Our Dell experience said never again

Don't waste money on a desktop extended on-site warranty. Just buy a
new machine or harddrive, etc. when the thing dies. This seems to be
the best route now, considering the money you save by not paying those
upgraded warranty costs and the time and aggravation you save trying to
get Dell to fix something.

On the other hand, sometimes you just reach the right guy in India who
seem to understand your problem in only a minute or two. Yesterday
morning I spoke to a someone about a problem with my speakers, and I
didn't even have to re-install Windows in order to make him believe it
was the physical speaker itself and not some software or computer
hardware problem. This morning the new speakers were delivered.! Now
that's service!

BT


"Rey Barry" wrote in message
om...
Richard's report below could have been written by my daughter about
her Dell, aside from the "10 frustrating days." Her simple fix took
Dell 55 frustrating days, and we discovered the big mistake was buying
Dell.

Your mileage will vary. Most do. But here is ours.

My daughter's Dell desktop was 5 months from brand new when the hard
drive failed. It had a year warranty from Dell, an extra-cost warranty
extension for three additional years, an extra-cost contract for
on-site service, and of course Western Digital's one-year warranty on
the drive.

Dell was covered on the replacement part, yet refused to admit the
drive was bad long past when they knew it. That year they were over
budget for service calls due to a run of bad drives, and evidently
under orders to keep a lid on service calls.

Dell evaded, avoided, and ducked honoring the warranties until I
finally lost my patience and my cool. This was my daughter's "computer
for college." I had asked up front if they could service it in
Gambier, Ohio, if I paid for on-site repairs for four years. "No
problem," had been the response at order time. "No problem!"

The company lied and the salesman didn't know. So instead of buying
the computer her college offered for about the same price, I bought a
Dell. Hey, it has a reputation.

Read on.

The drive failed in early January and she called me. I said call Dell.
Daughter is no stranger to PCs. She complied with everything Dell tech
asked of her. This included three complete re-installations of
Windows, each one failing because the drive was bad. To do that on
Dell's time she missed 7 college classes and hurt her grades. Rather
than flunk out, after three weeks she gave up and brought the Dell 600
miles round trip to me.

I tried day after day to get Dell to install a new drive. They
stone-walled me. On their instructions I tried every fix for a drive
there is six times over. Dell still refused to replace it. Finally I
had enough. I know a dozen ways to shred a lackey by phone and on the
55th day I shredded them up three management levels.

So two months after the Dell died they finally sent someone to replace
the bad Western Digital Caviar. He replaced it with another Caviar
from the same lot, and that says something everyone should know about
Dell.

Early mortality 1996 Caviar drives were common knowledge. I learned
about them reading tech conferences and InfoWorld. That's why when I
ordered the Dell in August my invoice states: "Customer specifically
requests we not use a Western Digital Caviar drive."

They put one in just the same without identifying it on the packing
slip. It lasted five months. They replaced it with another. It lasted
five months.

Michael Dell couldn't resist the deal: Western Digital dumping drives
at dirt cheap prices. So they have a high failure rate. So what? On
Wall Street only profit margins matter.

Two last points.

I did not call Dell when the replacement drive failed. I returned it
to WD under the WD warranty. They sent me a new Caviar and I auctioned
it. The buyer got a 12-month warranty. I put a Quantum drive in the
Dell and everything was fine.

For a year. Then Dell's lowest-price bid motherboard died. That was
enough Dell for me.

The Dell salesman was outraged. By crazy coincidence the salesman who
answered my first call to Dell was a transplanted Virginian who had
grown up half a mile from my farm. His dad and I were acquaintances
for 30 years. He looked up the event ticket, saw what Dell had done to
us and for how long, saw the Caviar drive that wasn't supposed to be
there, the service contracts he sold me in good faith that they didn't
honor, and quit his job.

Deal with Dell if you want to, but you'll get no-questions-asked parts
from the lowest bidder, and you may not get service even if you pay
extra for it.

