DELL HELL REDUX

Sometimes I wonder whether placing these consumer complaints in my ethics blog is appropriate.  After all, they are sort of self-serving - I am drawing attention to myself instead of to some ethical issue.  But on the other hand, I'm also drawing attention to what I have come to think of as dishonest brokering by gargantuan companies who use their size, a phone barrier, and a bunch of overseas representatives with limited English and limited power to problem-solve overwhelm consumers so that they just go away rather than demanding a working product.  So, here I am back to talk about DELL, again.

Below is the post I wrote to a guy named David Angelo, after posting on Dell's facebook wall.  He asked me to send him a private message.  I somehow missed the private part - probably because I'm feeling pretty public in my anger.  I'm not going to retype it, because I've already wasted over three hours dealing with Dell today.

David, here is the entire story. It's long and ugly. It starts in 2008 with the purchase of an M1330. I am a tiny person, and a "older" returning student, and I needed a small computer to carry back and forth to school. Unfortunately, that computer was a total lemon. If you're interested in checking the number of service calls, here is the express tag from that computer: 96K16H1. I probably logged 80 hours on the phone with Dell. It never worked, and eventually I had to spend another $1200 for a toshiba, which I'm still using, while I sorted out the problems with Dell. 

In April of 2011, I started screaming my head off. The blog above, and help from a Dell person on Fb. Eventually, in late May, I was offered a replacement - finally. Unfortunately, they offered me a very big, refurbished laptop. I protested that I spent money for a small, NEW portable - that Dell had my money but I had yet to have a working computer. But they told me that this xps L502 was the ONLY choice I had. Eventually, hitting a brick wall, I negotiated (or so I thought) that they would put a 3 year warranty on it since it was refurbished - like the original warranty I ordered on the M1330. I also still own additional "accidental damage" warranty that I purchased earlier. But the new DELL basically has been sitting on a shelf at my house. I've watched the occasional movie on it because the screen is bigger than the Toshiba, but that's it. The toshiba is portable. 

About two or three months ago, I decided to put my dissertation work onto the Dell, since I mostly work on it at home. It is the first time I have used the Dell in earnest since I received it. Over the last couple of weeks, the computer screen started doing weird things. This morning it gave me some sort of driver display error message. I called in and got a run-around that I will explain below. It ended with me telling the sixth guy I talked to that I hate dell, and hanging up. I knew it would end with a brick wall. I'm guessing Dell saves a lot of money by letting people hit a wall and give up. Nice.

Anyway, back to today's calls, I gave the assorted representatives the service tag number from the current computer: 7SDZPQ1, the refurbished XPS. I also gave them a lot of information - service tag and tech support reference numbers - from the OLD Dell, hoping they could find a paper trail that would lead to an order number for the current computer. I finally pressed them to transfer me to a supervisor, they suddenly came up with some order number that may or may not be mine: 427227529. But they said this order number is from 2010 and I didn't get this problem resolved until late spring or early summer of 2011

NEXT some other woman gave me an entirely different order number, 795097455. I don't know what's right. Unfortunately, I am in currently Flagstaff Arizona with my daughter who had a premature baby. I cannot get at the box that the computer came in, which may or may not still have an order number attached, is in Phoenix. I will not be able to get anything from that box until the baby is out of the hospital and I can go home. Meanwhile, the display device on my Dell is malfunctioning and if my computer goes down, I will not be able to work. 

Finally, I was transferred me to a FOURTH person who "attached" the second order number to the service tag number, and the call dropped. When I called back in, the FIFTH department informed me that this order number goes to the lemon m1330 I had before. Oy. He transferred me to person # 6. Your company SUCKS.

The last jerk I just spoke with did acknowledge that I owned the xps. But then he said the stupidest things ever. He said, "you were HAPPY when we sent you the replacement Dell, and it's not our fault you didn't use it." He also said nobody would have told me that they would give me a warranty with the refurbished computer. Well, how would he know? He wasn't on the call. Maybe they said it to shut me up - and then did nothing - but they did say it. Since they did not do the work to connect the order number to the express service tag, etc, why should we be surprised that they did not provide the promised service warranty? 

