Dell complaints

[Tingle]

Hello, I am here to recount my unfortunate past with computer companies, one of which, and most important of whom, Dell Computer.

In 2003, I purchased a PC from a company by the name of Tiger Direct. You may have seen their ads on various television stations. I was enthralled by their selection of components(I was a subscriber to their catologue) and peripherals, and how low their prices were. Once I was in the financial position to purchase a computer, I went straight to Tiger Direct. I ordered a PC with monitor at the cost of 2,500$ Canadian. Upon ordering, an agent was assigned to my account, his name was Leo. Leo was very kind, he treated me as a customer should be treated.....

Once my PC had finally arrived(this being my first computer purchase), I was very excited. I was always interested in technology. I went to boot it up. It didn't boot up, it didn't work at all. After slogging through procedural nonsense, I was asked to send the machine in for correction. So I sent it back in. What came back was someone else's PC. An old, gray, POS. I didn't even boot it up. In disgust, I had collected myself and called the company back. Leo apologized for the mix-up. Apparently it was stickered improperly, and as a result it went to some guy in the states. And his PC was of course, sent to us. So we sent his back hoping that we would recieve ours. Upon attempted retrieval of our hardware, Tiger Direct contacted us with bad news. Apparently this man wasn't giving us the hardware, he had put his foot down. Probably tired of being jerked around by these monkeys, I thought to myself. So needless to say, we were without a PC. I argued my case with Leo, as did my mother. He said it was out of his hands, and that this was his "last day". I couldn't help but think this could have been due to the way customers are treated by the company. He seemed happy, relieved, when he said it. It was time for a stronger course of action. We went to Visa, who was able to extract the money and recredit us the 2,500$. Thank goodness, I thought to myself.

This experience sadly, was not my last with computer issues.

Dell Computer boasts award winning customer service. I for one, must protest. In 2004, I purchased a computer from Dell for much more than I had committed to Tiger Direct. Twice as much, in fact. I told the manager my horror story. He symphathized, and assured me that this sort of nonesense would not occur if I were to purchase one of their PCs. So, I believed him. Traumatized from past experience, I kept the order agent on the phone forever, repeating myself on how I couldn't stand to have something go wrong again. Upon arrival, the PC worked wonderfully. I booted it up without incident. And lived happily ever after..............But not really.....

Over a year later, with a completely secure and protected PC, I began experiencing blue screens. I contacted Dell, they had me do a fresh reinstall. You see, every time you contact Dell technical support, they want to find the simplest solution, preferably one involving SOFTWARE ONLY. So they treat me as if I'm exagerating, "calm down mam", when I am not even a woman.......The name on the account and the voice on the phone are things they need to learn to decipher between. But I dare not bother to correct them, for if I do, I will be again, misunderstood. I feel it is best to say as little as possible, and be as robotic as humanly possible. That is NOT good customer service. I am quite understanding of the fact that english is second language to 99.9% of tech support I speak with at Dell Computer, but it is simply too difficult to understand and communicate.

Every time it is the same run-around. They make me slog through procedural tasks that I've already done on my own, and have clearly stated as such. It is as if they are reading from a list of guidelines. Even though I tell them I've done this and I've done that, they make me do it over again. Do you know how that feels? "We will try this then mam", even though you have already stated that this base base has been covered, and gone without any success? Frankly this is a waste of my time and theirs. Although, most Dell technicians I've spoken to have been kind, that was never really an issue.

After the fresh reinstall, I could not properly install my drivers. We came to the conclusion that it was the CDROM drive in need of replacement. So they sent someone from my brother's work place to replace it. Tis done, and it fixed that issue. I thought everything was fine. But the blue screens came back in time............

The latest incident I experienced with Dell Computer was recently, a little over a month ago. I phoned them with a clear objective, completely wipe the harddrive, not a standard reinstall. I had thought the virus I had experienced needed to be completely wiped off of the harddrive. The technician informed me that this is what we were doing, even though I knew we weren't. They were taking me through a straightforward XP reinstall, which was what I was attempting to avoid. But I put faith in them, that this would work. After settling in to a fresh reinstall, things went fine for a short while. One month in, and I have blue screens again. As I type this now, I am in safe mode. Though I fear I am not safe even here....for I have experienced blue screening and freezing within. And I fear it is only a matter of time before the issue becomes worse, as it did before. So I cannot let it sit for any period of time, I have consulted techies on support forums. Though I have yet to find a solution. However, I was told that this must be my harddrive. My harddrive must be faulty. So I am forced to contact Dell, once again, so they can replace it. However, I will not send the computer in. I fear the worst if this is to occur. I feel it is best that they have, as they did the last time, have a local computer store technician replace the faulty hardware. I see no reason for them to make me ship it out, this is inconvenience to a customer. After hearing the horror stories, seeing the same run-arounds I've gotten before(again you can tell that they don't want to deal in hardware solutions), I cannot help but fear the worst.

