Dell's Customer Service The Most Horrible Customer Service?

[rpgsearcherz 5]

Okay, while I go through my experiences with Dell, I'm going to have to hold back on saying anything extremely derogatory. To start off with, I'm just going to say that I will never do business with them again, regardless as to what kind of deals they have going on. I'm not even sure if "freebies" from them would be worth getting at this point.

There are two different issues that I went through with them, so I will go ahead and detail them separately. These are marked "Issue A" and "Issue B."

----------Issue A----------

This was the first time that I ever had to contact Dell for support about an issue before. This was regarding a laptop, the Dell M140 I think was the model name, but I am unsure on that.

I bought this laptop online from someone off of a gaming site, used.

When it came in, this particular laptop would not work with the buttons on the front(easy media control or something? More or less you can have the laptop up and push the DvD button for example, and it will load up the DvD player without actually booting up Windows). Researching this issue online myself, as I usually do, I came up with the conclusion that I needed the drivers, which I could find nowhere.

So this is when I contacted Dell support. Now I always go for online support first, as you don't have to deal with the accents of the representatives(again, this is not to be rude, it's the same as someone from the US speaking to someone from Great Britain. The way of speaking is significantly different).

During my chat with support, I found out that the previous user had wiped the HDD clean, and I would need a real restore disc, as there was no way to reinstall those specific drivers.

So I asked how I could go about getting them. "Your laptop is under our lenghtened warrantee" they said. Which is awesome, is it not? Until you find out that you must transfer the said warrantee into your name! What information is required for that? Pretty much all of the previous owner's information.

So I explain how I got the laptop, and that I could supply some, but not all, of the information to them. They denied this, based on the assumption that if you do not know everything about the previous owner, you must have stolen it. *Great* way to look at your potential customers! I've never seen a company that I liked this much after our first run-in with each other.

Now I'm stuck with a laptop that does not fully work, with a full warrantee(upgraded even), but can't do anything to fix the issue. At this point, I use my elite explorative skills on the laptop's hard drive(since it is now mine) and start pulling up deleted files. Voila! A document the previous owner had on it that had all of his personal information on it. But could this be the correct information?

I contact Dell's support again, and this time even explain all of the work I had to go through, as well as where I got the information from, and gave it to them. At this point they transfer the warrantee over into my name(I'll explain my issue with this after).

With the warrantee in my name, they now send me a full set of every restore disc for the system, absolutely free. There were discs for Windows, drivers, all of the programs, etc. I think there were 5 in all.

I boot up the laptop with the restore discs, get everything running, and there we go: Everything works as it should!

At this point, I'm happy because it works, so I fail to realize how much work it really took for me to get to where I was.

----------/Issue A----------

Okay, this is the start of my frustration. In case you did not notice near the end where I actually pulled the information from: I got it from the hard drive on the laptop that they pretty much said must have been stolen.

Now if you look at that from the sheep's perspective(the general buyer) you will find that it's a great policy. This protects you from having your laptop stolen by anyone and still getting support(which was the other funny part...If I stole it, do you really think I'm stupid enough to go give them the serials to the laptop, which include the mac address for the hardware(with wifi) so that they can trace it? Come on.).

But on the other hand, I got the information off the laptop. Let's assume that I did steal the laptop from whoever it was. Now I'm searching the drive for the information, and it comes up. Especially with me allowing them that information, they should have denied it. Now they are breaking their own rules, are they not?

If they caved after I did my scan of the system, why not just allow me to transfer it in the first place?

So anyways, off to my unresolved issue, Issue B.

----------Issue B----------

Now this issue is a more recent one. This is regarding a laptop that I purchased off someone using Craigslist. This was a local transaction, yes, but two things happened:

1)I did not get his information at that time because neither of us had a pen/paper with us and I forgot that...Yeah, we could use the laptop to type it up real quick. Not to mention I was in a hurry at the time.

2)I guessed that there was no warrantee left anyways. I really wouldn't need his information if there was no warrantee.

I get the laptop home, and after a while ran into an issue with sound drivers. This was when I was 100% against Vista. So I tried to find the drivers with no luck.

At this point, I contact online support, asking them for help. "Sure I'll help!" they claim, but it was everything but "help." In case you have not contacted them before, they start off with asking for your laptop and/or PC's serial number and express registration code(if you want to speed it up). I give them this information.
'
I'm now on hold for ~10 minutes while they look up the information and the correct solution for my problem. Now they come back and apologize because the laptop is "not" in my name. At this point I'm thinking "They let me resolve the issue last time, they will this time as well." I explain my situation, and the customer support representative tells me that there is nothing that Dell can do about the issue.

I exit the online help, reopen it, and speak to someone else. Now this person is willing to help me fix my issue with not being able to transfer the warrantee. Yet again, this person goes away for a while, comes back, but their resolution is for me to call in to support. They give me the number, I thank them, and we separate.