So, to recap, first Dell replaced the lemon with a HUGE HONKING refurbished computer, even though I purchased a tiny little NEW portable one. Second, while Dell has had the use of my money for several years, I actually had to buy a second computer - a Toshiba that is still working - to use while i got the first thing settled out. When DELL finally offered me a replacement, and I objected to it's being both big and used, DELL said this was my ONLY CHOICE, and that i had to take it or nothing. But they DID tell me I would have a 3 year warranty on it. Yes, it's DELL's fault it's been sitting on a shelf for two years. If I had wanted an over-sized computer, I would have purchased one in the first place. I've continued to carry the Toshiba because it's tiny. When I finally found a use for the DELL, and moved my dissertation to it because the screen is bigger, it malfunctions within about two or three months. The display is wigging out, and a simple call for help triggered a six person hell, during which people tried to make it my fault that the service tag number didn't connect to a computer, that I ended up with a refurbished DELL without a warranty, and that I didn't immediately start carrying the monster when I did get it. So once again, DELL takes no responsibility and it's all my fault. THIS REALLY SUCKS. 

So I'm right back where I started in 2011. DELL has my money, I have a bad Dell, nobody in DELL cares, and the whole thing wasted so much time. 

Think you can do anything about this?

I bet nothing improves. David Angelo probably doesn't have the authority to make this right.  But if he does, I'll be sure to let you know.  Moral of this story: buy Toshiba.

I've Been To Hell With Dell

This is the post I just left on Dell's facebook wall.  Let's see if Dell will be honest enough to leave this post up.

"I have been on the phone now for over 70 minutes trying to get help. I paid for a 3-year, in-home warranty - the most expensive warranty offered me at sale.  I am on my second Dell computer. The first one was finally replaced when Dell acknowledged they couldn't fix it.  The second one was refurbished and apparently had one operating system installed over another, because half of its hard drive was unavailable. They made me send it in to the tech people, and it came back today.  They had not replaced the hard drive as promised - they say they didn't have parts, and it has more problems than it left with, including no sound or wireless capacity.  Now they are telling me that if I want to talk to anyone - tech or customer service IN AMERICA I have to buy ANOTHER warranty program. The one I have does not entitle me to talk to an American. I think I've wasted a full month of my life on the phone with Dell over the last three years."

It's been approximately three years since I bought my first Dell.  I wanted a Fujitsu - I've had three of those little computers that just keep giving - but the unit with comparable features to the Dell wasn't scheduled to be to market for several months.  The first Dell had one problem after another.  It was loaded with Vista - although the sales people assured me it would be fully upgradable when the new Windows product finally came out - and I spent probably 40 hours worth of time, no exaggeration, with Dell techs trying to get that computer to work.  Later, when I loaded it with Windows 7 under the careful tutelage of an online technician, the install failed.  The failure was not only no surprise, but Windows 7 was actually designed to be "rolled back" to Vista in case of an install failure.  Unfortunately, the roll back did not work on the Dell, and Dell had to wipe out my hard drive, and I had to cope with everything that implies, so that Windows 7 could be installed. 

After that, the computer never really worked again.  Couple that with the stuff that happens - it fell off the sofa once.  I spilled liquid on it once.  But that's what that expensive three year warranty is for, right? 

One thing to like about Dell's warranty is that they send someone right to your house to fix the computer.  However, one guy once broke my computer while fixing it, and they had to send out someone else to undo his work.  Another time, the guy was extremely annoyed when I told him my schedule wouldn't permit an appointment for a couple of days.  He gruffly told me to call when I was ready, but when I did, I discovered that he'd cancelled the work order with Dell.  Meaning, I had to start from scratch on the phone again.  No one was simply willing to look me up, push a button reinstating an old order.  No, we had to go through the entire rigamarole again.

Finally, Dell decided to simply replace my computer, although with a different model than the first.  Because, the in-home tech told me, the model I'd purchased was pretty much a lemon and Dell had stopped manufacturing it. 

To make a long story short, the replacement (Dell 1645 STUDIOxps if you want to know) is a lemon too.  The computer constantly announced that it would not proceed because the hard drive was full.  Delete something! it ordered me, over and over.

