I provide computer services to small businesses. One of my services is data recovery, and I recently received a call from a lawyer.

She had purchaseda CMS backup device from Dell for her Inspiron 8000. She followed the installation directions...and ended up with an unbootable system, due to a known bug in the package. After several days of phone calls to Dell, she gave up and engaged me to get her daya off the trashed disk and rebuild her hard drive.

I was not involved in the initial discussions with Dell, but my customer had purchased 'complete care' with onsite service (onsite service is apparently not part of 'complete care'). Dell did not honor this warranty to rebuild the HDD, despite the fact that they sold the backup drive with an extended warranty.

It was easy enough to get the data off the disk, but it was extremely difficult to re-install W2K, since the spindle of the optical drive was detached. I called Dell for a replacement last Wednesday. They DID say they would honor the warranty for hardware replacement, which called for next day delivery.

On Friday, Airborne Express attempted to make the delivery...but Dell had sent the drive to my address with my customer's name as addressee.

I got the package readdressed with my name and my address, but Dell refused to pay the up-charge for Saturday delivery. Again, I waited this morning for the delivery, only to find out (at 11 AM) that Dell readdressed the package to Houston, Texas (100s of miles away).

Today I called AGAIN. It's been over an hour and counting....All I want them to do is ship me a new drive for delivery tomorrow. They insist they must rtrieve the pkg from Houston and ship THAT to me, so who knows when it will be delivered.

Dell has cost me HOURS and HOURS of delay and wait time. In good conscience, I can't charge the customer for the time - I'm just screwed.

So is the customer. Dell shipped a product, which they sourced from a 3rd party, with known bugs. They sold an extended warranty that is sure profit for them, because it covers so little. They provided no warning to the customer of a known bug, and she has to foot the bill for several hours of my work.

Any other horror stories about Dell 'service'? I have a client who's a class action lawyer who may be interested if there is a class that has been damaged. He's gotten a major settlement from a web hoster/registrar.

Any computer is great if it works - but when you need service, Dell epitomizes bad service. Avoid them

Regards.

Phil Barry

About 2 months ago a subcontracted Dell tech came to my apartment and gave my Latitude a new keyboard and motherboard! That's the good news. The bad news- it tool almost 1 month prior to that to persuade Dell to honor my warranty and to schedule a service appointment.

That month included probably a dozen conversations and emails with various tech reps, all of whom asked me over and over to tell them about my problem (CRM, anyone?). They also repeatedly asked me to perform the same 3 or so tests. Not until I told one guy that I refused to perform his silly test and that I demanded an immediate repair did Dell fold.

The experience was appauling, but honestly my laptop is refurbished, almost 3 years old, and I never had high expectations for service from the most lean and profitable PC manufacturer.

This might explain how Dell via "The Warehouse" (NZ's primary purveyor of cheap unusable crap to the underclasses) is able to offer :

2.4GHz (Celeron)
256MB
40GB
CD RW
56k
17" CRT

For $999NZD (500USD/333STG) including a one year warrantee ! This deal is obviously based on the understanding that :

1) It probably won't work.

2) They probably won't fix it.

Brilliant !

And that the hardware in the box is probably at least three years old.

On the other hand mine's worked fine as have all my mates in the industry. Maybe it's the UK. Bad story though

Tom

Actively enjoying it all

We deal with Dell for Laptops. I work for the County government. ( I'm on the WAN side ) Anyway, we get the priority care package, and to date from my knowledge we receive outstanding service. They have even replaced parts within waranty that were damaged due to accident.

I have just ordered another 6 3348 Switches to add to the 4 that we already have. I like them better than their 3Com competition. Normally we run Cisco, but have you seen the cost of a 48 port layer 4 gig switch from Cisco??. ( Putting in VoIP on part of the backbone )

Anyway, will ask at the office for anybody knowing any Dell horror stories. All manufacturers have a couple, but so far Dell has been pretty good in my experience.

Best of luck

regards,

michael

Minky

dunno where you've been holidaying recently, interbank rates on xe indicate nine nine nine kiwi is currently 371 of the sterling, or 647 greenbacks.

My experiences of Dell as a corporate client have been excellent. WHere the customer is big enough to dent dell if they lose the business, and provide appropriate attention in the form of dedicated account rep - its top-notch.

Sadly for me, I expected they'd treat small business customers with the same great cust service and attention to detail. I learned the hard way having shelled out £5500 on a couple of laptops, their service sucks, and their next day on site international warranty isn't worth the paper (or ether) its printed on.

So thats the advice I give people - if you're a corporate you'll be well looked after. SOHO - there are better providers.

Still - is Naim's site the correct forum for this? Should be asked.

Sorry to hear of your experiences, Phil - most frustrating, I can understand.

regards

Rico - SM/Mullet Audio

Rico,

I wondered how long it would take you to pull me up on that one. Still a pretty good deal though (apart from the no work/no service thing) eh ?

Come to the Warehouse, the Warehouse, where everyone gets a bargain, didlely-didley-do ! I bought a hammer there once that was fine until I foolishly used it to drive a nail into a piece of wood (I forgot to read the small print) and "metal fatigue" got the better of it.

Minky - 'bout the hammer. Are you serious ?

/dl

Is he ever serious?

Tom

Actively enjoying it all

I for one will never buy Dell again in any capacity.

