Horrible experiences with Dell this year.

*warning: long rant below, and perhaps some bad grammar as well.

I'm so fed up with Dell and their service. Over the last year I have been outright called wrong, and even hanged up on trying to get information on orders that I've placed or had issues with. I have been a long time customer and would have never imagined having any of these problems dealing with Dell.

Some of my recent problems:

A few months ago I was pricing a brand new Alienware m17xr3 with a representative from Dell. Somewhere along the line another representative contacted me and also offered me a slightly cheaper quote (I have no idea how this one got involved) and when he had found out through conversation that I may have been interested in purchasing a refurbished Alienware, he stopped all communication with me after telling me that I was making a wrong decision (perhaps he was right, see below). I spent days (DAYS, not hours) trying to get in contact with the dell outlet to purchase an Alienware m17x (this is another horrible story altogether; pretty much infinite phone tag). You see, there was this phone only discount being offered on Alienware m17x systems at this particular time period which was posted on the front page of the Dell outlet and their Facebook/twitter page (highly ironic, because when I phoned in the representatives said I was outright wrong and no promotion existed even when I directed them to their own web page).

I ended up placing an order online without discount (I might have been temporarily insane at the time) and that arrived dented and dinged up (this system was not a scratch and dent system, but obviously should have been). I mean, this thing had numerous dents around the keyboard assembly as if someone dropped something heavy on it, many times. Also, the metal panel at the bottom of the laptop was warped and I could not take the battery off. I called Dell and when I finally got connected to the correct department (this took over an hour of phone tag), one of the representatives asked me if I wanted 25$ to keep the system. I returned it as fast as I could and ended up placing an order for a brand new m18x system. The m17x was fully refunded and the m18x gave me no problems, so I guess everything was resolved other than the crazy service experience.

Fast forward a few months.

This order I placed last week really disappointed me and maybe even hit a nerve. My father was looking for a 17" laptop to replace his aging HP. We found a system and used a 25% promotional discount that Dell was offering on refurbished systems (XPS 17 L702X). This was on the 11th of June. Based on my experience we would have this system by Father's day, as I normally receive refurbished systems from Dell within three business days. There was no communication other than the confirmation email saying that the system was in production. On the 13th of June, I received email notification that the order would be delayed, and no action was necessary on my part. This was interesting as I have never had this happen to me on a refurbished system.

I found out today (18th of June), that the order was cancelled. Father's day has come and gone, and I nor Dell have any idea why this happened to this order. It took me almost 2 hours of phone tag to find out that Dell released the system to another customer, and cancelled my order. The representative would not offer any similar system at a similar price, because all the systems were priced well beyond the promotional discount that they had. I pretty much told the representative that I would drop this if they could offer me a similar system at a similar price, The representative was silent for many minutes while he told me to find him a system at a similar price on their website (I had already told him that this was not going to happen), but he pretty much inferred to me to keep looking on their website and it would be tough luck. He offered me a 75$ discount on the next refurbished system that I ordered from Dell for my troubles (the promotion took 224$ off the system for comparison). As I typed this up, I received a call from a sales representative offering to price a similar refurbished XPS system to me at a similar price, even though he could not do it himself, and phone tag was played once again! Just incredible...

Am I done with Dell? Quite possibly.

 

I have had many issues with dell too, mainly their Alienware tech department. Without going into the nitty gritty, I shall tell you a short story!

>Demanded refund.
>Refund accepted.
>Collection date to be Wednesday then a refund following in the next 7 days.
>Collection date changed to Thursday so they could arrange a BOX (yes a box) to send out for collection (apparently arranging a cardboard box takes 24hours).
>Thursday is today.
>Collections guy has no box
>MFW o_o
>Call dell
>Getting a call about it tomorrow.

Dell and Alienware are awful, their customer service is a joke. I literally felt like I was on the phone to PhoneJacker for 85% of the conversation. I cannot wait to get my Clevo based laptop once my refund comes through... ONCE IT COMES THROUGH.