My LOUSY Dell Computers “Support” Experience

My brother, he rocks. His commitment to my kids is that when they graduate from high school he will buy them a laptop. Wonder if that’s retroactive since I DID actually graduate. Sure it was a while ago, but still.

My oldest daughter got her Dell laptop 2 yrs ago. He doesn’t pull any punches and he makes sure no matter what that these computers are totally covered. At least that’s what I thought. I will be calling him this weekend to clarify what he actually paid for. This is my daughter’s reaction when she came home to her graduation present. Sorry for the not so hot quality.

Before my daughter went on Spring Break a couple of weeks ago she started having some different issues with her computer not running correctly. It’s gotten to the point where it just won’t turn on or if it does it’s sporadic at best.

Today she finally called Dell “support”. They told her the computer hardware was covered but not the software. That surprised me because of the amount of money my brother dropped on her computer.

While she was talking to them the first time, before they dropped her call, they told her there would probably be a one time cost involved or a cost for 2 yrs. She wasn’t sure what that amount would be. I told her to call them back and get more information.

She calls me back and tells me it’s going to be $135 to fix the problem. A one time fee. I thought that was absolutely ridiculous because at the time I was under the impression this was covered. I decided to take matters into my own hands. I made a call.

In case you weren’t aware, my oldest daughter is away at college, not sitting right next to me. I can’t look at her computer, I can’t talk to her about her computer while I’m on the phone with someone in another country.

Too bad I got an absolute JERK of a “support” tech and I use the word “support” very loosely. We started discussing the issue and I had to explain that the computer wasn’t with me. My daughter was away at college. THIS chump tells me it’s going to cost $239.99. I was like, “WHAT? I’m not paying that. I don’t have that kind of money. I’ll go to someone locally and have them fix it.”

Well, he didn’t like that so he started giving me a hard time. He said, “So you’re going to pay someone $50 who isn’t Microsoft certified. Then in 2-3 months pay them again because there’s a different problem?”

I told him, “Yes, I don’t have $239 sitting around. I can’t afford that, my daughter can’t afford that. My brother has already poured a ton of money into Dell for her computer and my other daughter’s brand NEW laptop. We’re not going to give you another dime.”

Him, “So you’d rather pay $50 now and $50 later to someone who doesn’t have the training?” On and on he went all the while I’m getting more pissed because he’s being a complete JERK.

He wouldn’t shut up about me going somewhere else to get my computer fixed so I said, “Thank you for your time,” and I hung up. I wasn’t in the mood to listen to one more thing this dude had to say.

I called back after talking to my daughter and hearing her say that she wanted to dump this stupid computer and go with something other than a Dell. Let’s just say a Mac is sounding pretty delightful right about now and with her lovely tax return coming back, she’ll have the dough to buy one.

My 2nd daughter has a gorgeous cover on the outside of her new Dell laptop.

I decided I would try one more time to get hold of someone at Dell who might be a bit more pleasant and a bit higher up the food chain. This time I got a guy who I could actually understand. The first time I had to ask the guy to keep repeating himself. I don’t have an issue with talking to people in India, although I’d prefer Americans to be employed by these big companies, but if they’re going to be talking to American’s using English on a daily basis, they should be understandable.

This 2nd guy I talked to told me he’d be able to give me $5 off my daughter’s quoted price and he’d fix the problem for good for $129. He went on to tell me how amazing he was and that there’d never be a problem again. I told him I’d have to talk to my daughter and see if she wanted to spend this kind of money. He said we could do a conference call. Well, the fact that we have no money makes a conference call pointless and I told him we didn’t have the money right now anyhow that I’d have to talk to my brother.

He offered to call my brother and I explained to him my brother is at my grandma’s funeral today. I’m sure to him I sounded like I was making it up, but as my readers know, it’s the complete and utter truth. My grandma died last Friday and she’s being buried today in New York.

The guy told me he was one of the only people authorized to give me a price like that and that there were no guarantees that out of the 3000 workers that I’d get him again. I told him I understood that, but it was a chance I’d have to take. If I actually had the money, I’d probably just go ahead and do it, but he’d still have to call my daughter because she’s the one with the computer.

Now, if my brother DIDN’T buy coverage for the software, then we obviously have an issue. That’s not really my point with this post.

My issue is the crappy customer service. Since I have 2 more boys down the road getting computers for graduation, and me currently on the lookout for a laptop, CRAPPY customer “service” will completely encourage me to go to a competitor, such as Apple. I’ve heard so much positive talk about Macs I’m very tempted to pay out the nose for them because of their reliability.

Anyone have advice on what kind of computer we should look at considering the fact that I, and my daughter are fed up with Dell? What kind of computer do you have? Would you suggest it to someone in the market for a new one?