Cranky Customer

I have been a Dell head for many years. I work in the IT industry, enterprise storage, and am, of course, the IT guy for family and friends. It has always been easy for me to suggest purchases...go buy a Dell. If it breaks and I'm out of town, they'll fix it for you.

That confidence is pretty shaken at this point. Try to do something easy, like canceling an order within the hour you placed it. End up with a CSR that, instead of escalating the issue, just decides to say that it will definitely be canceled. I call back within 30 minutes because I didn't get a good feel from Veena, the first CSR. Sure enough, not only was it not canceled, it couldn't be canceled. So, let's talk to a supervisor. Sam (101080) comes into play about 30 minutes later. (Good luck getting escalated. These people are taught to never escalate.)

So, I am dealing with a supervisor now. I should be able to get verification that he can either re-route the shipment or, at least, make a note so that the returns department will know my story and just send me out a return label. What he provided was a lot of repeating stuff that we had already agreed we both understood. He can't stop the shipment. He can't communicate with the returns department. Dell's official answer was call back when it arrived. Don't worry about getting lied to, we'll handle that and you'll never know otherwise.

Sam ended up hanging up on me after he called me a liar. I asked to speak to someone above him and he replied that he couldn't do that. He was authorized to handle these issues, per his manager. I informed him I wanted to make a complaint about him and he said that he could handle it. His handling it never involved submitting a complaint against himself. Among other things, he informed me that he couldn't provide me any corporate info. No mailing address, no email address, no phone numbers...nothing. He was not authorized to do that. What???? If I want to complain, complain to him or deal with it???

This simple order cancel is still in progress. I had to call back into a CSR and spend 10 more minutes until she transfered me to her Supervisor, Luke. Luke submitted the complaint for me. In theory, I will hear from Dell. In actuality, who knows. I am not confident after seeing that Dell polices a department with itself and allows no communication between departments.

I want to say I will still purchase Dell, but what if I have a real problem? That is the scary part. What if something fails and I need my laptop? The idea that you have to have a backup computer for every computer you purchase from Dell is a scary theory. It also makes Sony's prices a lot more competitive.

I just bought a Dell Vista desk top, my 4th Dell and I had some simple questions I needed answered about some of the surprises I found in Vista. I won't rehash my experience with so-called customer service because it's pretty much the same as the gentleman above, maybe a little worse. My last PC purchase from Dell was about 4 years ago and after a few calls my issues were resolved by a senior tech in Texas who actually gave me Michael Dell's email address and encouraged me to send him an email about the tech's good work. Dell (or a proxy) actually responded, thanking me for the good news, etc. Today, that email address is defunct and it is impossible to get in touch with anyone from the home office by email, phone or fax. Shows you how far and fast things have gone down hill at Dell for regular customers like you and I. The only advice I can give anyone considering a Dell is 1) consider an HP instead, or 2) learn how to say "you don't know what you're talking about" and "get me a supervisor pronto" in Hindi.

I keep dealing with Dell with the expectation that I will eventually run into one of these instances described on this website and others that I have read over the years and I never do. And I figured out finally that it must be that my expectations are low to begin with. And when I do need Dell for something to replace a part or to answer a software question. I already know that I am calling a hardware company for a software question. And I know that all Dell does is troubleshoot over the phone to a component level and send the part out overnight. They contract people to replace the parts.

I found this out with my first Dell purchase in 1996. And the only thing that has changed since then is that back in 1996 I actually had a chance to talk with the same technician if I called back. Now their support is around the world Manila-Ottawa-Panama-Nashville-Round Rock. I cannot fault them for this it may have something to do with bringing us 200 desktops and 400 laptops-You Think! I pay the extra for Gold Support and go between Nashville and Round Rock for support and it is worth the 79.00. I get my questions answered and they have been for things not related to Dell in most cases. But since it plugs into a Dell I assume that they will know what I am talking about not always.

I recently had a cash register POS Dimension go down that did not have 4 hour support like my Optiplex units and that was my fault for still using it. And my employees were writing out receipts at the store it was located and getting backed up and the inventory was not being recorded. I called in using its tag# and it did not have Gold Support so I went to Ottawa. And I had the further problem of it being out of warranty by a couple of weeks. So I called Dell and was escalated to their Resolution Expert Center for which I had before last year. And a Jeffrey Scully took my issue and called me that afternoon and I was not at store myself but he called the manager of that store, Gary. And he sent Gary a hard drive the next day with cds to reload software. Even out of warranty but in the grace period he said. And he walked Gary through taking out the hard drive from his unit in the back room. And placing it in the cash register unit-same type of Dimension bought around the same time. And showed him how to get his hard drive to boot in the other unit. And further showed him how to have the original drive as the secondary drive. And it worked for about a hour before it totally failed. And was able to get the POS software database off of it and the credit card host software over to the hard drive out of Gary's unit from the back. And had the register up in a little over a hour. All with customers going through the line asking what he was doing while making their purchases.

