Completely Broken & Useless £2000 R2 17" and terrible customer service from Dell/Alienware

The situation :- I have purchased an Alienware R2 17" with top spec mid April 2015, with 16gb ram, Iq4980 processor, 256gb SSD drive etc at around £2000.

Basically since day one the system has not worked properly. I suffered from the throttling issue with the insufficient power from the 180w PSU. That is not the big issue.

I have consistently suffered with blue screening, I first reported these issues on 22/4/2015 and expected a new PSU would fix the problems. It didn't. Every single time I load a game and the system becomes under load it just blue screens and shuts down within 2-3 minutes. After restoring windows numerous times, doing various diagnostics, 6 weeks later finally a repair was organised where my motherboard was replaced.

Since the motherboard has been replaced by Del and now the blue screening happens at ANY time, during start up, just on the desktop, browsing the Internet, you cannot even keep the laptop started up for more than 2 minutes without it shutting down and blue screening.

For me, Alienware was a brand that I thought were good. I thought their laptops were excellent. I spent so much money buying a top of the range model, and it has NEVER worked as it should do. I have never had such a bad customer service experience with any company.

The resolution I want from Dell/Alienware is just a replacement machine, I don't even want a refund, just a replacement machine as I have given them a chance to repair the machine and it has come back WORSE than before. I have completely lot confidence in them. I need the laptop for every day use for work most importantly and gaming secondly, and now I can't even use the Internet or use Microsoft Word. It is a useless brick. I cannot accept a 2nd repair as who knows, it might not even turn on when I get it back this time.

I am now at the stage where I can get no response from Dell/Alienware customer service, I still have never spoken with a manager from Dell/Alienware as the technical support point blank refuse to put me through to them ever, and now I have a useless machine. It is not unreasonable to have the laptop swapped for the same model, one that works.

What can I do? At this stage, I would never ever ever recommend buying an Alienware laptop due to the terrible quality and experience I have had so far.

Dell's final posistion (Phone call from Jakub Karasek in Alienware dept. on behalf of Dell) is they 100% refuse to exchange the laptop. I am now stuck with this thing that doesn't even work. The worst thing is, I cannot even type out this forum post on that £2000 Alienware laptop because it is broken. 8 weeks old, useless brick. Dell will not replace it. Just more repair repair repair.

I would never ever ever buy a Dell/Alienware product ever again in my life, and I wish someone had told me not to spend my hard earned money on one also. The product is horrendous quality, and the customer service is just as bad.

 

Hmm, sometimes this is why buying something through a site like XoticPC is beneficial. If it truly was broken to hell from the start, you would have been covered for it. I'm not sure what you can do about it now though. If they will keep repairing it, do it and then sell it or something. At this point you should go for a refund and switch brands. Is your gpu a 980m too? For a product so expensive they should have better service when they give you a POS. You need to try and get your money out of it or something I would say. Look at like MSI GT series laptops, Gigabyte P35w or P35x series, and check out Sager, like the NP8651. You can usually get Alienware performance for less because they are overpriced from the brand and lighting. If they seriously refuse to give you a refund you need to get the money back on your own somehow. Are they willing to repair it further?

 

I dont know what they have offered you so far but if you feel your hitting a brick wall just fire off an email to Michael Dell's email address (you can find it online) detailing your situation. Ensure you supply the machine service tag and your phone number including the country code and you will be contacted by the executive department usually within 48 hours and i'm sure they will be able to sort something out for you.

 

Odd, I've always found Alienware and Dell customer service in the UK spot on. I'd also hit up @DellCares on twitter as I've also found them useful.

I would never send the laptop off for repair, I've always had a engineer come to my house with the parts and replace it right in front of me, and the Alienware warranty usually means they are there the next business day, although on an escalation I had them come out on a Saturday. My advice would be the next you call them/they call you that they send an engineer to your house, any other repair is purely not acceptable.

I do know from experience that Alienware/Dell will try to fix issue three times, if after the third attempt the issue is still not resolved then they replace the laptop, I've also had the tech engineer confirm to Alienware/Dell before they leave my house they have been unable to fix it as 1. I've noticed they dial in on a different number and 2. it can be recorded that a dell certified engineer can't fix it before he leaves.

I noticed you bought the machine back in April so I'm curious as to why you didn't send it back within the 30 day window?

 

If i help you get a 100% refund, will you be willing to purchase a one of my Clevo's when you do ?
I know how to get you your refund, its a little bit of work, and some waiting, but your frustration will be awnsered, for sure.
I will hook you up corporate wise, and get you in contact with some press if needed.
Last 4 times I got a refund, I demanded 100% refund OR an upgrade. I once got my refund AND a maxed out Viking 18'' with the quad play and SLI 780M etc...
If you wish to fight them, it can be done. But you have got to stand by and never accept less then what your willing to get. Once it took me 3 months of 4-5 hours arguing almost every day/day with them on the phone.
I raised tickets like it was no ones business. I created a huge thing for them all over different press. I found their CEO's home address and started mailing him too, demanding action. I then got some help from other people and got a whole list of executives and their personal information and how to contact them.
If you try, its there. You have to of course, be very careful not to become the bad guy, but the longer they make you run around and suffer, the more they owe you for your time and consideration to even report such issues of quality control issues to them.
It will be exhausting, but you will win. Especially if you wish to hire a lawyer, or if you paid with your Credit card and its a Visa or Mastercard , there are even things you can do by contacting your bank and getting them to help you with their own insurance. There might even be laws in your country, or city that help you, when purchasing digital equipment. As an example,here in Quebec, all credit services have to offer to extend warranty to minimum 3 years full coverage on any electronic deive. Laptops included. This means, DELL can ask me to pay for more then 6 months warranty, but I actually have full return or money back for 3 years. And something like 5 years for parts and labour. Its retarded, how well protected you are in here for these things, but no one ever knows. I have to constantly prove it to win my battles. They even at times try and ignore or test my patience with it, anyways, I've seen things like this exist almost everywhere in the world. Especially since DELL head office is in the states, they have more restrictions on them. You can even do it easily by going to the BBB, they eventually will have to comply,and give you a refund if you demand it there, via a third party even if you are outside of the states.
I have helped dozens of people get their money back. Trust me you can do it too. Just last week a guy wanted to throw away his laptop because it was out of warranty for a few years running now. He in the end managed to get dell to fix it, replace parts, make it work, even though warranty ended years ago, for free.

 

Check your PMs MyR2isBroken

Regards