Re: Dell Tech Support - lost another faithful customer

That's why I'm visiting this newsgroup - a remote family member just had a bad experience. A few weeks ago he loved Dell stuff - has
a business with about 30 desktops and a server at his office - never used anyone else.
Well, he had his first failure that he needed service.

He bought a 2200 Inspiron laptop for his daughter in late Sept . She was busy - on the road - and never even plugged it in until a
month later. She went to use it and it wouldn't boot. She didn't call Dell as she was busy with school and just used her work pc
for her email. For a week she called Dell during lunch and hung up after being on hold for about 30 minutes each time (that's what
she told me). She tried a few times within the next few weeks and finally got through from home late one night. The tech had her on
the phone for over an hour for a PC that would not boot. She had to hang up as she had a meeting to attend. She'll " try another
time". She was getting too aggravated with it and put it off. Then she had a meeting out of town. When she got through the next
time, the tech determined that she needed a hard drive and more memory. AND it was now day 92 of ownership and it only had a 90 day
warranty. (so was this a USED PC ? 90 day vs 1 year warranty). She has no money so got a conference call with the father who was
also on the road. Dell quoted him about $200 for a new disk drive. He told Dell support that this PC never worked properly - "she
has called before - you have the history" - he was very upset. Dell's attitude was "hey it's day 92 on a 90 day warranty - too bad":
even with the history of her calling earlier but not getting it resolved. ( Granted the daughter SHOULD have shown more initiative
getting it fixed but she really was busy/out of town/ working 12 hour days etc). SO, the tech told him that system wasn't "powerful
enough" - that it NEEDS a bigger hard drive and more memory. The Dad flipped out (so I'm told) and was screaming at the tech " I
bought a new PC from you - it won't boot - and you're telling me it's because it's 'underpowered' ?? Do you have ANY idea what
you're doing ?? " . But since the father was in Florida and the daughter in another state, he ordered the $200 disk drive to be
shipped to the daughter. ( THIS is when I first heard of this problem and I was leaving town for 2 weeks ) Dell shipped the disk
drive to her. She put it in and - still wouldn't boot. Dad had her go to CompUSA and buy a HP laptop and he's never buying another
Dell product. Not so much for the hardware failure , but for the incompetence and attitude.

I called when I got back from my trip and heard all the details. Over Thanksgiving I stopped by and took the drives/laptop home to
see if I could make it work. The "new disk drive" static bag says REFURBISHED and it's dated 11/08/05 ?? The HDD that Dell sold her
is an unformatted drive. I know that because I used a "notebook disk to IDE disk" adapter and hooked it up to a desktop PC. It's a
frigging BLANK drive. NTFS disk mgr shows it as " Unknown". I've been in the computer business for quite a while and when I heard
the first part of the story, I expected that the new drive would be an OEM XP drive and have the OS already on it. How else could
she "pop it in " and have it boot ? WRONG - it's a blank drive. So let's follow the troubleshooting ... the customer has a new PC -
it won't boot and calls for support. This model PC does not ship with ANY CD's - the images are on a hidden partition of a GOOD
drive. So HOW is that customer supposed to boot from this new $200 HDD ?? So, not only did they spend $800 for a bad laptop - now
it's another $200 for a disk drive that under NO circumstances would EVER boot.

I DID just go to the Dell website and saw lots of recent customer problems - disk failures , so the tech probably just figured - "Oh
it's an Inspiron - another bad disk drive" without giving any thought to what shipped (or DID NOT ship with her PC). The Dell
customer support webpage area is full of stories like this from irate - now EX-Dell customers.

And now ... the GOOD part of the story is that I was able to read the original drive as a slave in the desktop. So I ghosted the
original to a file and restored that to the new drive and crossed my fingers. THEN I put the new drive in the laptop. It booted ,but
I saw a lot of file errors upon startup.I restarted and pressed CTRL + F11 to restore from the factory partition and IT WORKED.
Booted XP fine. I then ghosted THAT drive (3 partitions) and saved to CD to have as a backup. I did then try the original disk back
in the laptop and it booted !! Lots of those errors during XP startup - but it did boot. Was it a seating problem originally ?? and
when she tried the new/blank drive, the symptom was still - won't boot ?? Maybe should could have reseated the original drive ? The
new drive is a 60gb and the original was a 40gb, so the new drive is staying in and I now have a working laptop and a spare drive.
( cuz he never wants to see it again) Do I dare tell him that it's working fine ?

One other thing ... I did go to Dell.com looking for a part number for an XP CD ? couldn't find it. I put in the service tag
thinking I'd get to an area of the website with spare parts listed but couldn't tell /didn't see a drive with a description of " XP
OEM disk" or anything similiar. Just "disk: 40gb" , 50gb etc .... How to get that info to order CD's that should have come with it
?

Bobb


=================================================================

"S.Lewis" <stew1960@xxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:awi2f.3869$5l.2124@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
> "Sparky Spartacus" <Sparky@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
> news:5fK1f.8836$dl2.3606@xxxxxxxxxxx
> >> S.Lewis wrote:
> >>
> >>> http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_41/b3954102.htm?chan=tc
> >>>

> >> Be very careful. The DellBots on this group will attack you for saying
> >> anything negative about the great Dell!
>
> There seems to be a consensus of uncertainty here. I *do* have 5 Dell
> systems in the house at the moment, and 1 homebuilt.
>
> So sir, I'm not *merely* a Dellbot, but rather, a "Dell pimp". Please note
> the distinction.
>
> (g)
>
> In all seriousness, these continued articles along with a couple of failures
> on new machines recently are troubling to me. BUT, in the case of both
> failures, they were handled very well by phone and onsite folks. So
> experiences with phone support seem to vary widely and wildly at times.
>
> I don't think Business Week has an agenda, which is why I posted the link as
> food for thought.
>
> Stew
>
>


.

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