Dell will not honor warranty

Last night my friend lifted the lid of her laptop and the right hinge snapped clean off, peeling up the 3-button panel and the keyboard plastic surround with it.
Today I called Dell on her behalf and after four (4!) hours of waiting on hold (two dropped calls, 3 transfers, 4 departments) I was eventually told the following:

1. All mechanical problems are automatically, as a matter of Dell policy, considered "user damage."
2. Despite having an extended warranty for labor, and still under warranty for parts, all "user damage" is considered out of warranty.
3. It would cost $179 or more to repair this "user damage."

As someone who deals regularly with small business and home customer support for my clients as well as family, this service policy is by far the most ridiculous policy I have ever heard from any company I have dealt with, ever. It doesn't appear to be one technicians misinformation either as it was confirmed as policy by the "out of warranty" department.

If a laptop breaks in the course of normal use, and is under warranty, I can't see it as anything other than Dell refusing to honor their warranties.

I am hoping one of the representatives on this forum can help Dell do right by my friend, as this is the final stop before I file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau.

 

Why would you even hesitate to file a BBB complaint? Just file it, they will go to some escalation dept and they will probably replace the hinge, etc. Don't waste your time dealing with bad customer service. I call a place give them one, MAYBE two chances to make things right. You already wasted 4 hours of your time, don't post on an informal user-to-user forum and pray for a response, instead go to a more direct channel like BBB. I understand why you would never want to call Dell again after playing the phone games they play.

 

Let me tell you that this has happened to me very recently with my 16 mth old XPS L702X Dell laptop (Which has a 24mth warranty). It had a "click" in the left hinge every time i would lift the lid. This was from brand new. I never really gave it much thought as it didn't affect operation or use of the laptop.

eventually, late July I lifted the lid of my laptop one morning and the front plastic bezel snapped at the left hinge. i noticed the left hinge had detached from the back cover (which was a $99 special custom cover i paid for during build). I sent an email off to the sales rep who sold us the laptop as i didn't fancy sitting on a phone to talk to support, having been aware of long wait times.

I got a response (a few days later i might add!) from the dell sales rep, brushing me off and telling me to contact tech support.

so, i bit the bullet and phoned support. I eventually got talking to an Asian lady who i had trouble communicating with as her English was obviously not her primary language, but anyway, i managed to get across to her what was going on, that the left hinge had broken from the back cover and the front bezel had cracked and that i needed it fixed before the right hinge broke too as it was taking all the weight of the screen and the screen wasn't closing now due to not being properly fixed to the laptop. I i told her that the bracket that fits to the side of the LCD screen had also snapped under the pressure and this would also need to be fixed (The LCD Screen itself is fine). she logged the details and told me there'd be a technician out the next day (as my warranty is a next business day on-site warranty) and I would get a call from the technician the next day. 3 business days later.... I got a call from a dell tech... he went on to tell me that he wouldn't be able to come out till the following day as there are only 3 dell techs for my city (population of over 500,000 people!)... i was totally blown away with the fact there are only 3 dell techs for a city of this size! to make it even more laughable... he tells me that one of them is in hospital so he'll have to come out the next day... so, next day, 2 1/2 hrs. later than i was told, a dell technician comes to my house with 2 boxes. in the boxes was a silver basic cover for my laptop, i.e. not the custom $99 cover i had initially purchased with my system... he had also not brought the screen bracket which connects the screen to the hinge... he told me he'd have to re-order the whole lot again and didn't know when he'd be able to come back due to the high workload, given there were only now two dell techs for my whole city. To say i was unimpressed is an understatement. I am a computer tech myself, with 20yrs in the I.T. industry. I have been building and repairing desktops and laptops for 2 decades and could fix this issue myself in 15mins if dell would send me the parts, but I knew they wanted their "dell authorised" technician to do it, which is fine, but when was he coming back?

so, I went onto the dell facebook page and i asked a query as to whether they could make sure that the technician would bring the proper parts next time and could an ETA be provided as to when i could expect him back. as it was now 5 business days into my "next business day warranty". The mod for the page, the "escalations manager" asked for my service tag etc. and told me he'd check. He then asked me to send him pictures of the problem as he couldn't understand the issue. I found this a bit odd since i had already logged the issue and didn't realise that I would have to explain myself again. I did try explaining the issue to the mod as to what i believe had happened in my own professional I.T. opinion...namely that I believed the left hinge was not properly screwed into the back cover at build and the front bezel was basically holding the hinge tight, but when the hinge was moved, due to closing/opening the lid, the hinge protruded out a few mm each time, pushing the front bezel forward slightly, resulting in the "clicking", but he admitted he was not technical and wanted pictures. so, i took out a camera and took pictures of the screen and the hinge. the right hinge, as i had suspected, also detached from the screen by this stage as i was waiting for the technician to return. so i captured all this on photos, i had written on the photos what was in the pictures and tried to explain what he was looking at in as best "non jargon" as i could.

