Dell delivery - sorry story

So I ordered a laptop from Dell on 7th December – it was meant to be a nice red one fro my daughter. Estimated delivery on or before the 21st Dec. I received all the email confirmations from Dell and the links to track the order. So I dutifully logged on and saw that it had entered manufacture in China and left on the 12th Dec.

So far so good. I checked the Walsh Western (Dell's Delivery Partner) log and lots of cryptic lines were added, suggesting that something was happening. Then it seemed to hit their Hinckley depot, where it stalled. I wait and waited for an email or a phone call and nothing. I kept tracking the log (few more cryptic notes) and then on the 19th Dec (Saturday!) it said what I took to mean that they had set the delivery date to be the morning of 22nd Dec. So I quickly rearranged my schedule to take the Tuesday off to receive the goods. Tuesday am came and went and at the end of the morning the WW log was updated to say “MISROUTE IN TRANSIT”.

Trawling around the web think this means that they have sent it off somewhere it shouldn't have gone. A bit more trawling and I found out that “Walsh Western” is something to do with Syncreon. I dialled their help line, first couple of times it cut to a “this line is very busy please call back later”. After perseverance I got through, entered by customer information and then was dumped into a silent wait queue (at 10p a min!). Finally I gave up and filled out their on-line web-form in the hope that this would get me a response. Thought I would try Dell, in the hope that may be they could tell me what is going on. I found the Dell telephone number and dialled it, and after the usual multiple choices key presses to navigate the selection system I was dumped into what sounded like the same “silent” waiting for an operator queue as per Syncreon. I guess that they somehow cross link the services, but could be mistaken. Any way I sat in the queue for a while and again gave up. Sent Dell a message , using their on-line web form – will it help, I am not sure.

So her I am. I have wasted a day off work (my holiday and schedule messed up) , no one from Dell or Walsh Western/Syncreon have bothered to contact me to either fix up a delivery date or to tell me that they have had problems (just left me in the dark) and I still don't have a laptop for my daughter – and Christmas is just around the corner.

Will my email/web forms deliver any results from either WWI or Dell, I don't know. All I do know is that their telephone help lines are expensive, time consuming and ineffective.

Clearly I will have to sort something out over the next few days (pop out to PC world during my lunch time tomorrow may be...) , but in the mean time all I can do share my story and 2 simple recommendations with the rest of you.

1)If you want a Dell (and as I haven't received mine yet I cant say anything about their quality ….), don't buy direct – pop down to one of the high street retailers.
2)If you do buy on-line find out what company your supplier uses for delivery and if its Walsh Western International then I would seriously consider looking else where.

Some may say that I have just been unlucky but I judging from the web trawl I do not think that I am an isolated case.

Will let you know how it all turns out, in the mean time have a very happy (and stress free) Christmas!

 

Dell ship a lot of kit and all couriers have problems from time to time although some more than others.

I can only speak from my own experience but in the last month I've had 4 packages from Dell, 2 being handled by Walsh Western and those have involved a call a couple of days after shipping and a time being arranged for delivery and delivery being exactly when they've said it would be.

I'm sorry to hear you've had a problem and it's very annoying especially around Christmas time but you do tend to hear about the problems a lot more than the success stories.

I hope you get your laptop sorted.