How Dell Computers Lost My Business Forever

Today, I was forced to tell a company that I have done business with for five years that I would have to sue them in small claims court for losses I sustained to repair two brand new computers.

Dell is a company that had so much promise. It has squandered that good will not only once, but twice. A few years back, with their stock prices in the tank and complaints about bad service at an all-time high, Dell's management made a decision to start listening to bloggers and try to improve their service.

Along the way, they lost their reasoning skills. At least in my situation, they've lost their common sense.

My story is a bit complicated. I bought three new laptop computers from April 2008-May 2008. A slight detour occurred in the Fall of 2009 when two of the three computers were stolen from my home. The replacement computers turned out to be clunkers.

For simplicity's sake, I'll name my computers for easy reference. My computer is #1, my oldest daughter's is #2, and my youngest's is #3.

Computer number one started acting up soon after I bought it. While typing on the keyboard, all of a sudden, the cursor would jump around and go somewhere else. It didn't seem to correlate with touching the mouse keypad on the computer. It was random and maddening. This still happens all the time. Dell has acknowledged this problem and offered to send me a new computer. There are thousands of posts on this site from hundreds of others who have experienced the problem too.

Computers number 2 & 3 were stolen from my home in August. Both of my kids were set to start college in less than two weeks after that. So, I called Dell to try to get some guidance as to how I could replace both machines for less money (I have insurance which covered it, but after a $1000 deductible obviously had less money to work with). I tried to call Dell, but didn't want to talk to someone in India. But I called the customer service line anyway. No one there really understood my problem.

I finally got a hold of a guy named Jubal in Dell's twitter sales team. He was a nice guy,and I ordered two more brand new machines. This is when the problems all started.

I had already purchased Office student and Home for the original stolen computers, but Dell did not send me a disk, they just pre-installed them. So now I was faced with the prospect of buying the software again, or just using my disk. I used mine to install on both of their machines. So Dell, now you know why you should always send the software you sell people!!! BECAUSE I MIGHT NEED IT AGAIN!!!!! Plus, it's MINE. I bought it.

Then, computer #1, still having the annoying jumpy cursor issue, now started having a much more serious problem. When my iPod is plugged in, I cannot access Windows Explorer. However, before I figured that out, I called Dell. I talked to a lovely young lady on Diwali. She had to work that day because so many of her co-workers had the day off. Since I spent six hours on the phone with her that day, we became friends. Turns out, Diwali is one of the most important holidays in India. I almost felt sorry for her because she had to spend six hours on the phone with me, but then I was charged $183.14 for the privilege. Only hours after completing Dell's suggested "fix," my computer started doing the same thing over again.

In early February, computer #2 mysteriously went black. It would not start. It was dead. Then a week later, computer #3 had the famous "blue screen of death" and would not start.I reached out to @teamblackhawk on Twitter and received no response.

Since I had already experienced Dell's inconvenient and inaccurate diagnosis and inability to fix machine #1, I asked a friend who he recommended. That is how I connected with Jason of Iowa PC Services. I left the machines in his care more than two week ago. The diagnosis? Machine #2's hard drive had failed. All data lost. Machine #3 was a software failure. Not a surprise since it has Windows Vista in it. I had ordered a Window 7 upgrade a few weeks before and not had the chance to install it. I had not been send another upgrade for machine #3, and when Jason inquired in February, they told him the offer had expired January 30, 2010. Thanks, Dell, for going the extra mile. How hard would it have been to just send the damn thing out?

I felt my last resort was to start tweeting my displeasure. On February 17, @LionelatDell started following me and got me connected with Brad. I had a very frank conversation with him about how this whole situation had inconvenienced me.

Here is the text of his email to me, with a fairly decent offer. But he ignored my request to be reimbursed for the estimate $650 repair that Jason is making to computers #2 and #3.

Claire, I have looked into this and here are the current solutions we would like to offer.

1. Exchange your system to a new system (same model) with Windows 7 (Please note new exchanges can take 10-15 business days). Please note that the remaining warranty will transfer to the replacement system. (Claire's note: If this is not an admission that my computer is a lemon, I don't know what it is)

2. Credit the Dell on Call charge (call to India) to the original form of payment.

3. Send out the other Windows 7 Upgrade disk that your daughter is entitled to.

4. Send out Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007 (this is the version of the software that allows 3 licenses to be used in the same household) located here: http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/products/Business_and_Office/productdetail.aspx?c=us&l=en&cs=19&sku=A0754540 If receiving this software is not going to work, let me know and we can credit your account $140.00 instead.

