A long story, and one many who have experienced poor service will relate to, but a little history first. About 6 years ago we purchased a Dell 4600, mainly because sharing the existing pre-2001 Dell XPS-something PC was becoming a bit of a mission when we both needed it, particularly for study. The new 4600 was a very reliable PC for years, and little maintenance was required besides adding a small amount of RAM and later replacing the stock video card with a cheap used ATI Radeon X1300.
About 2 years ago, the original Dell XPS that Ice used finally died and was replaced with a new Dell E520 - nice deal with a decent 3GHz dual core processor with Vista o/s, then-current NVidia graphics card, and I added RAM to bring it up to max for the system. Ran great, and still does.
All was good, until eventually my 4600 could not handle some of the newer software on the market that I needed to use, and was very slow on the newer software that it was able to run. After increasing frustration with it, I managed to convince Ice that an upgrade was in order since the PC was about 6 years old, with the provision the the new PC should not need replacing for about another 5 years. Considering we had enjoyed a good history with Dell, I ordered a new Dell XPS 630i which, although pretty expensive, would likely be as future-proof as I could get for quite a few years into the future without buying some monster $4,000+ beast ..plus the 630i was on special.
Things went downhill very fast from that point. I found out before the PC had even been assembled that the expensive single graphics card they were selling it with was not compatible with the motherboard - it would work, but it would be significantly bottle-necked. I could instead have ordered two of a different model graphics card running in SLI for several hundred dollars less than the single one alone, and it would have given much better performance! I was not impressed.
I called Dell to change the order to the cheaper cards in SLI, and did not expect much problem as they had clearly sold me a system that could not function to their advertised specifications. Quick online research confirmed Dell had already returned the same system to earlier customers for full refunds. Unfortunately for me, Dell had recently outsourced their 'help' desk to India, and the one thing that Dell really had above all the other PC retailers - top customer service - was instantly destroyed in the process, as I soon found out.
The 'help' desk was anything but helpful. When I said I wanted to change the order, they at first flat-out refused, and said I had to cancel and order new. Ok fine, so I said cancel the order. The guy became extremely argumentative and reluctant to cancel, and said if they canceled it I would have to pay a substantial restocking fee - despite me being able to provide a website written by their own XPS PR guy confirming exactly the problem I had with the existing order, and that Dell had already issued full refunds on it to other customers. The guy then said I had to contact their tech guys in USA, get them to note on my file that the issue was valid, then for me to call back to the help desk and they would cancel the order with no restocking fee.
It was a mission to get through to the tech guys in the USA, and although they seemed surprised at the request coming from a customer, they were happy to confirm the issue and note it on my file accordingly - as soon as I mentioned it they knew exactly what I was talking about. So from there I rang back to the unhelpful desk (and I will mention that wait times on the phone were at least half an hour every time I rang, sometimes much longer). The guy I spoke to confirmed that the previous rep had noted on the file there would be no restocking fee with tech confirmation, then confirmed the tech guys had confirmed the issue was valid, then proceeded to tell me that they could not cancel the order and that I had to wait for it to be assembled and delivered, and then call back for a return. What the.. It didn't matter what I said from this point, he flat out refused to cancel and said the order had to go through the system. Ok whatever, if they want to pay all that shipping because their return/cancellation process sucked, then so be it (turns out that was a lie, made so they could get credit for the sale and keeping the return rate down).
In the following days while waiting delivery, I contacted the head of PR for the XPS in USA by email (name slips my mind now) and he replied that I was correct and that they had been giving refunds in the past and that if I had any problems all I had to do ask for a manager and mention his name and it would be fine. Great.
As soon as the PC was delivered, I called them. I couldn't believe what happened next. The guy I spoke to this time (yet another Indian guy called 'Dave' or something like that) confirmed everything I said was noted on my file and said he would process the return, but then said I would be charged a restocking fee of 15%. I said, "What?? You just confirmed not 2 minutes ago that my file said there would be a full refund if the tech guys confirmed the issue!" At this point the guy became very aggressive and proceeded to yell at me (seriously) and threatened to hang up if I couldn't take no for an answer. I was stunned for a few seconds, then I let rip. I'm sure half our apartment building heard the string of expletives I used at this point, but I didn't care - this guy was an asshole and he deserved every bit of it. Surprisingly the guy didn't hang up, so I told him to put me through to his manager. I was furious.
The manager was a piece of work - yet another guy with a thick Indian accent and a very English name, and clearly didn't care what was written on the file or my claims of what the bigwig PR guy said, he was backing his team member and that was that. After some ridiculously obtuse comments from this guy, I once again mentioned the PR guy and that I had an email to prove it. He called me a liar (I'm not kidding) so I called him a worse name and said, "give me your email address and I'll forward you a copy right now while we are on the phone". When he received the email a few minutes later he went very quiet for about a minute, and then said he needed to confirm it. I said go ahead, but I would wait on hold while he did it. About 20 minutes later he comes back sounding a little shaken and saying, "well this changes everything - you should have told me about this earlier." Had I been in the same room I would have punched him right in the face at that point.
In the end I got my full refund back and will never deal with Dell again. Idiots - had they not been such complete and utter assholes, I would have bought a differently configured PC from them and they'd still have a sale plus a satisfied customer! As a result of their crap, they have lost a couple of once-loyal customers. In addition, this story has been repeated to a number of people online and off, and I know for a fact of several individuals that were about to buy a Dell and have been dissuaded as a direct result of this story, and have purchased another brand instead.
But what about replacing the 4600 PC? Well that's another story - I ended up building my own PC, and literally saved thousands of dollars doing it. What I ended up building cost about half of what Dell were asking for a similar configuration. I'll post about it soon.
Check out this similar story titled, "Trapped in Dell Hell" from another Dell victim - certainly some similarities. No surprise to see Dell stock is currently down about 50% from what it was 2 years ago.