I call up support, wait a while before I actually get put through, and then I explain how I got the laptop, what my issue is(only software based!) and request assistance. The person on the phone says "I'm sorry but we are not allowed to do that. It is against our policy." Wait, so if I scan the HDD they can do it, but if I don't they can't? Does this really make sense? (Note - This previous user never used the laptop aside from playing a game with it, which required no logins or anything, so there were no traces of his identity).

Now, with the person I was speaking to, he did what I find to be the most unprofessional thing I have ever experienced(way worse than what has already happened). I did what any other "I want my issue resolved" person would do, and I requested to speak to his supervisor. Without any hesitation in his voice he says, and I remember this part very clearly because it seriously bothered me then and still does today, "I'm sorry sir, I will not do that. He will only give you the same information that I already have."

This message ended up almost stunning me. I have never heard someone say "no" to speaking to their superior before. Now I'm honestly not sure if that is against Dell's policy or not, but I would really like to know.

More or less we went back and forth with me being more forceful each time with my "I want to speak to your supervisor" message and him always denying it with a "no, he can't help you" response.

I did not even bother calling Dell's normal phone line after this, because that pushed me way over the edge. At this point I contacted Corporate. I spent about 30 minutes researching all of their numbers, calling in and being forwarded, until I finally got to where I wanted to be. Someone who can actually *help* me.

I speak to this awesome person for a while about the issue, and they assure me that I will be okay and they can manually transfer the warrantee over into my name. I give them the serials for the laptop and everything, and now the person at corporate comes back and lets me know that the serial number of the laptop has been "blacklisted."

As to what "blacklisted" means, I'm still not completely sure. I think it means stolen, illegal, etc. I even asked the person what it means, and she stated that she is not at liberty to explain the meaning of it, all that she can do is allow me the information of knowing that it's the status of the serial. At this point I'm thinking "I wonder why..." so I ask her. What is her response? "It doesn't say why it was blacklisted, sir. The person who blacklisted it did not put in a reason."

After a while of asking her to remove it then(obviously it was an illegitimate claim) I finally gave up on it.

As of today, my issue is still unresolved.

----------/Issue B----------

Now with the second issue, I am coming up with the conclusion that the people at Dell just got tired of me and decided to permanently bar me from being able to get support on the laptop. It wasn't blacklisted before I called, but after many calls it was.

Whether that part is true, I'm unsure, but from the best of what I can gather, it seems to be the most solid explanation.




Now one thing that I have learned from these two incidents is that Dell is a company I should never do business with again, regardless as to how great their deals are. Their customer service is so horrible, and I wasted so much time on nothing, that I will never give them another chance.

What you do with this information is, of course, your own choice. You can deal with them if you feel like it, but I on the other hand never will.

As always, feel free to post your own experiences as well. It is a possibility that I just ran into a few very horrible people when I was dealing with the company. As I learned from my Hewlett Packard post, located here : http://forums.xisto.com/topic/63511-hewlett-packardhpcompaq-support-very-helpful-highly-recommended/ , some people have good experiences with companies that others only have bad experiences with.

This was my own experience, and in no way reflects everyone else's. The only real way to get a full understanding as to how their support is on a more broad nature than one person is to have others post their issues, praises, etc. as well so that we can come up with a generalized conclusion. Of course, this still would not be a "solid" one, but it is much better than just one view.




Thank you very much for reading this. I know it was very long, but hopefully it is helpful to you. If there are any questions, feel free to ask me!

[harrison858 0]

Wow I can't believe that a representative would tell you no when you want to request for a supervisor. Thats the first time, for me too, that someone has ever said that. Usually they let you speak with the supervisor, at the bank, utilities, restauraunts, and even when I needed support on a HP laptop. Either that representative was too lazy to transfer you or he wants to test you.But lets get to the point: It can't be Dell's fault because you privately bought it from someone. Even if their Customer Support can't handle these issues, then you shouldn't be buying any used computer privately unless you know the person personally. If you want to buy the laptop from someone, don't be surprised to see this happen to you. The only person you may blame is yourself. I would rather buy a used laptop from someone I actually know instead of off the internet. Better yet, I will buy a new one.If you buy a used computer thats messed up, you're on your own buddy.

Edited December 28, 2008 by harrison858 (see edit history)

[Saint_Michael 3]

I will agree the support you got was lousy, but you should have known from the first experience that this could happen again if you didn't get the information. Of course, I would think that next time you buy a computer from somewhat that you first set up a time that you two can sit down and that way, you and the other person can call whoever and do the transfer right then and there instead of rushing out and buying the computer. As for blacklisted it is pretty obvios that serial was type in saying not to give this person any more support on the computer. Of course, now you won't be able to sell this computer because of the fact that the person who buys it from you won't get any help whatsoever, and on top of that it would seem that you forgot to ask each owner for everything including the system restore discs and I bet that would have saved you this very large headache you have. Point is that this problem happen because you rush the process and buying a computer from someone else without making sure you got everything with it.As for the drivers you should have been able to find them at the driver download site once you put the computer serial in and that way you could get the most update versions of those drivers as well without the need for the system restore discs.

