Cranky Customer

Your story reminds me of an experience my family had with Dell. My grandparents' old Apple had finally died, so they bought a new Dell desktop computer. They were offered the option of getting a free CD burner upgrade. Naturally, they took it.

Around six months after they started using their computer (not too long after the warranty expired), the entire operating system crashed. Nothing we tried would fix the problem; not even re-installing the O.S. off of the troubleshooting disk. So we called Dell's tech support line. We got the privelege of talking to someone in India, who promised to call back but never did. After a series of increasingly frustrating phone calls to Dell, they finally sent out a service technician. Guess what he discovered? The CD burner, which Dell offered for FREE, was causing the problem. The solution? Disable or remove all of the software running the burner. So we now have a FREE CD burner that, if we try to re-install it, will crash our system and delete everything we've saved on the computer.

Maybe Dell should have considered the effect their software would have on their computers before offering hardware for free.

i am presently in dell hell can anyone send me the corporate office phone number or address i have been promised a call from them for over a week and every day i find myself more upset i ordered a laptop for a christmas present and was sent a desk top i ordered a case for a 20 in laptop and recieved a 12 in case which they will give me free but its not good for anything they told me to reorder a laptop but wont send it or hold my order till they recieve the first one back which i gave them the tracking number for so im just stuck between a rock and hard place this after my family just purchased 3 laptops from this company

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I'm approving "darlene"'s comment to make one of my own: This is not a Dell site! I get several e-mails every week asking me to help with a computer problem. I cannot help you. I am not Dell. Do not e-mail me with your problem, work on getting Dell's attention!

Tip: when writing to someone to beg them for help (which, yes, you should NOT have have to do!), try using English -- not the garbage above where everything is in lower case and there's no such thing as punctuation. I didn't even attempt to parse it beyond seeing what the basic request was. Communication ability matters. It's no wonder you have trouble getting help when you can't communicate clearly! Your fellow citizens gave you a free education. You should have paid attention, and you're suffering for it now. Too bad, so sad -- no sympathy from me. -rc

It's still going on - Dell's inability to provide timely, adequate repair service. Why don't they wake up to the fact that the system they currently use is losing them many, many customers!?

Right now, I'm waiting for the Banctec service guy from Grenada Hills, CA to call me back. He's called me once out of the four times I was told in some way that he would call.

My Dell died a week ago (four week old machine). After a removal of a number of parts, Dell Customer Service determined it was a dead motherboard on my new Dimension E521. The Banctec guy was supposed to call me within two days. Told Dell he did, but my cell phone never rang and there is no record of any call from him on my cell phone. I've called him twice since the one time he talked with me. He has not responded to either of my messages, so it looks like another weekend will go by.

Frankly, the problem is not so much Dell's as it is the fact that they have contracted with some unreliable service companies. If I brought my machine into someplace such as Best Buy, it would be home and working by now (although it would have cost me a new motherboard and repair charges, of course). Maybe Dell should consider setting up some sort of reimbursment system. Unless they change their current repair system, I will never get a Dell again! I will be buying a Laptop in 4-6 months. It was going to be a Dell, but there's no way in Dell it will be one now!

My finally thought/question is: does anyone from Dell every read these? They don't seem to have read any of the emails I've sent them.

Bought a mid-level upper end 10 lbs "laptop" to replace an old desktop, choosing the upper end machine to avoid some of the daily use issues noted above. Also bought at same time and on same 4 year plan a new scanner/printer on assurance of the sales rep that this was a high end scanner and printer - it wasn't. Called Dell and got approval to return the scanner/printer. The return went smoothly, but cannot get scanner removed from the bill.

Or you could save yourself the headaches like I did by deciding not to buy a Dell after a cross examination by a sales rep who inisisted on having all my personal information before he would answer any questions.

I called Dell after seeing some of their computers advertised. They looked great. The prices were good so I called for extra information on a several models.

I started to ask my questions only to be interrupted by Mr. Super Sales Rep who said he needed to get some information from me first. I inquired about what kind of information could he possibly need from me in order to answer my questions.