The point made above about their attentiveness to big business compared to small business is correct. When I had a problem with Dell their response was "take us to court".

So the genral feeling is that although the product is usually good their customer service is pretty appalling. Seems about right from my experience.

Tom

Actively enjoying it all

I have 2x Dell computers at home and about 30 at work. Service and warranty issues have been rare, but one that did arise was dealt with absolutely efficiently. I've no idea how representative this is.

Such a large supplier is bound to attract a few horror stories but I'm not sure we've proved that Dell has any better/worse service than anyone else have we?

Bruce

[QUOTE]Originally posted by mykel:
( I'm on the WAN side )
This is a result of sitting in front of a computer screen for hours on end. I suggest a spot of healthy exercise in the sun.

Yours in Music

Syd

quote:

---

Originally posted by David Legge:
Minky - 'bout the hammer. Are you serious

---

Nope

quote:

---

Originally posted by Tom Alves:
Is he ever serious?

---

Yup

you bought a hammer there? What next Minky, a TV or Hifi from the Whare-house? Jeez.

Hmmm. I did buy a pair of woodworking clamps from them on sale for 0.99 each, they seem to be working ok.

I hear they do a good line in porta-cots, xmas trees, and other cheap s#*t. That should give you a chance to 'browse' when you take yer 2-piece hammer back under their "money back guarentee".

Rico - SM/Mullet Audio

Thanks for the responses. It sounds as I expected: good support for big corporations, questionable support for SOHO.

BTW, no one knows if the pkg was picked up in Houston; we do know it never arrived at its intended desitination.

We also know it's the wrong part - they sent a DVD-ROM - it should have been a DVD-ROM/CD-RW combo drive.

I last talked to a guy in Manila - he told me the correct part would be shipped in a couple of days. I said, 'That's an insult.' He went away, apparently to talk to someone, and came back and said it would arrive today - and Airborne seems to have the right address, with delivery 'expected' today.

The class action lawyer has just purchased a Dell computer. He's a SOHO, so Dell may f**k the wrong customer.

I simply will recommend my clients stay away from Dell and buy locally - better warranty on the critical parts, bog standard parts, and someone local to strangle if there's a big foul-up. And I will get back to my server saleswoman and ask her sweetly to prove my experience was very unusual or kiss the sale goodbye.

I am really shocked that this incident has experienced so many errors. You know, if the pkg had been lost I might have had the same delay, but this one case has seen 3 errors.

And it's seen 6 phone calls from me alone, probably 4 hours of talk time for me and for Dell staff. I can't help thinking that a lot of the outsourcing savings (lower labor costs in Panama, India, and the Philippines) are lost in the low quality of communications. I respect these folks for their abilities in English - but accents and phone lines can be real hindrances to high quality info exchange. And this incident has cost them the sale of 2 servers and associated s/w.

Penny-wise and pound-foolish, perhaps.

Regards.

Phil
Don't buy Dell!

Oh, yeah. They sent the wrong part.

Phil

I bought my girlfriend a Dell a few years ago when she started her masters. At the appointed time we sat waiting and waiting for the delivery to no avail. Discussions with Dell revealed that THEY had provided the courier an incorrect address for delivery. Further discussion revealed that it was the flat next door. The neighbors had informed the courier that the real recipients were only a few meters away. The courier, however, was unable to deliver the PC to us as Dell classified my girlfriend's neighborhood as a high risk area for mail fraud and required all products delivered to incorrect addresses to be returned to them. Where does my girlfriend live, you might ask, to be included in such negative banding? The green and leafy heights of Finchley, recognised for its preponderance of bankers, and as the former riding of one Margaret Thatcher.

Much to'ing and fro'ing resulted in the PC finally being delivered a week later after an extended (and ultimately succesful) discussion as to who should foot the bill for the failed delivery and new attempt. The courier arrived at the appointed time and us asked us to sign the way-bill which stated to the effect that the goods had been received in their entirety and in working order. Something a little difficult to judge given that they were in a box at the time. Not willing to give Dell the benefit of the doubt, my request to the courier to wait until said assurances could be given met with with a melodic "you're fuckin' havin' a laugh mate". He was a third party to the process, not a representative of Dell, and under time pressure. To be honest I could understand his attitude and he even shared a few comiseratory and colourful stories about Dell deliveries to prove that he wasn't trying to be a dick. He opted to leave without gaining a signature on the way-bill which was little alarming in and of itself. If Dell expects you to sign your rights away, they should provide you a delivery mechanism that makes it possible.

As is turned out, it was an act of providence that I didn't sign. The delivery was missing its speakers, and it turned out that neither the cd/rw nor dvd/rom were connected to the internal power supply. The latter problem was easy to solve (a Dell rep talked me through it over the phone). Getting a pair of replacement speakers took another week of time-consuming discussions (lots of pressing the appropriate button and waiting for the next available agent), which ultimately concluded in a discussion with their European head of customer services.

In fairness, the PC has ultimately proven itself an excellent machine. I remain wary, however, of ever buying another Dell due to the experience.

It's surprising how many good products are let down by appaling customer service. It seems that when things are tight companys reduce costs there first. I've had similar bad experiences with Rover MG, Direct Line and the Folio Society. Surely if they want us to buy their products they need to give us confidence not piss us of.

Tom

Actively enjoying it all