My initial calls to Dell yielded a pie chart showing about half the hard drive as grey matter - something was using it, but they couldn't tell what.  They blamed me.  They said obviously I had too much stuff on my computer.  If it didn't look like it, it must be because I had duplicates of everything.  Seriously?

Now understand.  I intentionally bought a huge hard drive.  Even though I mostly surf the web and create documents.  I do keep a few photos on the computer, but I zip them to save space, and move them onto disks when they get too plentiful.  I don't have games or computer aided design programs that eat space.  I don't keep music or movies on my machine.

I am whisked onto the set of Fringe.  My computer is mysteriously connected through a vortex to an identical computer across the void, an identical computer that sucks half the life from my hard drive. Yes, that's it. Halfsies with a computer on the other side.

Eventually, making my way through several techs over many hours of time, someone suggests that possibly a new operating system had been installed over an old one.  Who knows? 

Regardless, they finally offered to replace the hard drive with another.  Yes, that means I must yet again reinstall all my software.  Not their problem, of course.

Today I received Dell number two back from the shop.  I opened it and immediately noticed that the original hard drive remains.  All my programs and documents are still installed.  For a brief moment of hope, I believe Dell's technicians have made a back-up of my entire system somehow, and then reinstalled it.  But no.

I launch Internet Explorer and head to Facebook.  It opens to a video of the Marx Brothers singing "Lydia the Tatoo'd Lady."  Half way through the video, the faces distort suddenly.  Within moments, the sound coughs and disappears.  Then, the wireless goes down.  Now, I know it's not the router, because my little Toshiba is up and running next to the Dell.  I run a troubleshooter, and it tells me that my wireless switch is off. 

Did I accidentally knock it?  And what does that have to do with the picture or the sound?

I try the switch.  Nothing. 

I shut down the computer and reboot it.   I'm so not surprised when nothing happens. 

I reboot it again, this time on safe mode/networking.  Fine, it comes up.  Still no sound or internet though.  I restart it again, because not all troubleshooting works in safe mode.  This story is getting very boring, isn't it?  The computer comes back up, but a grey picture of a speaker is now on the screen, and an x is flashing off and on in the middle of it, making a little tick tick noise that it's still making, two and a half hours later, as I sit here and type.  A noise which the Dell tech later claims not to hear even when I hold the phone right up to the source of the noise.  Of course, why should he hear it?  He's OCEANS away.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. 

Here we go again.  The only feeling worse than picking up the phone to call Dell is the feeling I used to get the first day of Legislative Session, when my stomach knotted up the minute I stepped on the capitol campus.

Fortunately, I get a pleasant enough woman, although she has a heavy accent difficult to follow.  She begins asking me the routine questions.  She pulls up the file, finds the order number, and begins to read outloud every word on the screen.  It says exactly the same thing as the service slip inside the box.  Tedious.

I ask to talk to a supervisor when the woman wants to start from scratch trying to diagnose my computer, rather than simply figuring out how to get the previously documented problem dealt with.  The supervisor is a guy.  Although he starts out pleasantly enough, it deteriorates when he "diagnoses" my computer's problem without any information to be something completely different than the first techs originally concluded after our hours and hours of testing and talking.  He asks no questions.  He does not try to look at my computer remotely.  He wasn't the least bit interested in hearing what the techs had discovered during our long learning experience, and he prescribed something entirely different.   I wonder if I am being dismissed because I am female.  While it's not consistently my experience, it's happened more than once with a male foreign tech.

Unfortunately, the discussion is further complicated by the language barrier.  I barely understand the supervisor through his heavy accent,and I need to ask him repeatedly to slow down or to repeat.  On top of that, when I ask how I will be able to reinstall my Office 2010 upgrade, since the original 2007 is no longer on my equipment, he tries to convince me that Office will happily mistake a downloadable trial version of 2007 for a purchased version. 

Not.

Microsoft is way too smart for that.  If that worked, nobody would purchase a new version of any software.  In the end the guy simply said it wasn't his problem.  He just didn't care. 

It was at that moment, when I realized how little he cared, that I asked to speak to an American.