[rpgsearcherz 5]

Well the most annoying part about it is that Dell is the *only* company that has this "protection" policy. Their justification makes no sense whatsoever, either, as I could use a forensic search to get information and then it's all okay? That means you can steal used laptops and still get the support, which is where my issue is.As for the second laptop, I didn't plan on ever needing support on it anyways. It has/had all of the restore discs, fully sealed still(the ones from the upgraded warrantee), but they were for Vista, not XP.After this whole issue I started doing a lot more research into the issue to figure out what was wrong, and did resolve it, but it still doesn't change the fact that it shouldn't have been such a big deal in the first place. I just hate(d) Vista.The laptop itself has been flawless aside from the XP issue(of which most laptops won't even work on XP to begin with, so I still feel quite lucky with that).And by far the most annoying part of the situation was the refusal to forward me to a supervisor. At the time I was too irritated to get the person's name that I was speaking to, but a couple people I talked to right after I got off the phone notified me that I should have gotten his employee ID and sent a postal letter to Dell about it.And about learning from it, like you said...I did learn from it. I learned that Dell is by far the hardest company to work with, and to take my business to one that isn't so picky about where you get items from.

[Tramposch 1]

I have always been against Dells, we have had somany problems with dells in our family, but my family still seems to love themThe reason why... because I'm the one who always has to fix them!

[rpgsearcherz 5]

I have always been against Dells, we have had somany problems with dells in our family, but my family still seems to love them
The reason why... because I'm the one who always has to fix them!

Really there is one positive thing that I can say about Dell. They have pretty nice gaming systems for low prices. You can get a decent laptop that can play up-to-date games from them for a lot less than their competitiors(HP, Acer, etc.). But that's laptops. In terms of desktops, it's best to just build your own.

[moogie 0]

I'm sorry you had a bad experience.

I have two Dell's, a desktop and a laptop, and I've been very happy with both machines and with Dell's support.

Buying name brand computers secondhand can be risky as you found out. It's a good idea to get the serial number etc from the seller before you go through with the purchase and call the manufacturer to verify warranty and registration information. It's easy enough to call them and explain you're thinking of buying the computer and they will tell you whether it's blacklisted, legally registered and still under warranty. They will also tell you what you need to do to transfer warranty to yourself.

A little bit of research like this goes a long way and helps you avoid issues like you experienced.

Well the most annoying part about it is that Dell is the *only* company that has this "protection" policy. Their justification makes no sense whatsoever, either, as I could use a forensic search to get information and then it's all okay? That means you can steal used laptops and still get the support, which is where my issue is.

Yes, agreed. But you have to remember that the average user out there doesn't know how to do this.

I do agree that it's a bad policy on Dell's part to refuse to transfer someone to a supervisor, but I suspect that it's a Dell policy and not just the individual support guy being rude.
Edited December 29, 2008 by moogie (see edit history)

[rpgsearcherz 5]

Well you brought up asking them if it's blacklisted or not, and it wasn't blacklisted to begin with. The blacklisting seems to have come from my multiple calls(around 30 - each speaking to different people) about the issue. Not to mention their corporate line could not justify why it was blacklisted either, pushing me more into thinking it was for no reason other than as harassment.As for not putting people through to supervisors, I have never seen another company that did that, so I find it hard to believe that it would be a company policy. What is the point of a supervisor if they give no input to any situations or anything? They are supposed to be the go-to people when you are still needing assistance.Note : I did not ask everyone for their supervisor, it was just one person. So whether the others would have denied as well or not, I can not say.

[sakmac 0]

you will probally find that you were unlucky and got one of the few technical reps you find at every pc helplineover the years i have made thousands of calls to various companies for assistance,and a small percentage of those calls were what i would class as "unhelpful",in that i mean i was spoke to like i had just left primary school,and this is obviously very annoyinghowever on the whole i find most telephone support personal very helpful and these excellent personel are let down by the very few bad personelyour best option is to write to dell directly and note down your greivences,a letter is allways better than a telephone callI used Dell Tech Support over chat and they aren't bad at all, you just have to have a bit patience. Although what I have needed support for was my computer's speculations and compatibility with other devices.They are actually really great if you call them, just like any other call things. Also, my dad bought several pda's years ago, and although they aren't under warranty, he still get's support. Maybe you just had a bad day, or the guy gf just left or something lol.