With my low expectation of Dell to start with I am not sure I believe that it is their standard operating procedure to do this. I mean the last time I had it done it cost 488.00 for someone to come in and do the exact same thing. This call cost me nothing and I even benefited in the regard that I did not have to even purchase the hard drive. And that was a month ago and it still works. I am not sure what the expectations are of the people whom are blogging these websites. As far as Dell goes I bought my first and now my 30th from them. And I would not buy from anyone else. I do not know maybe I would get this type of service from someone else but I do not want to risk it. I already know what to expect from Dell.

I am in Dell Hell too after buying a nice Inspiron 1521 for my daughter in August '07. As of today, it won't turn on after freezing up and basically will not work. I bought eight (8) service & warranty coverages but Dell claims my issue is software and I did not buy coverage for that. Bull. Two hardware coverages are specified as such, the remaining 6 do not specify, therefore software is covered by exclusion but Indians don't understand that kind of reasoning. Everything on my P.O. and Packing Slip are all clear and in black & white but Dell Indians keep wanting to add words to the coverage as written.

This company is a mess, their "customer careless" doesn't care or help and there is no way to get this computer to work again without help I paid for and can't get from them. They actually insisted on selling me a $300 for "software coverage". Now that's pathetic and I cannot understand how we can be so stupid as to make this company so successful.

Don't do it. Buy a Mac where they know how to service what they sell. The rest of the PCs are all junk without support. It's called "OEM" software, and just gives Mike Dell another income stream on the backs of otherwise reliable software.

I hate Dell and will never, never do it again.

I purchased an Inspiron refurbished 1505 in July 2007. This product began to malfunction. I spent hours with Dell Tech in an attempt to solve the problems. Dell Tech supplied me with a replacement refurbished Inspiron 1520. This product also began to malfunction. Over a period of weeks, the hard drive was replaced and the DVD was replaced. It continued to malfunction. Now Dell Tech wants to send me a third replacement.

I have spent over 20 hours on the phone with Dell Tech. I have had several Dell Chat sessions. A Dell customer should not be required to spend countless hours on the phone with Dell Tech to get a product working properly. I have indicated to Dell that I am willing to pay additional money to purchase a new (not refurbished) Dell laptop if they will provide me with a full refund of my original purchase.

Dell Tech waves the 21 day refund rule at me and only offers a 50% rebate on provable defective products. I have sent a FAX to Dell's Texas office without any response. I have sent to 'escalate' messages to Dell without any response. It appears to me, at this moment, that Dell wants me to continue working with Dell Tech on defective products until my warranty expires at which time I will be SOL.

On 4-17-08, I submitted a post regarding the many difficulties I have had with two refurbished Dell laptops (Inspirons 1505 and 1520). Today I received notice from Dell Tech that a new (not refurbished) Inspiron 1525 was enroute to me. The new laptop has an upgraded harddrive and memory. If this new Dell works as good as its many favorable reviews, I will be happy. If not, I will re-post in the future.

I want to thank the originator of "DellHell' for creating this site. Did the site help solve my problems? I really don't know, but I know one thing for sure, it sure didn't hurt. Thanks.

I am now on a first name basis with DellTech after spending 30 hours online to correct problems (which are not corrected).

My query: What right does dell have to sell and send computers that are incompatable with the software they install? To whom do we address this problem? Is is time for the Attorney General?

I am a computer technician with much experience in hard drive recovery. One of my customers has a dell with a hard drive that wouldn't boot and was unreadable. I was able to repair the drive and recover the entire contents. The drive even booted! I ran some of my drive diagnostic software and the drive had over 250,000 read errors. No bad sectors. I call dell support. They will not replace the drive unless it receives an error code with the "dell diagnostics". Ok, I decide to humor them. I ran ONE specific test. After 5.5 hours it was only 46% complete so I stopped it rather than destroy the drive. The drive sounds like a popcorn popper. I call tech support again. They will not replace the drive unless it receives an error with the "dell diagnostics". They had the balls to suggest that I wipe the drive and reinstall. Like that's going to make it sound better and run faster. Diagnostics don't even run in windows. In my opinion, that's like putting new paint on rotten wood. They would just as soon have the drive burn up running their diagnostics than to be a little proactive and just replace the damn thing. One would think that 5.5 hours and only at 46% complete is a little excessive for one test on a 160GB drive and might indicate that a drive is failing.

I've ordered a replacement drive at my customer's expense. Once I get everything transferred over to the new drive I'm going to run the "dell diagnostics" until the drive smokes.

Unfortunately with all the time I have wasted with Dell, this will be a job I lose money on. At least I have the integrity to do the right thing for my customer, unlike dell.

ok... i worked for DELL for darn 2 years. I was a resolutions specialist/manager/supervisor. As much as we would like to give the customer what is due them thing is our asses get chewed by our lousy management. In short, supervisors with no balls don't stand up for what they think is right to give customer satisfaction. Let us not forget the fact that there is also some "hell customers" out there who just wanna make a killing.

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Yes, there are unreasonable customers out there. Some have probably commented here. And it's difficult to tell which customers are unreasonable, and which are reacting to being screwed. But I have little doubt Dell is way off balance on this. -rc

I completely agree to Randy's Blog and i have written a response.