My experience with Alienware

Hello everyone. I just want to share my experience with this company.

Last June, I found out about Alienware's m15x. At first, I was very much impressed with it. The smart bay battery feature, stealth mode and Binary GFX all caught my attention. I thought long and hard about it since it was very expensive, and me being an international customer, I had to pay for a lot of customs taxes when it comes here. Another factor was warranty. Should anything go wrong with the unit and I have to send it back, shipping costs ( both ways ) will have to be shouldered by me.

I was about to order it, when I came across these forums. Seeing all the problems posted here, I was worried about ordering one. But then, some people posted of their good experiences, and the Alienware sales rep reassured me that all the said issues have been resolved.

July 8 --> I ordered my m15x. Within a matter of minutes, I get an automated response saying that they have received my order. After checking my mail again in the afternoon, I get another e mail message stating that they would need a copy of my credit card statement for verification.

July 9 --> I email them the required credit card statement. ( [email protected] )

July 14 --> Now I was beginning to wonder why there was still no feedback whatsoever from them. I decide to email both their sales and billing departments to follow up.

July 15--> Sales department replies, saying that their billing department has been TRYING to email me and have also left some voice messages for me with regards to my bill.

Now, I don't know what they meant by TRYING to email me. But the second part just made me feel disgusted. Why you may ask? The number I gave them does not have voice mail services activated. I have no idea why they would lie to me about them leaving me a voice message regarding my billing statement

So I decided to give their billing department a call this afternoon. The person i talked to was one of the rudest people I have ever conversed with. He cuts me off before I finish saying what I have to say. I was finally able to ask him if they have received any of my emails ( 1 was the statement, 2 was the follow up email ) He replies " My notes indicates we haven't received any of your emails"

At that point I've had enough, I tell him I was thinking of canceling the order. And what do I get for a reply? The billing rep says, " Would you want me to cancel it now?" I answer with a definite yes.

I have never in my life encountered a company like this. I really wanted to give the m15x a shot, but after experiencing this, I don't know if I will ever buy anything from this company again.

Thanks for taking the time to read this



I

 

i think Alienware needs to work on their customer service in other countries because what i have seen from the roswell team they have GREAT customer service i always get an answer from them in about an hour or so its really good. it really sucks that their customer service sucks so bad out there ugh...

 

Hi Cha
so sorry to hear of all the hassle they put you through.
if you do in the unlikely event change your mind ask for sean when you ring customer services as over my traumatic time with AW he was the most helpful CS agent that they have got.

 

if you dont mind my question, your location says Philipines, why are you dealing with UK and not USA?

 

yep, shaun or sean is excellent agent. Had a long talk with him too when i needed help regarding my volume touchcontrols. But it is unacceptable that you have to "ask" or get "lucky" to talk to a normal (i say normal cause most agents on AW CS are not at a normal CS level) customer agent.

Hope DELL will go in there and spank them all a bit...maybe no spanking for sean tho !

 

@Kinghong 1970

The first site I contacted was the US site. But their sales rep redirected me to the UK site, because according to them the UK site handles international orders.

My friend's relative actually lives in the States and I could have asked him to order it from me there. Problem was, according to the US sales rep, I might have problems with warranty issues.

@MrDJ

Thanks so much for the tip

 

ha ha ha...

thanks for clarifiying cha...

the schmuck in me want to ask you to post the arse's name on the forums to you and any others who encounter similar experience... but...
...
..
.

aaaaaaaaoooouuuuummmmmmmmmmmmmm......

trying hard to find my center....

aaaaaaaooouuuuummmmmmmmm......

 

I ordered for US shipping and I am an international customer..I have had the best experience with Alienware..just check out my thread below..sometimes I think people tend to overreact..

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=271940

 

you should pm one of the AW reps on the forums or call Roswell. People get good results from doing this. Regular CS from AW is bad

 

i did this, and got no help, he just told me to call them another 50 times.

 

yea i did the same thing i am living in Pakistan for the next few months and well i ordered the laptop from america and its in my house in new jersey right now... ugh the torture of waiting for it sooo bad

 

To those who did international orders from the US site, where did you get your laptops shipped?

I tried asking them if they would allow to ship to a freight forwarding company but they said they cannot ship to forwarding companies as the laptop needs to be signed / received

I'm happy for those who've had a good experience with Alienware. Wish I could have been as lucky as you guys

 

My m15x was shipped to Chicago..

 

Sigh..