[rpgsearcherz 5]

you will probally find that you were unlucky and got one of the few technical reps you find at every pc helplineover the years i have made thousands of calls to various companies for assistance,and a small percentage of those calls were what i would class as "unhelpful",in that i mean i was spoke to like i had just left primary school,and this is obviously very annoying
however on the whole i find most telephone support personal very helpful and these excellent personel are let down by the very few bad personel
your best option is to write to dell directly and note down your greivences,a letter is allways better than a telephone call

I used Dell Tech Support over chat and they aren't bad at all, you just have to have a bit patience. Although what I have needed support for was my computer's speculations and compatibility with other devices.

They are actually really great if you call them, just like any other call things. Also, my dad bought several pda's years ago, and although they aren't under warranty, he still get's support. Maybe you just had a bad day, or the guy gf just left or something lol.

You know, that's actually a definite possibility. The fact still remains, though, that I will never do business with them again.

And yes, I've had issues with other people as well(wow, my ISP is a direct example of that one....I really don't even want to go into it right now) but never been as irritated as with Dell before.

If nothing else, it is their whole "You need all of the owner's information to get support" thing that annoys me.

Either way, it's nice seeing that they are helpful to some of you!

I think something that would be helpful here are examples as to how you had issues with them, and how you ended up resolving them(for example, what method you took to get a new CSR, or something of that nature). I know that many times one person will say they can not help with an issue, but others will.

If nothing else, it can be an informational story!

[sakmac 0]

lol. Well, i had recently purchased a new dell axim x51, but it ran into some trouble with some software, [i was trying to use a fingerprinting software, but it just wouldn't start. I git their phone number from the dell website, and gave them a ring. After the inevitable wait, a really friendly guy came on. he asked the usual details and then proceeded with helping of to resolve my problem which was merely a ell file issue so just a simple download. However my advice is that you had a few bad experiences so you shouldn't give up on then . lol, it's like a dear of heights, you just have to conquer

[minimcmonkey 0]

How frustrating!I have never liked dell, I just dont like their products - they are not good value, and I can build PCs for about half the price of a dell computer of the same standard.I dont bother with customer support, I search online a bit, but if that doesnt help, I dont call the help centers - there just a waste of time.Infact, someone asked me to fix their computer, as it was not connecting to the internet. They had called customer support, and quoted the error code, the error code had come from MS outlook, so the guy I was talking to was very helpful, and told me there was a problem between the router, and the computer, so he issues a new password, and I make change the passwords on the PC - No luck.I then had a look at the connection settings. Oh look, somones changed the settings - 30 secconds and, voila, the problem is solved.I dont mean to say that the people who work at the help centers dont know about solving computer related problems, or that they are un-helpful. The person who told me what to do, had most likely just told me what their manual said solves that error code.Infact today I was solving a problem with an MSN live application. So I looked up the error code to find out what causes it. Microsoft s knowledge base said it was because the computer wasnt accepting the security certificates, or the application was not registered in the windows configuration. So I try all of the online solutions, as I dont know what else to do. No luck. But then, on eof those things that really annoys me. The person who owns the laptop, has set the clock wrong!! So I immediately set the clock using a good time server. I then, just to see if time could have possibly have solved the problem, atempted to use the software that was causing the problem and - IT WORKS!Microsofts documentation said that it was a horribly conplex problem that needed files to be re-registered, and a load of configuration files to be deleted and renamed. But no - the clock was wrong!I think both of those examples prove that its not the people who try to help from the call centers - its the companies. They have sold the product, they have made the money.You may say, that they want your money in the future, but, in the case of microsoft, if they dont buy their next OS, recent software wont work. If people buy from someone else they may need a new computer, or the software they own may not work. With dell, they are quite cheap compared to other computer vendors, so if you dont know how to build a computer, they are quite a good place to buy from, even if you have had some bad experiences.

[rpgsearcherz 5]

I see where both of you are coming from, to a point.I do understand that they work straight out of a book(as both of my grandparents used to work for call centers as well - one for DirecTV and the other for Cingular).At the same time, I can agree that the people I was speaking to were most likely just doing what they were told, rather than what they felt, which is the main reason I will not deal with them again. Their policies are horrible.Imagine you go into a store with a brand new 55" Plasma 1080P HDTV that you just bought for $3800. You bought it 5 hours ago and it was DOA(Dead on Arrival - meaning it doesn't work, straight out of the box). You want to exchange it for another, and they pretty much tell you to go away because it's not their issue now, it's yours. How would that make you feel? What are the chances that you would really ever go back to that store again, especially for such a high priced item?Now back on to my issue...The whole "I won't give you my supervisor" thing was not a policy I don't think. If it was, Dell is probably the only company in the world that says to treat people like that.On another note, it seems that the vote as to whether Dell is really that bad or not is swayed just a little towards the "not so bad" side. Any more stories, guys?