so, next thing is I get an email from this same escalations manager telling me that he has sent it to his engineering guys as he has determined this to be "customer induced damage"... (now getting to the same line as the OP has gotten above)... I couldn't believe he was saying this... but I figured that he was not technical by his own admission so I'd wait for the engineering guys.

another few business days go by and I ask for an update. he said to me that "his" decision still stands, he has determined it to be "customer induced damage" and there will be no warranty fix. i nearly fell off my chair. I asked him what on earth brought him to this conclusion... he replied "the pictures speak for themselves"... which is total BS! after some arguing on the facebook page, I then asked him what he thinks I did to cause such damage. This is the part that really pissed me off... he said, in his "opinion" (remember, non technical guy) I have pushed the screen so far back and with such force that it has broken the hinges clean off the screen. This has then been classified as customer induced and my $2000 laptop will not be fixed for that reason.

I swear I was blowing flames out my ears when I read this crap! I asked him what on earth would I do such a thing for, this is something a 3yr old kid would do, not an I.T. guy with 20 yrs I.T. experience! he has refused to accept any argument I have made, he has refused to even make any attempt to see my argument as valid. His only option to "help" was to send me a quote for repair! which I told him where to shove his quote. The screen itself is designed to sit in a recess in the laptop so it will not go past approx a 110o angle, so its not possible to push it "right back" i.e. 180o for example as this would cause the back cover to snap in the recess, the back cover is not snapped and this should prove it was not pushed back... also, the LCD screen itself is fine, a reasonably logical person would assume that to push a screen back so far and with such strength as to break it clean off its hinges, would break the LCD screen first and foremost... but its fine. The Dell facebook mod has completely ignored this argument and insists what has happened is what he has decided!

so, in short, I reported this issue, the tech comes out (late) and brings the wrong parts. I queried with the dell fb page moderator as to when the tech would be coming out and could he make sure he brought all the parts... and next thing now, I'm getting no fix, all based on this mod's non qualified, non technical opinion.

Am I pissed? that's an understatement! this laptop is now unusable. There is an known issue where the power supply falls out of this model and it is an obvious design flaw. it is discussed here on notebookreview and on dells own forums... so I brought this up to this mod... he has said that dell will fix this issue (despite the fact there is no official fix from dell for this issue!) but I fail to see how they can fix this issue as the screen issue will prevent them from servicing it.

the bottom line is now, that as a business owner with clients, friends etc, I have made it my business to rubbish dell at every opportunity. in the 13 business days since i have logged this fault now, (into a next business day warranty), i have cost dell thousands in sales by convincing customers to go elsewhere. However, as is obvious, this dell mod doesn't care. he's not in the sales dept, his job is safe.

the service i have received is nothing short of disgusting. i will never even look at dell ever again, but i have initiated legal action against dell today over this matter.

Dell, by my example alone, are not only refusing to honor the warranty, but managing to blame the customer as the reason to not honor the warranty (i.e. "customer induced damage") This, in my opinion shows dell as a company that do not care about their customers. They get your money and that's all that matters to them. The fact they had only had 2 "available" technicians to service a city of over 500,000 people (assuming even 1% of which were dell customers, that's 2 technicians for 5000 customers), meant that they were never going to be able to honor their "next business day onsite" warranty anyway. Totally disgraceful service from Dell.

I am in Australia, we do have consumer laws here which protect us from such things, I will certainly be availing of them in the coming days and weeks ahead.

 

jonjo, what you describe is similar to the type of damage my friend's laptop has. Hers is on the right side bottom though. Some time in the past she had a Dell technician (someone sent by Dell) service her laptop and since then the right hinge clicked as you described. On the 31st the cheap plastic snapped and the metal bracket peeled up the plastic keyboard surround.

If cheap plastic that breaks under normal use isn't a defect in material or workmanship, I don't even know what they would consider a defect in material or workmanship. It is clear that the problem should be covered even by tells own stated warranty.

The only way they can escape coverage is to blame the user and claim without any basis that it is "user damage." What is even worse is that this is what Dell's technicians are told to do in all situations, blame the user. The guy(s) on the phone even said they would send a technician out to look at it, but that he would as a matter of policy decide it was "user damage" regardless of any other factors -- to which I asked why even bother sending someone out?

