Dell complaints

[feonix]

Firstly, appologies if this is the incorrect forum for my post - it's not a complaint as such and doesn't require a fix from anyone, but I had to share my experience for the sheer amusement factor. Feel free to move this post as appropriate.

I'm a UK customer - I've never ordered from Dell before - and to be honest I'd not even seen this forum prior to my decision to order from them. If I had, then I might have chosen a different brand, but hey...

I went online, specced out a top of the range Inspiron with all the bells and whistles, and placed the order. I got the obligatory emails stating delivery within 10 days... then two days later had a card through the door to say they'd tried to deliver my laptop. No problems so far - I stayed home from work the next day so I was in the next time it was delivered.

I received the laptop in a state of excitement, opened it, marvelled at the weight of it (muuuuuch heavier than my previous Asus laptop), and plugged the power lead in.

All the lights lit up as they should - surprisingly the battery was fully charged. I shrugged and pressed the power button.

<BEEP> No Bootable Media detected...

I checked the BIOS - it indicated NOT PRESENT in both HDD slots...

Surely they hadn't shipped it without hard-drives???

No. Nothing quite so simple...

I opened the bay on the bottom of the laptop, expecting to see nothing. To my surprise both disks were present.

What was not present however were the six screws necessary to hold the drives in place. During transit the drives had been shaken loose of the contacts (rather than being pins, Dell seem to use slot like blade connectors on their caddys) and the BIOS had reported them missing.

My wife was angrier than I was, after all I'd spent over £1200 on this laptop and they couldn't screw the drives in properly? To be honest I was amused more than anything.

A quick fix later (I secured the drives with heat-resistant foam like the mounts inside Toughbooks) and everything worked fine - and has ever since.

I still chuckle over it though... and thank my stars that I seem to have dodged most of the troubles so far that others have detailed on these forums. I don't fancy wading through Dell Customer Service just for the sake of 6 tiny screws!

Feonix

[diashto]

Just be sure you didnt cover the vents with that foam. Those drives can cook pretty easily.

[feonix]

[Rocke_T_Sinetist]

That's weak alright, but not uncommon. I used to get desktops back from the field, dead out of the box, with the floppy not screwed in. Now I know why they call them "floppy". If flopped around inside the case during shipping and destroyed the motherboard.

Dell is also semi notorious for not screwing the heatsink down. It won't run longer than 10 minutes that way. The assemblers have to churn out a certain number of boxes and if they get behind they just skip stuff.

Dell used to operate each system for an hour before shipping, but I'm pretty sure they skip that step now. Just throw the stuff in the box, throw the box in another box, and out the door.
_________________
Rocke T Sinetist
as in, 'it doesn't take a...'

[feonix]

[FallenAngel]

I'd go out on a limb and suspect that Dell and their staff no longer care about procedure, if there even is any. Amidst all the employee cuts and scandals, it's not a far stretch to think that some operational guidelines have been cut or reworked. If that includes no longer testing for at least 1 hour before packing, this wouldn't surprise me in the least.

You're far more patient than I would've been. Observing missing parts, especially screws to keep things where they should be, would've been enough for me to call Dell and tear a strip off of them in monumental way.

[Rocke_T_Sinetist]

Yep. Manufacturing staff is not measured on procedure, only number of boxes per hour/shift. And there is no linking of defects back to the operator who processed them (ISO).

The psychology of getting something new works against customers. They want the product to work, sometimes to the extent of completing the negligent assembly on their own.

To really cover yourself and get value for what you spent, out-of-box defects should be sent back for credit. Requesting exchange doesn't guarantee you the 'new' product you paid for. I'd go as far as to say that a DOA is a bad omen, and spend the refund with another vendor rather than giving Dell a second chance.

But there's that psychology thing again. Customers are reluctant to conclude that their original decision was in error and reverse it.
_________________
Rocke T Sinetist
as in, 'it doesn't take a...'

[feonix]

[feonix]

[Rocke_T_Sinetist]