I will be contacting Dell soon, and I will be asking for a hardware solution, once it is proven to them that this is a hardware issue. At which point it is indesputable, I have their max warranty. They will replace it, without a cent coming from my pocket. If anything unsatisfactory is to occur, I will inform you all further.

Thank you for reading my computer horror story. I can only hope that Dell will treat me as the valuable customer that I am.
_________________

[paul_dellcc]

Welcome to the forum

Sorry to hear your Dell horror story.

There is only one thing I disagree with:

[ShaftDu]

sorry to hear about both of your horror stories,

maybe you might want to look at local service rather then mail order. With local service, you are face to face with the company you got the computer from. Sure mail order might be a tad cheaper, but at least a few more dollars you arn't going to be jerk around by someone who can easily hang up on you.

[Rocke_T_Sinetist]

Ye Gods! You gave Dell $5000? Gamer then, eh? Fun obsession.

RE Tech Support: Yes, they are reading a script. No, they don't listen to what you say, that's not on the script. No, they don't necessarily know squat about computers. People who know things tend to expect to get paid. A hardy band of neoconservatives is working night and day to dispel that nostalgic notion. "Leave no American employed". Meanwhile, those of us caught in the transition need the patience and determination of a Saint (so THAT'S their game!) to get business done.

RE BSOD: Gnarly, dude. That can be anything-- HDD, memory, CPU, MB, errant 'legitimate' software, errant illegitimate software, Bill Gates having mood swings, or a mouse nest in your modem. (Caution, these discussions tend to get windy, and so do I.)

HDD: Half-eliminate the drive by running '9090', the harddrive diagnostic on the Dell boot menu (hit F12). I say "half-eliminate" because it only catches problems after they've gotten "so bad". If it comes up with anything other than "pass", the HDD is definitely bad. If not--from the CMD dialog box, type chkdsk /F, it will say "run on next boot?" answer Y and restart. If it comes up with a list of files it "fixed", something is nibbling your image. Could be the drive itself, other hardware, or errant software. Might even solve the problem, though temporarily (like your reinstalls did).

Memory: More typically fails sooner, rather than after a year of operating, but creeping memory errors WILL corrupt Windows, and not necessarily all at once, but 'nibble' at it as you're experiencing. Memory is my best guess for recurrent BSOD after reinstall. Set the machine to running a game demo or something. Wiggle the memory sticks one at a time. If you wiggle a loose or mechanically-intermittent one, the machine will respond by locking up or BSODing. Remove that stick and see if the machine goes back to proper operation. There's a catch-- if bad memory HAS corrupted Windows, the corruption remains after the bad memory is removed. Kinda why BSOD is gnarly-- none of the tests is conclusive on its own. Well wait, ONE is. Download "Windows memory diagnostic" from www.microsoft.com to a floppy and boot to it. Let it run as long as the system tends to go without BSODing. If WMD reports ANY error, there's faulty memory. It won't tell you exactly which one, you can find it by substituting modules one at a time. It's also possible one socket is bad and any module you put there will fail.

CPU/MB: Also typically fails sooner than later, and even less likely to be intermittent (work for a while, BSOD, work for a while, BSOD...). There's no competent diagnostic for CPU/MB intermittents, but there's a halfass one under the F12 'utility partition'. If that's gone, boot to the Resource CD. Dell Diags won't prove there is NOT a problem, but if a test DOES fail that pretty much proves there IS a hardware problem.

Errant software: Let's dispel the myth that Norton or Mcaffee "protects" your system. Those virus definitions it spends so much time downloading every day are only posted AFTER a virus is released. Several days after. Some of the more prescient viruses can even disable AV programs. Your best AV is informed, alert awareness. Stay off 'third-world' type websites, be VERY wary of "free software" downloads, don't click on attachments that end in .pif or .scr. Presumably competent software can corrupt Windows. Games you bought retail, printer/scanner drivers, even internet packages from AOL and SBC have also recently required 'patching' because they were developed with WXP SP-1 and incompatible with SP-2. If you start having BSOD immediately after 'installing' ANYTHING, go uninstall it in Safe Mode and call the vendor. "Competent" software corruption will be less an issue now that SP-2 has been around a year, but will rise again with the release of 'Vista'. Read the BSOD screen. It's usually gibberish, but sometimes names a software module causing a problem. That's where the modem-mousenest comes in. Certain out-of-tolerance devices produce an error within their own drivers for which there is no handler, and the driver crash crashes Windows. If the BSOD says "page fault...", go back to "memory".

Bill Gates' mood swings: WXP has an experimental module in it. The idea was (and still is) for Microshaft to be able to require annual relicensing, and be able to shut down your system if you don't pay. They didn't implement the 'licensing' part (yet), but the module is still there and there's no definitive way to diagnose whether it's run amok or not. It's supposed to give you a coherent message like "contact Microshaft support" rather than BSOD. But then, operating systems are 'supposed' to operate, not routinely cannibalize themselves like WXP can do if the power is interrupted during startup.

If you can narrow down any of these categories, perhaps we can help solve this.
_________________
Rocke T Sinetist
as in, 'it doesn't take a...'