Update: forget about support unless you buy 1000 PCs. They moved
non-business support to the lowest bidder of "support tech" in India.
Now if the problem is anything beyond "Things to do before calling
Support," which is all these people know, you've had it. A friend
wrote to me recently:

"Once Dell's maybe, maybe not, bi-lingual tech ascertains your cables
are plugged in and the power is on, he puts you on hold to ask
someone, 'What do I do now?' The person he asks does not know. For
this each of them gets about 10k Rupees a month, around $225, with
close to zero non-salary employee overhead."

Michael Dell just beams but my friend, a college professor, knows the
game is up. He has a Dell and he has to pay someone in his IT
department to fix it. He's so angry he's on a crusade to tell everyone
in the university, everyone in the universe. My experience was in 1997
but I'm happy to share his crusade. I lost the best part of $2,300
buying Dell junk and a worthless service contract.

It's time I sent this to Michael Dell. He's probably 80 layers away
from knowing anything but happy numbers. They'll likely shield him
from this as well.

I'm mystified by Richard's last comment below. How does reading the
small print help, unless it says "Expect to meet incompetence and
intransigence at every stage."

Richard's Report from the UK - it's no better there

I have been a Dell PC owner for 7 years, and found them to produce
generally recommendable products. However their "next-day on-site
support" was not what I imagined. Dell Support informed me that what
it really means is: "the day after all attempts to cure problems by
phone have been exhausted." So I had about 10 very frustrating days of
very long phone calls before they eventually caved in and sent an
engineer. He couldn't solve the problem, nor could 3 more engineers
who followed him. By then they had replaced the whole of the PC's
innards.

In lieu of getting the PC running, the manager of Technical Support
informed me he was not happy with the situation.

Finally, it was only a personal email to the SVP of Dell UK which
eventually brought about the delivery of a replacement computer. The
whole thing took about 2 months and I met intransigence at every
stage. So, always read the small print! A guarantee is not always
what it seems, as I'm sure many of you have found.

-------------------------------

A matter of morality

In 2003-04 Dell Computers is spending millions advertising - not its
computers - but its telephone support. It is doing this in reaction to
national user surveys showing Dell near the top of the complaint list
on support. Is this the usual Big Lie technique, advertise your worst
aspect as your best?

Not exactly. Dell is also near the top in user surveys for good
telephone support. How can this be? It depends on who is asked.

1. If you buy 1000 Dell computers you do not get a telephone number
that rings in India. Dell tried that; it was a disaster. Now big
business gets 877-766-3XXX, a number that rings in the US and reaches
competent, trained, English-speaking technicians.

2. Individual PC buyers with problems get only 800-624-9896, the India
number. Their calls fall into two categories: users with a loose cable
or some other elementary problem, and those whose system is actually
broken. The first group gives Dell high praise, the second is
disgusted at the incompetence.

Which category are you in? Which telephone number will you get?

If it's India you will understand why a Dell user said this:

"I don't trust Dell to advise me about this. While trying to follow
their instructions they made a number of mistakes. They said right
click when they meant left; left when they meant right. They said
cold boot instead of warm. They told me to hit hot keys and chose
the wrong key. They sent me places that didn't have what they wanted
me to reach. I found the experience scary."

Scary indeed. Hardware from the lowest bidder, ignoring the specs in
your order, tech support from hell, and evading the service contract
you paid extra for. More people than you might think define that as
the Dell experience.

Edward Teach wrote:
On 17 Feb 2004 08:36:44 -0800, (Rey Barry) wrote:

I know a dozen ways to shred a lackey by phone

I don't doubt this for a moment. Your 'attitude' comes through loud
and clear throughout your entire message.

The caller's attitude should be irrelevant. But it's not.

Tech support people must be the most abused chumps on earth next to
pizza delivery engineers. I really believe this has more to say
about Dell moving support overseas than bottom-line dollars. Highly
trained, poorly trained, high quality, low quality. It just doesn't
matter.

As a business executive, which would you buy for your building? Rough
toilet paper that scratches the ass just as much as it wipes? Or smooth
velvety charman with little quilted pockets?