Please let me know if this is agreeable, and if it is, the shipping address you would like to use. On a side note this is not something we normally offer and a big exception to our normal policy, but after discussing this with you I feel these will be the best solutions for you. If you have any questions please let me know.

Brad Laurich Community Liaison Dell Inc.
1-800-822-8965 x72-33949

This last paragraph is very telling. Notice, there is no apology for the time I've wasted trying to get this situation fixed. And for good measure, they've let me know that making something right and trying to make a customer happy is not something they normally offer.

When I emailed back to inquire about the $650 expense I'm incurring for fixing computers #2 and #3, here was Brad's response:

Unfortunately this is not something we will be able to do. We can still put through the other items I sent in my previous email, but we cannot pay for charges to a 3rd Party Service Provider.
Brad Laurich, Dell 

Ok then, Brad, Lionel, and Michael Dell, that is not acceptable. I will be following up with letters to the Better Business Bureau, the Iowa Attorney General's consumer division and will be filing a claim in court to get my $650 reimbursement. I refuse to be held accountable for the mistakes of a multi-billion dollar company that should know better.

Dude, I'm gettin' a Mac!

Please feel free to leave your Dell Hell story here. Please feel free to blog or tweet about it as well.

Comments

[Brett Trout]

Igor and Dan transitioned our office over to Mac last December and we could not be happier. After you finish choking on the price you'll end up loving your Mac too.

[Lynda]

My desktop is still a dell -- just because I've not yet had a need to upgrade it. It is the only active dell remaining in our family's computer network.

Just a couple of years ago, our entire family used dell computers. (Three desktops, two laptops) Now, as each machine needs to be replaced, we go elsewhere.

I'm not sure if there was any one big thing that forced the change. Mostly, I think, it was just a bunch of little stuff (i.e., a DVD drive that suddenly stopped working as it should and a subsequent call to customer service where the helper and I couldn't understand one another).

Anyway, the husband is now using all Macs at home -- laptop and desktop -- and he loves them. In addition to my dell desktop, I have a cheapo mini Acer netbook and a larger HP notebook (and, note to dell, HP customer service was wonderful when I had an issue with my laptop last fall). We bought the oldest daughter a *sweet* alienware laptop for Christmas.

It has been our experience thus far that no matter who else you go with, you're gonna be a lot happier than you would be if you stayed with dell.

[Denika]

Claire,

I remember you posting a comment on Facebook about buying the Dell Laptops. So, last Fall when my husband and I were starting our business, I asked for your recommendation on a laptop purchase. I valued your opinion. I also did a ton of online research and talked to a lot of salespeople here in town. We heard so much negativity regarding Dell, that we ended up buying two HP laptops. I have to say they have both been really good to us. I do miss my Mac, so I have asked my new employer for a Mac instead of a PC. As a result, we are selling at least one of our HP laptops. Let me know if you would like to buy one! Boo, Dell!

[Kevin Sime]

After all the bad PR I switched to a Mac four years ago when I gave the Dell to my brother. It did hang on for eight years before I did a mercy killing to the PC. I purposely avoided Dell due to continued bad reviews and picked out an HP machine to replace the Dell for him.

[Drew McLellan]

Once you have a Mac, you will never go back!

Drew

[Jenni]

I think my next computer will be a Mac. We've never had Dell, but its because of reviews like yours. We've just heard too many negative things about them and their customer service.

[Meyo]

I'm going to do the devil's advocate ;-)

I can understand why you're upset, but Dell doesn't seem that bad in this story. At least they tried to give you a solution. It's usually impossible to get in touch with a company, and it's just unimaginable to find a company that will say "ok I send you a new computer". At least in my case for any products it's just hell to find some help... So I think you're a little bit mean here...

About the Dell products several friends had some issues with their laptops (bad screen, keyboard issue, integrated webcam issue), but they called the tech support and they got a new one. I have a desktop PC for 3 years, it's a Dell and didn't have any issue.

When I read the comments about Mac I'm laughing. Ok these guys could have a good experience with Mac, but just go to read the Internet and you'll find so many unsatisfied customers.

HP products sound good but I never tried them.

Finally, you know, one customer will say "this brand is horrible", and another one will say "this brad is just magic!". We are not equal to a company because we don't have the same products, because we don't speak with the same technicians, and so on.

