detailed explanation I gave them.) They refused to refund my money, and even used some of my words (explaining the technical problem) in an advertisement for a later model!!! I couldn't believe it. I guess all those notes tech support takes while talking to you on the phone are for the marketing department, not for the customer!!! No wonder there's never any record of prior conversations when you call tech support!!! The wait for tech support is so long you'll quickly memorize the tape loop of pop songs you listen to while you wait. Logged a total of probably 30 hours with tech support - still don't have a working laptop or a refund.

    LESSON: Don't buy from Dell. Once they have your money, that's it. You'll never get a straight answer after that.

    G. Lamb from Sturgeon Bay, WI USA
    Date - Sunday, January 23, 2000 at 11:13:51 (EST)

    They don't have one! My Inspiron has had to be shipped back to Texas three times for a bad keyboard. A fourth failure was revived after an enxtended technical assistance call. I asked for my money back minus my payment for the time I used it. Nope.

    Maybe we need a lemon law for direct merchants? Why should you be the next to pay?

    Copyright 1993-2000 John M. Grohol. All rights reserved.