 

I'm glad I came across your post about your friend's laptop and hinge issue because this Dell "escalations manager" has told me in no uncertain terms that he, nor his "6 level 2 techs and 2 managers" (which was later changed to "2 level 2 techs and 3 managers" i.e lying) have ever heard of any dell laptop having a hinge break off without the user causing the damage by either forcing the screen back so far and with such force that the hinges give way, or by some other user induced damage. In short, he made it quite clear that from his point of view, it was customer induced and my issue is now closed, he said.

The webcam in this laptop is connected to the back cover of the screen, which has disconnected when the hinges disconnected, as the screen fell back. The webcam works intermittently, and the microphone is not working. But dell refuse to fix the webcam because its part of the screen, and therefore It was damaged when the screen was damaged, and of course they determine it all to be "customer induced".

He described the damage on the dell facebook page as "looking like the laptop has been torn in two"... which is complete and utter nonsense. I think he wrote this to discredit what I was writing in terms of me trying to explain, from my own I.T. experience, how the issue happened and why.

As far as the tech coming out to tell you the same scripted policy that Dell uses, that's an insult, as you say, why waste their (and your) time...

I've kept all their notes on facebook, in case they decide to delete posts, and I have the personal emails from this escalations manager, just to show his unwillingness to even accept any other argument other than his own. In fact, he has suggested "the damage leaves no other options to consider other than customer induced damage".

if I legitimately caused the damage, I'd be onto eBay and fixing the problem myself as this is literally a 15minute fix, it may cost me $200 or so to fix, but at least I'd be able to use my laptop! at the moment its sitting on the table completely unusable.


But, legal action has now commenced, the guys at dell know this, but they don't seem too bothered at all about it. In all my years operating in I.T. both as a customer and a supplier, I have never had such a poor experience as this current one with Dell.

 

See my thread "What Dell doesn't want you to know" - it refers to my appalling experience of issues relating to a single XPS L702x.

As far as I can tell, Dell has outsourced these call centres and given all the managers and supervisors aggressive financial targets - that take no account of customer experience or value of customer time, and many managers just exploit customers. Their approach in my experience over the last year is a kind of scam - shoddy engineering / quality control with support processes that‎ waste so much of your time many people just give up. They used to be much better - but have been consistently bad over the last year.

Try contacting DellCares and see if they can help ( even though you shouldnt have to and average person doesnt know to do this ).

Btw, the consensus on this forum is stay away from any consumer Dell machines ( even though the XPS machines are sold as business machines ) they are far from business grade and nothing like the quality the XPS M1710 was built to (was same chassis as precision).

Be cautioned though - any resolution may become very time expensive. That's their trick - they know that if they blame customer and falsely claim there are no issues, many times they'll get away with it. Some insurers do this too and reduce their costs significantly.

Most importantly, tell everyone you meet who's had this type of mistreatment to post about it on 10+ places online, with evidence (citing other users with same issues) about Dells malpractice, grounded in proof. Think about it - if 1% of people who read these threads are deterred from purchase from us sharing our real experiences, if a thread gets read 5,000 times, you've saved 50 people from potentially appalling mistreatment so your time loss is less in vein.

Also, make videos summaries of your experience and post them everywhere (using PowerPoint or Camtasia makes this easy). Send your feedback & story to all consumer rights agencies globally too... Then you become a bigger problem for Dell than they're being for you, and you force accountability.

Also collect all the names & Dell employee ID's & times & dates of everyone you've dealt with, and a fair summary of their behvaiour, which is information that may enable the dishonourable Dell employees to be fired and the good ones to be protected.

None of this would be necessary if Dell cared enough to have better quality control & respected customer time. Apparently, precision customers get better support ( even if you have premium nbd support) - probably because Dell has figured it is easier to exploit consumers than well resourced businesses. This is literally abusive to the older people in society who don't understand computers as well as tech savvy users. But I've been playing with computers for 20+ years to an advanced level and Dell has me pulling my hair out in frustration and disbelief.

 

Sfnr,

I understand your frustration on this issue and I'll be happy took into this issue and see there is anything I can do. Please send me your contact information and service tag with any correspondence from dell in a PM.

Thank you,
Mourin@Dell

 

It doesn't appear that I can send a PM on this forum; is there another method I can use to contact you privately? I understand you don't want to give out an e-mail on a forum as I wouldn't either.

 

If you click on my name it should give you an option under "view profile". Alternately, you might not be able to PM if you have your PM disabled.

 

He needs to make 5 posts before he can PM.

 

Wow, can safely say you got Dell'ed xD

Can't believe people still buy those butt ugly inspirons and xps. Inspiron looks as if somebody sat on a giant burrito for 2 days.