Next time I have a problem with my screen TV, my computer, my washing machine or something else, I hope I'll be as lucky as you and I'll found someone to tell me "ok I can send you a new one" :-D

[Claire]

So Meyo, I'll take your comment and compare the situation to a car repair. Let's say I bought three new Honda Accords. One has mis-aligned steering and veers off the road, and when I turn on the radio, the car shuts off and doesn't work. The other two just stopped working altogether. I have those two towed to the shop and diagnosed. The other one just sits in my garage until I get parts. The shop calls and tells me all of my problems are familiar, and they have the parts to fix it. The parts are free, they admit the problem was not caused by me, but I'll have to pay to fix it, the the cost is about a fourth of what I paid for the new cars to begin with? Does THAT make any sense to you? NO? Well then welcome to my world, friend. By the way, thanks for commenting, I appreciate the fact that you stopped by, I just happen to strongly disagree with you.

[Tom Flynn]

Claire -
I've owned Macs - both business and personal since the early 90s. I've only ever had one problem with any of them ... a bad hard drive once. I took it to the Apple Store. They diagnosed it there and determined it was a bad hard drive and sent me a new one. Something to be said about 1) Buying locally where you can expect better service from people you talk to face-to-face; and 2) Paying extra for quality. Good luck with your lawsuit ... and I know you'll love your Macs.

[Bob]

I have to say I agree with you. I am done with Dell. I have bought hundreds of their machines over the last few decades - for business and pleasure. They are on a downward spiral that started with outsourcing about 10 years ago. The latest not-so-nice thing they have done to me is my daughter bought a laptop with a promise of a free Win 7 upgrade (on my advice). They did not say there was time limit. There was. Apparently we missed it by 3 days. They said "tough luck". I won't go to Mac for a lot of reasons but Lenovo and HP have some really good equipment for the Windows world - they will get my future business - all of it.

[Lyn Thomas]

I saw all the articles on Dell Sucks and I have been experiencing a 3 week nightmare and the latest is Dell broke my connector cable to my power button 5 days ago! Now its completely down after a replacement of a hard drive, 2 keyboards, motherboard and the Dell Studio laptop is not even a 1 year old! I'm at witts end and I use it for my Realtor business! I really feel so helpless after a very emotional day with India helpdesk telling me it is not their procedure to send out a replacement even though they caused the breakage! Unbelievable I have never experienced anything so bad as this regarding customer service! I was on Dell website today trying to get any email address of one of the executive board team and no such luck!

[K.R. from Eastern Ont,Canada]

My husband and I live in Canada and we currently own 2 Dells- an older Inspiron 1521 and an XPS gaming system (much to my dismay, as we didn't need it). They are the last Dell's we will EVER have in this house and, even if we ever won one, we would send it to Dell HQ's here.

We never had any physical issue with the Inspiron. As for the XPS system, just a few months over one year after we got it, it died- would start up normally for a few seconds and then show a black screen that said to 'press alt, ctrl, del to restart'. That's as far as it went and the night before the computer worked fine.

We have dealt with Dell's Customer service at other times and for this we did the same. Called one number to be transferred to another then to the expired warrenty dept. Once there, the 'gentleman' told us that he was having technical difficulty pulling up my husband's info- said he would call back in 20 mins. Never recieved a call back. And we were still left with a desktop that didn't work yet we were paying for.

From there, it turned into an epiphany that, even one payment behind, Dell felt the need to access my husband's bank account upwards of 6 times, without notification, to retrieve the $100 for both machines we were behind. After 3 or 4 months of taking NSF fees for them as well as trying to discuss arrangements, we decided to take our situation into our own hands and put stop payments on our computers.

This was also at at a time when they felt the need to call us incessantly, even though we tried to discuss things with them. Those discussions were pointless as they would talk us in circles and get us no where. My husband, being in training for Canadian Forces and away from home, even said to put MY cell phone number on their records so that they could talk to me. After talking to them a couple of times with the same results he did, I gave up and I have yet to pick up the phone. They call every 20 minutes, have gone to every 10 minutes (except for lunch hour, how nice) and even, one day, calling every minute for nearly half an hour.

I will not be dealing with Dell ever again- the 2 machines that we do have will be shipped to Dell Canada HQ in North York with a massive letter of complaint as to the broken XPS that we couldn't fix and the over 3 year old Inspiron that we still owe $900 on even though we were 'one payment behind' suppsosedly.

Since then, my husband has an ASUS laptop that he purchased through the military store for himself and I have a Sony VAIO from the same location- his will be paid off in 2 yrs and mine will be done in a year. COMPLETELY. Take that, Dell, and stuff it where the sun don't shine.