Re: Dell Tech Support - lost another faithful customer

I also agree with Tom on this. Busy or not, the person knew it was a
90 day warranty, and should have handled the problem immediately.

Whenever I've had HD's replaced under warranty (although I believe it
was always from the manufacturer themselves), it was with a refurb HD.

Once, computer was out of warranty with manufactorer (micron), called
Maxtor, and got a replacement from them, as was still under warr. Of
course, that was before most HD makers went to 1 yr warranty.

However, as to Dell's customer support, well, I'm sure its been all
said already. Let me share what a friend went through; he called tech
support, first person was so heavily accented, friend hung up. Tried
again later, got a different person, hard to understand. When my
friend kept asking to repeat what he was saying, the tech support got
mad at my friend for "not understanding english" and the tech support
person hung up!!!

I used to recommend Dell's, but now I say: Dell, Gateway, HP, they're
all the same, doesn't matter which one you buy.

Josh


>1) Your family member chose the length of the warranty. He tried to save
>money by only buying a 90-day warranty. Really a bad idea for a notebook. He
>could have chosen anything up to a 3-year warranty.
>2) Right or wrong, they did not get the problem resolved in the warranty
>period. They could have solved the problem by emailing Dell support and
>never using the telephone. They didn't try very hard.
>3) All vendors provide blank replacement drives and, after the warranty
>period, refurbished drives. It is in the warranty. Did anyone in your family
>read it prior to purchasing the machine?
>4) The CDs come with the machine IF you choose to order them with the
>machine. They cost $10. Your family member again cut corners by not spending
>the money for the CD.
>5) Notebook drives can be purchased for $75. Why buy it from Dell?
>
>Your story is long-winded and I sure was cathartic, but since no one from
>Dell reads this newsgroup, it won't accomplish anything. Chalk it up to
>"lesson learned" -- always try out new purchases when you receive them and
>get any issues fixes quickly.
>
>Tom
>"- Bobb -" <bobb@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
>news:m_WdnSy5MM_t1RTenZ2dnUVZ_sidnZ2d@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> 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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