He tells me that no American will speak to me.  As I am not inclined to believe him, I asked to speak to his supervisor,  He has the audacity to claim that he is his own supervisor.  I insist he must have a boss, and he claims he IS his boss.  I ask to be transferred to an American tech, and he tries to dissuade me.  He tells me that I will have to pay for American help.  Despite my warranty.

I ask why.  Because, he tells me, American help is only for people who buy yet another warranty.   I decide to take my chances, hoping that an American will at least understand my plight and find someone to help me.  He grudgingly accommodates my request, but when I finally get transferred to America, they, too, are on the same page.  They don't even want to help me.  They talk down to me, like, I am not one of their paying customers.  Seriously.  The guy's name is David, the only identification he will give me is that he is on their YourTechTeam, he's clearly American, and he says, "You are not even entitled to speak with me."  Fancy that.

I ask for his supervisor.  He, too, tries to dissuade me, but I persist.  Eventually I am transferred to Devin YourTechTeam Badge ID 199592, who is infinitely more patient, claims to have "full authority to resolve my problems," but who also claims there is nothing he can do for me except document my concerns and send me back into the hell hole I just emerged from.  Devin confirms that there is nobody in America who will help me - unless, that is, I pay for the additional warranty service.   I ask him what "full authority to resolve problems" means to him.  I ask whether there is anyone with fuller authority.  He says No.  Over and over.  And tries to sell me the other Warranty product.

I get a sense of what it must have felt like to be a boat refugee, turned away at the American shore.  Except, I am an American.  How ridiculous is this?

Ok, I say, don't help me with technical service.  Just help me find someone to talk to in the United States - maybe someone who will sit on the phone with me while I deal with the people from the other out-of-country department.  Devin says the only other office in the U.S. is their legal department, and when I say, "fine, transfer me," he says I can contact Dell's legal department only by fax or U.S. mail.

Ever thinking, I get the bright idea to be transferred to Sales, where I know they have English speakers.  They are no fools.  Save those English speakers for the sale.

Devin says, "I will transfer you to sales if that's what you're asking me to do, but they cannot resolve your problem."   I know, I tell him, but I am counting on finding someone, somewhere, with more heart, or more authority, or more creativity than you.  Someone who feels sorry for me as a fellow human being, and will somehow, some way, find a way to help. 

This is America, where hope springs eternal.  

So Devin transfers me back to Dave, with instructions to transfer me to Sales.  He instead transfers me back to the pit of doom.  That shmuck.

With as much patience as I can muster, I tell the man who answers the phone, the man whose connection is cutting in and out because it has to travel to a satellite somewhere over another hemisphere back down to him, then up again and back to me, that I have been erroneously been transferred to him when I wish to speak to sales.  American sales. 

I am put on hold and after 2 hours exactly of phone time, the line disconnects.

It seems I have three choices.  I can hold my breath and dive back into the pit.  I can choose vendetta.  I can get on with my life without getting the Dell fixed.   I'm thinking that third option might be easier and in some ways - like for my blood pressure - cheaper.

Of course Dell won't help me.  Strictly as a business decision, why should they?  By now my file is dotted with comments.  I'm a lost cause.  They've no doubt paid out more sending people to my home and covering the cost of tech time than they earned from the original sale.  I'm just one unhappy customer they'd rather forget all together.

Although apparently I'm not alone.  I googled "Dell sucks" just to make myself feel better, and you would not believe what comes up.  There is even a website called DellHellAgain.com.  Or read this poor guy's story, "Friends Don't Let Friends Buy Dell Computers." It sounds a lot like mine. 

There's even a facebook page called Dell Sucks!  I joined.

Perhaps I will oblige them and go away quietly.  Perhaps I will dive back in.  For now, I am documenting this awful experience and putting it out there on the internet to make myself feel better, if nothing else.  Hours and hours of trying to talk my way through Dell's official channels haven't netted me a working computer.  I am trying the in-your-face angle.  I hope everyone who reads this will SHARE it, on facebook, on twitter, by email.  Use the little share tool to the right of this post.  This blog post isn't funny or clever enough to go viral, but if enough people share it, somewhere - hopefully in America - perhaps some Dell exec will take pity on me and make this right. 

Maybe.  Probably not.   But maybe.  It is, after all, America.  Anything can happen.