I really wanted to give this company a chance, really wanted to try out their notebooks. I just hope they can improve on their customer service for us international clients.

 

I think people overact when a company straight up lies about trying to get in contact with them

 

Exactly stone825

Lieing about contacting me was actually the main reason I thought about canceling the order and giving them a call.

If they just told me to resend the statement and apologize for the inconvenience, or just treat me like a customer they want to do business with, I believe I would have continued with the order.

 

Just a little update on my situation

I did email email Alienware at [email protected] and told them about the whole thing.

I got a reply a few days ago, with Alienware apologizing for the unpleasant experience with their billing department. They gave me the option to re-establish the order, and said they would do their best to expedite it to make up for all the delays I encountered with billing.

Glad to see that they listen to and respond to customer's feedbacks

Now, back to deciding whether to order again or not..

 

good to hear that..tell us what you decide ya

 

wait wait wait.....have i missed something

what is 'international shipping'??? if it is what i think it is.... it changs my whole plan...

 

Some countries do not have AW, so the nearest country which does have an AW base manufactures and ships to you.. please see this:

http://4help.alienware.com/cgi-bin/...nRlcm5hdGlvbmFsIHNoaXBwaW5n&p_li=&p_topview=1

 

Yeah, the downside with international orders are the hefty shipping costs and customs taxes and duties.

And as Yemo pointed out in his link, should I need to send the unit back for repairs, I have to cover the shipping costs both ways.

 

Anyways another update:

I just faxed my credit card statement to Alienware. Let's just hope nothing goes wrong this time around

 

Well, everything seems to be going well. After faxing my cc statement, I gave them a call. They validated some details of the card, and then the order was processed.

After finishing up with billing, I was transfered to someone from customer services. She was very accomodating and assured me that she would get in touch with me via email to make sure things go smoothly.

Overall, I'm very satisfied with the turn of events.

 

that was soooo unnecessary, Nirvana. honestly. we know you're a Sager fanboy and don't like AW, okay? we get it by now. really, all the "dude you should totally cancel your m15x and get a sager!" posts are getting seriously annoying. but that's just my two cents' worth.

 

I wonder if it the panda that in the trap haha.

 

wow wow wow!!!
just to clarify on this. if your laptop is faulty and you are the original owner then AW covers the shipping and p+p. it will be returned to AW by air, repaired and then returned to you by road.
BUT if you bought it from lets say america and you are now in europe that could be a different matter and you MAY have to pay for shipping. im not 100% sure on this so a quick call to AW will clear that up.

 

They dont cover shipping for repairs if you are outside the US, Canada and EU.

 

And here he comes, another completely useless post. I thought these forums were for helping people and/or discussions, not general trolling. And btw, if you havent read the forum rules nirvana that is not allowed.

 

really,i didnt know that. soz for the wasted post.

 

Not really, don't you know i just bought another macbook pro 2 weeks ago? as a laptop user, i generally recommend people not going for m15x (only 15x, m9750 and m17x are great) until AW had developed a better chassis. I am sick of being called fanboy as I have other 14 laptops at home from 8 different brands.

 

the post was still completely unnecessary, and as Svarto pointed out, against forum rules.

 

Yup, I apologize for that post. I was tried to be funny but clearly it didn't work. Again, my bad, post deleted.

 

No problem, I didnt mean that your post was useless/wasted, i realise after re-reading my previous post that it could have been interpreted as i meant that. Just badly worded from my part.

 

@mr. DJ

As Svarto said, I have to cover the shipping costs should I need to return the unit for repair. Sucks for us international clients

Currently, order is in phase 4. I'll keep everyone updated once the m15x arrives here.

 

do yourself a favor and skip this model. it has tons and tons of issues that pop up after a few months.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=273885

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=254627

 

so seriously, who do you like the best:

build and stability:

( not going into the games and speed aspect)

 

Oh, and guys just want to ask if jumping phases back and forth is normal?

I jumped back to phase 3 a few days ago, yesterday was in phase 5, now jumped to phase 8, and then went back to phase 5 again

 

it happens, the phase page thingy is kinda screwed up.

 

Oh thanks whizzo

Anyways, after jumping back and forth between phases the laptop has now shipped. Already received an email with the DHL tracking number

When it arrives here, I'll do a review on it and keep everyone updated with the whole situation.

And a big thanks to everyone in this forum, you've all been very helpful

 

Congrats cha! I'm sure you'll get a great system.