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A Dell Customer Service Dispute

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Re: A Dell Customer Service Dispute

#41

Post by jpalomaki »

SSLy wrote: post #35
vermooten wrote: post #32

This sort of thing is why I no longer buy Dell.

And what do you buy?

I've moved years ago from Dell to Lenovo. And specifically to professional models which come with onsite warranty.

The onsite warranty is of course very good thing on its own, but I also believe it puts pressure on the vendor to focus on quality and getting issues sorted out quickly (because doing onsite visits is not cheap). It also indicates the computer is built in a way I can also replace parts, because you can't field service a machine that has been glued together.

Re: A Dell Customer Service Dispute

#42

Post by jpatokal »

There's one missing piece in the story here:

I told him if [returning the laptop again is] the best solution that he can provide (customer care is not an iterative process), I would have no option but to pursue this through my university's legal department.

So what was the best solution that the complainer wanted? It seems like a replacement would have been a pretty reasonable thing to ask for at this point.

This, on the other hand, from one of the complainant's Facebook replies: In that case, please give me all the details of Prawin K from Dells Bangalore office so that I can sue him in India and the US.

Pro tip from someone running a support team: threatening legal action is usually a surefire way to cause your support case to screech to a grinding halt, since this requires that lawyers get called in and support engineers have to stop work until they've done their due diligence. What's more, the result of that due diligence may be "we'd prefer not to have you as a customer anymore, kthxbai".

Then again, this buffoon on Dell's side clearly hasn't received that particular memo: He simply told me that Dell was a very big company and had ample resources to outlast me and my university in a legal battle. Facepalm.

Re: A Dell Customer Service Dispute

#44

Post by CJefferson »

gizmo686 wrote: post #14

Dell's customer service is terrible. I had my harddrive die. My laptop was still under warranty, so I decided call Dell to get it fixed. After about 4 hours, I was able to get someone to start working on my case (I was transferred between departments 5 times, and only got someone to deal with the issue after I insisted that the previous person stay on the line until I did). We than spent the next hour diagnosing the…

I have to be honest, quite a bit of this seems reasonable in Dell's part -- I would expect a like for like swap, and to have to give back the broken part, else the possibility for fraud is too high.

Re: A Dell Customer Service Dispute

#45

Post by arjie »

Back in 2008, I had an XPS M1330 with an Nvidia 8400M GS. Now, if you guys remember this, it was the infamous integrated GPU which it would fail after some heat/cool cycle because the BGA would crack or some such rubbish. I was covered under warranty when I first bought it, but as soon as I exited the period, they clammed up. It was comical - the thing came with a built-in expiry date! Eventually, of course, they caved and extended the warranty on the motherboard to 1 year longer for everyone who bought that. But before that, man, they denied everything.

Re: A Dell Customer Service Dispute

#46

Post by beilabs »

arjie wrote: post #45

Back in 2008, I had an XPS M1330 with an Nvidia 8400M GS. Now, if you guys remember this, it was the infamous integrated GPU which it would fail after some heat/cool cycle because the BGA would crack or some such rubbish. I was covered under warranty when I first bought it, but as soon as I exited the period, they clammed up. It was comical - the thing came with a built-in expiry date! Eventually, of course, they cav…

I had that Nvidia card replaced 3 times. Each time an 'expert' came to my home and replaced the motherboard in front of me.

Each time I had it replaced apparently it extended the warranty for 1 more year.

The laptop scorched a mark in my table.

The charger exploded and scorched my carpet. They wouldn't exchange it until I told them I would send my bill for the carpet as well....

I didn't buy a Dell again for 8 years...wonder what is going to happen with this one.

Re: A Dell Customer Service Dispute

#47

Post by chris_wot »

edejong wrote: post #9

I thought it is generally known that Dell customer support has been rated appalling for the last dozen years or so. People keep buying products manufactured by this company at budget prices. By now they should know what they buy: a lottery ticket.

Can only have got worse since the EMC merger.

Re: A Dell Customer Service Dispute

#49

Post by eropple »

CJefferson wrote: post #44
gizmo686 wrote: post #14

Dell's customer service is terrible. I had my harddrive die. My laptop was still under warranty, so I decided call Dell to get it fixed. After about 4 hours, I was able to get someone to start working on my case (I was transferred between departments 5 times, and only got someone to deal with the issue after I insisted that the previous person stay on the line until I did). We than spent the next hour diagnosing the…

I have to be honest, quite a bit of this seems reasonable in Dell's part -- I would expect a like for like swap, and to have to give back the broken part, else the possibility for fraud is too high.

I've never returned a disk under warranty after hardware failure. At most, I've removed the top plate from the drive (rendering it unusable) and mailed that in, then destroyed the drive through the usual methods.
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