On Mon, 20 Sep 2004 01:04:22 -0400, 1234 wrote in
:

A STA driver so I could get XP to format n install..

I did find it on their site. I searched, and it
did not come up when I entered my tag#. *IF* they
had someone who could of fielded my ?, I'm sure
they could of just directed me to the URL. I had
another machine (a Dell) ready to get whatever I needed.

But nooooooo, ALL I get for the 1st 90 mins is
ads, simple tech FAQs, and being told how important
my call is to them. Then the 90 mins went to 100..

You should have asked here. I had to go through the same thing and could
have told you where to get the file to make a floppy. As a rule, I search
Google first and then branch out to Yahoo! and such. If I spend more than
an hour or two looking for the answer, I'll post a question on the right
newsgroup. Once I've exhausted that route, I'll give Dell technical
support a call.

I have dealt with c/s from India before, with no problems. But the
folks Dell has doing it just do not care. They will put you on hold,
but leave some speaker phone on, and I can hear them laughing. ONLY
by pressing numbers over and over again, did they guy come back, ask how
he could help me, then say yes yes, he is going to get me the help I need.

I've spent a bit of time on the line to Dell technical support and never
had any problems like that. Quite the opposite actually. One of the
tech's and I even got into a bit of a conversation about game playing.
Apologies to whoever was waiting in the technical support queue. :-)

I hung up after 200 mins. The rest of the time, was used trying to get
BACK on to a tech. I was cut off more then 4 times b4 I reached a human.

I've noticed that 95% of the time when they answer the phone they tell you
their name or at least their "number". Write this down and if they don't
tell you ask them. If you feel you got crappy service, ask to speak to a
supervisor and say operator so-and-so was rude or whatever. At the least,
you can always say, "Well operator so-and-so and I spoke on the 15th about
this and they said..." if there is a problem later.

EVERYBODY speaks about the consumer being calm 1st, not being a asshole,
etc etc etc. Well I was all nice for the 1st 45 mins. THEN it just ****es
me off, knowing that IF Dell had GOOD techs, like they used to have, I
would be DONE doing all this. BUT NOOOO..hours wasted online.

Well, as one of the other posters hinted at, how many of the folks tying up
the technical support lines simply wanted to ask "dumb" questions? I'm not
saying at all that your question was dumb, but think about it for a second.
If you had posted yesterday that you needed the SATA driver disk to do a
Windows reinstall I *guarantee* that several folks would have replied
within an hour or so if not sooner. Did you try the Dell support forums?
I find those a *great* help in answering any questions I might have without
me having to tie up a technical support line to ask "Where is my AGP slot"
or something like that (not that I can't find an AGP slot if my 8400 had
one).

I think the whole lesson you should have learned (other than getting all
****ed off at a company because they didn't perform to your expectations of
drop everything and help the person who already paid for their system) is
to *search* around the 'net before getting on the phone. I'm sure if you
complained enough to the right people, Dell might apologize or something
since they're worried they might lose a thousand dollars or so, but with
Dell selling thousands and thousands of systems to colleges, businesses,
and so forth I doubt very much if they'll miss your money a whole lot.
Think it's any different somewhere else? I doubt it. Go look in a Compaq
or Gateway or whatever newsgroup and I guarantee you'll see posts just like
yours. Welcome to the world of computers. If you don't learn to first try
and solve problems on your own, you're in for a lot of time being ****ed
off waiting on the phone with the millions of other folks who didn't spend
a bit of time searching for the answer. ;-)

True, but I've spread the word b4. Safeware insurance is pure scum,
and I have the proof. I also think Gateway blows donkey. But Lynksys
has done me righteous. GiGanews is completely awesome. I can go on..

Need I bitch about Cingular..? puke

My point being that unless it's a small town business, a few disgruntled
customers isn't really going to affect their bottom line. Every business
has to deal with people who feel they didn't get what they paid for.
Should they drop everything and run to help those folks? Sure! Will they?
Probably not. It's business and in business you want to make money. It is
cheaper to leave a few folks ****ed off than spending a lot of money having
9,000,000 call takers sitting around on the off-chance that today there
might be 9,000,000 people calling for technical support all at the same
time because it happened ten years ago and lots of people complained about
how long they had to wait on the line then.

Yes, spamming. I'm sure that will solve all your problems.

You do have a point, but it's not for gain, and someone has
to battle the Dell ads that promise one thing, but deliver
another. I know when I did it against Safeware, it hurt them,
but they're thiefs, and it's been a long time lost. sigh

Sorry, if by being an asshole I stand up against the horde.

Have fun and good luck! Might in the future if you decide to post an
anti-Dell add you place some type of tag in the subject line so we can
filter it out without missing any questions you might have. :-)

Dave
--
You can talk about us, but you can't talk without us!
US Army Signal Corps!!

http://www.geocities.com/davidcasey98

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