That's what tech support is. Toilet paper for the **** attitude. It's
disposable. High turnover.

Your daughter just about flunked out of college due to dealing with Dell
tech support?? A Dell CS rep quit his job because your situation put him
over the edge?? You know the whole inside story why Dell wasn't complying
with their in home service functions that year??

I'm not saying your situation wasn't difficult, but come on...

"Rey Barry" wrote in message
om...

Richard's report below could have been written by my daughter about
her Dell, aside from the "10 frustrating days." Her simple fix took
Dell 55 frustrating days, and we discovered the big mistake was buying
Dell.

Come on, being a troll is hard work .


"ilovedell" wrote in message
...
Your daughter just about flunked out of college due to dealing with Dell
tech support?? A Dell CS rep quit his job because your situation put him
over the edge?? You know the whole inside story why Dell wasn't complying
with their in home service functions that year??

I'm not saying your situation wasn't difficult, but come on...

"Rey Barry" wrote in message
om...

Richard's report below could have been written by my daughter about
her Dell, aside from the "10 frustrating days." Her simple fix took
Dell 55 frustrating days, and we discovered the big mistake was buying
Dell.

On Tue, 17 Feb 2004 19:18:47 GMT, "Rocket J. Squirrel"
wrote:

I agree with you but didn't have the guts to say it. Many of the problems
that users encounter are their own fault.

Rocky

True, but a company that sells to the average user should be able to
deal with that. Surely someone could have calmly and patiently
explained to the woman in the other post that there are no such things
as "Monitor Drivers".
--
Get on the NRA Blacklist: http://www.NRAblacklist.com

On Tue, 17 Feb 2004 22:39:57 GMT, Leythos wrote:

I called support, verified this, and the chap wanted me to remove/reseat
the drive, which I told him I was not going to do - there was no reason
to reseat a drive that could read one color of CD and not others, it was
an optical problem. Needless to say, he didn't understand.

I think the thing to do is what gets the new drive to you quickest.
Especially since not everyone can wave a big order at Dell as you did.

I would have said, "hold on", then gone and had a coffee, made a few
rattling noises, rebooted and said, "ok, I reseated the drive, no
difference. now what?"

Personally, I always have my wife do tech support. She has the
sweetest voice and can charm anyone.
--
Get on the NRA Blacklist: http://www.NRAblacklist.com

On Tue, 17 Feb 2004 18:17:59 -0600, "ilovedell"
wrote:

Your daughter just about flunked out of college due to dealing with Dell
tech support?? A Dell CS rep quit his job because your situation put him
over the edge?? You know the whole inside story why Dell wasn't complying
with their in home service functions that year??

I'm not saying your situation wasn't difficult, but come on...

It did sound a bit over the cliff, didn't it?
--
Get on the NRA Blacklist: http://www.NRAblacklist.com

Not believable at all. Definitely science fiction.

"Rey Barry" wrote in message
om...
Richard's report below could have been written by my daughter about
her Dell, aside from the "10 frustrating days." Her simple fix took
Dell 55 frustrating days, and we discovered the big mistake was buying
Dell.

"WSZsr" wrote in message
. com...
Not believable at all. Definitely science fiction.


snip

So what are you saying, exactly? heh heh

Paul Knudsen wrote:
On Tue, 17 Feb 2004 19:18:47 GMT, "Rocket J. Squirrel"
wrote:

I agree with you but didn't have the guts to say it. Many of the
problems that users encounter are their own fault.

Rocky

True, but a company that sells to the average user should be able to
deal with that. Surely someone could have calmly and patiently
explained to the woman in the other post that there are no such things
as "Monitor Drivers".

Maybe I didn't make that clear enough. I did try to do just that by
suggesting Video drivers but her MIS friend had more clout then I did.
Frankly I think she misunderstood the guy but I've heard some really strange
things out of profession IT people too.

--

Rob
Q: "What did the redneck say right before he died?"
A: "Hey ya'all watch this!!"