Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

Re: Bad experience with Dell service

Author:Jason Levine
Posted:4/28/1999; 5:35:30 PM
Topic:Bad experience with Dell service
Msg #:5398 (In response to 5376)
Prev/Next:5397 / 5399

This was, more or less, my exact experience with them about a year ago on a desktop system we had at SI. We shipped it back to them to fix a disk controller card problem, and they lost the computer, after logging it in at their service site. They then found it, sent it back, and it was still broken. All the while, every phone call to find out the status of the computer involved 20 to 30 minutes of hold music, promises made and broken, and people who really didn't know anything about Dell computers. (At one point, I was told that the drive controller problem that I was having wasn't really a problem, and in fact, that the problem was that I was trying to use two hard disks under Windows NT, and that was not a supported configuration.)

After a bunch MORE phone calls, insisting that my computer was broken, THEN sent a technician out to really fix it, and he was not able to, although he claimed that when HE left, "the computer was working, so they must have broken it again." They then sent ANOTHER technician out a week later, and he WAS able to fix it.

THEN, about three weeks later, I was called by Dell Service to ask when I was going to return the broken disk controller card. I, of course, had no such card -- their technician had taken it with him. It took about 2 MORE hours' worth of phone calls to get them to admit that they had actually logged the card back into their service site, but since the technicians normally don't return broken parts (apparently, this is purely the customer's job, even though the technician is on site and has the part in his hand), they "didn't think much of it."

Of course, once all this was done, I started the phone calls to management to complain about what happened. In the end, I got a phone call saying "Oh, we're sorry -- we didn't realize that Sports Illustrated has a priority support plan with us! This would have NEVER happened if we had known that!" I informed them that I was disappointed in that answer, that it implied that they had no problem treating other, non-priority customers that way.



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