He wanted not only name, address & phone number but credit card info, etc. I said, "Thanks but no thanks. First of all I plan to pay cash. Secondly if I had decided to use a credit card I would do so when and only when I wanted to make a purchase".

The pushy sales rep that I dealt with that day inisted that he could not answer my questions until he had my personal information. So after several attemtps to get simple answers to simple questions, I told him that I would never purchase an item from a company that hired someone like him and I hung up. After that experience and after reading the horror stories here, I'm sure that I will never buy a Dell product. I don't have much patience with fools these days and that sales rep was a fool.

I don't have a story about a bad experience with Dell. Actually, they were rather nice when my mother passed away, and they contacted us about payments on the laptop she had purchased. We talked to the Dell representative that called and were told that if the estate didn't have the money to pay off the account, we could send the laptop back to them. Once we told them it had been a Christmas gift for a teenaged granddaughter, and we didn't know who would be able to make the payments on it, they wrote off the remaining debt on the laptop. I guess even Dell couldn't see taking a Christmas gift away from a 14 yr old whose grandmother had just died.

Apparently your experience with Dell is not unique. I thought you'd like to read about the poor woman whose Dell burned down her house.

My Dell Hell is my own fault, because I was stupid enough to buy a second Dell laptop (Inspiron 600m) after an earlier laptop died in about 20 months. Well, this time I got the warranty, and joked that when you have the warranty, nothing will go wrong. Like getting the snow blower ready for winter and it never snows.

Well. Not funny. After 18 short months, this Dell has been doing BLACK SCREEN OF DEATH for two weeks now. Several times a day. Sometimes I can get it to power back up on its own. Other times, it requires heroic measures. Dell tech support, without doing any diagnostics at all, decides I need a new motherboard (to be fair, that's because I told them that I'd tripped on the power cord, and since the power port is part of the motherboard...). I'll leave out most of the gory details, but let's just say that after the tech installed a new motherboard, nothing changed. Second tech installed another new motherboard at 6:30 last night. Computer ran fine for two hours, then I shut it down. Today - 1/2 hour in e-mail and then BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH and it wouldn't restart. More frustrating time on the phone with tech support and it is now running again.

They are offering me a refurbished Dell POS. Right. I want some garbage that someone else returned. I actually don't even want a new Dell, but that would be my only choice at this point, and I am waiting to hear from the "escalation team." This on top of serious problems with the so-called expedited service I paid for when I ordered this computer, only to wait 2 weeks for it. And assorted other minor service issues. I am convinced that Michael Dell does not use a Dell and that neither he nor his shareholders actually want to fix this company. If they did, they'd start making reliable products, and I see no evidence of that happening. When I get a new laptop, I am going to take a sledge hammer to this one and then send it directly to Michael Dell. Meanwhile, I am spending my day finding websites and blogs to warn everyone about Dell.

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My only question: where are you going to get Michael Dell's address? As far as I can tell, that information is more closely guarded than the president's "nuclear football". If anyone has his actual address that they know is accurate, send it to me and I'll post it! -rc

One Dell Way is the corporate office. He may not receive it personally, but his staff will. If everyone starts smashing their useless Dells and sending them to One Dell Way, eventually they'll take notice. At the very least, we'll all feel a whole lot better. We were just joking about what to do with this POS once we replace it. We use the earlier, dead POS as a "burglar decoy" - we leave it sitting out for the burglars to steal and hide the working (well, working at this particular moment in time) Dell POS. But apparently, even burglars don't want Dell anymore.

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That was only partly helpful, but it was enough that I was able to find the rest:

Michael Dell
Dell Computer Inc.
One Dell Way
Round Rock TX 78682

I'll also post this in the essay itself, as well as on the original Dell Hell page. -rc

I am in a similar situation with Dell now. I called the other day got into automated hell with their faulty auto system and got angry. I post my frustration on my blog. 2 Days later someone from Dell posted a comment. When going back through my stats I see that I am now on the "naughty list" -- it seems because someone from Dell visits my site daily. They managed to find it by doing a search for Dell+Hell which is the name I gave my entry. I find this very amusing.

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I'd welcome a post from someone at Dell here -- they can contact me from their dell.com address. -rc