“Sonicwall products are not returnable”

Have you been asking them to reverse charges? Any time I have any trouble with any account ever, I always say "can you check if this generated any overdraft charges, and if so, can you reverse them"; it seems to work.

When it finally arrived at my house, I was missing several items that were part of the "bundle" I paid for. I was Missing the headset as well as the extra controller and free game they advertised. Calling their support was an exercise in patience as it turned into a debate about what I ordered. Dell had purposely sent the included receipt with tactically chosen wording that I had just ordered a normal Xbox bundle they always sold. A classic bait-n-switch.

I had an argument with the support person about that being wrong yet they insisted, DESPITE my time/date of order showing to purposely take advantage of the BF deal and a screen shot of my order. They still fought it as the included receipt was their trump card. So basically all a company has to do is fix the sent receipt and change the order wording and there is no defense for being taken advantage of? I was livid.

A quick search of the net found out I wasn't alone in this bat/switch Xbox bundle BF deal. Eventually they gave in to the headset and sent me a Dell gift card for the amount to order a headset through them. This was now further proof I had ordered a SPECIAL BF deal as they admitted it by comping the headset. But they still would not budge on the extra controller or the free game.

I decided to try and stick it to them instead for their deceptive tactics and issued a complaint with my credit card for not getting what I paid for. I filed for full amount of purchase of the BF deal and explained what happened to my CC company. They mentioned they had similar complaint already about same thing for someone else. So I did a chargeback. Not intending to get free Xbox but rather try to scare Dell to just make good.

Months went by and I find out Dell fought it, as expected. Dell now was offering me a full refund and to send everything back. I was ready to do just that and buy from elsewhere now BUT, get this, Dell said I had to pay for return shipping! So now instead of getting everything I paid for, they now expect me to be OUT $30 to ship it back with now NOTHING to show for.

So that is where it ended. I gave up. I wasn't getting the advertised controller or free game and just wasn't going to be -$30 at this point for nothing than to prove a point. So I kept the Xbox, paid for it and just accepted Dell has now become a piece of shit company. And I will NEVER buy or recommend to anyone, including many clients, Dell or anything the sell again.

What? The factory can't restore the firmware to as-new condition? That's a bit of a problem in itself, isn't it?

Clearly there are cultural differences in expectations here. I respect the way it works in the US, but i personally like the UK approach explained eloquently above, as I get just enough protection and no more.

Avoiding being (indirectly) exposed to the other customers' fickle ordering with scant attention seems a good thing to me (not that I'm implying this occurred in this case, I see this was a genuine mistake). I'm sure some will say that a big company can swallow the costs, but clearly that money has to come from somewhere and it's from prices higher than they would otherwise be, passed on to everyone.