@#*&% Dell customer service

[jhale]

Let's all blame Dell on this.

Take responsibility and follow the commitments you make, such as making payments on time.

:spin: payments were made on time :spin:

I do agree, if you can't afford it don't buy it.
Unfortunately Dell and other companies offer these credit deals and
people get burned.

 

[masterswimmer]

Bottom line..........SMALL PRINT SUCKS!!!!!

She did her due diligence with on time payments. She called when the final payment was somewhat convoluted and wanted to be prompt with the final payment as well.

No need to go through the holier than thou, 'don't attack big brother because they make billions'. This is petty on their part, short and sweet.

I'm on your side Jon boy.

R

 

[Chiefmcfuz]

No, I dislike them for many reasons, their quality and CS has deteriorated in the last 2 years. I have owned dells and had great success with them. But the problem started when they started outsourcing. Their tech skills are horrendous Everything leads to a format and a restore. They don't listen to you when you are telling them what's wrong with the computer they just go with the dummy cards. Unfortunately they think they know more than everyone when sometimes they don't (trust me). One guy told me to flash the bios to get a cd rom to start working. When I asked where I could find the upgraded file he e-mailed me 2 files that were outdated by 2 previous versions. Then another guy told me that the reason a video card wasn't working was because it's drivers had corrupted, when it was really an issue with the thing burning up (there was charing around the heat sink) . It melted and when I told him to send me a new card he told me we would have to format the drive !!!!!!!!!! Their sales dept tries to sell you things you don't need and when you don't take them they get all pi$$y with you, I had one salesperson hang up on me cause I told him I was going to use AVG anti virus and Zone alarm firewall and not the 75 dollar package he wanted to sell me. Their "Lease a computer deals" are a rippoff period. This is why I dislike Dell. Not cause they are a big company but because they have no idea what they are talking about anymore.

 

[fritz]

No, I dislike them for many reasons, their quality and CS has deteriorated in the last 2 years. I have owned dells and had great success with them. But the problem started when they started outsourcing. Their tech skills are horrendous Everything leads to a format and a restore. They don't listen to you when you are telling them what's wrong with the computer they just go with the dummy cards. Unfortunately they think they know more than everyone when sometimes they don't (trust me). One guy told me to flash the bios to get a cd rom to start working. When I asked where I could find the upgraded file he e-mailed me 2 files that were outdated by 2 previous versions. Then another guy told me that the reason a video card wasn't working was because it's drivers had corrupted, when it was really an issue with the thing burning up (there was charing around the heat sink) . It melted and when I told him to send me a new card he told me we would have to format the drive !!!!!!!!!! Their sales dept tries to sell you things you don't need and when you don't take them they get all pi$$y with you, I had one salesperson hang up on me cause I told him I was going to use AVG anti virus and Zone alarm firewall and not the 75 dollar package he wanted to sell me. Their "Lease a computer deals" are a rippoff period. This is why I dislike Dell. Not cause they are a big company but because they have no idea what they are talking about anymore.

Having supported large companies, including an 11 million user network at one point, it's much easier to fix a software issue when you don't care what broke. Troubleshooting to the point of finding the cause of the issue (which is near impossible given the millions of variables) is VERY time consuming. Then trying to fix that one issue is also VERY time consuming.

For example, back in the late 90s Norton had a product called Ghost. Every machine on our small network was identical. This made things very easy. I kept a clean install, ghosted hard drive near my desk. When anyone called with a problem with their computer, I would go over and swap out their hard drive for my clean image hard drive. When they logged into the network the DC would push down any files or other things that they needed. People would ask "Why didn't you try to figure out what was broken?" To which I would answer "Because your computer works now. Who cares why it stopped."

I could then go and F with "their" computer (the hard drive with the issue on it that I had swapped for the working one) if I wanted to, or if this was a reoccurring issue. Or I could go and ghost an image right over their old hard drive. Dell takes the same approach because believe it or not it is better customer service. Likely your computer stopped working not because a dell component broke, but because inside windows is a conflict that you created either by the 4th firewall that you just installed or the 5th antivirus/pop up blockier/ anti-spyware program that you just installed to go along with your new peripheral. What Dell should do is say "I think you need to contact the manufacturer of ***** to fix this for you" Well that pisses people off. So then they call the manufacturer of item X who says "You need to call Microsoft" who tells them to call Dell back. It is far easier and less time consuming, plus less margin for error on the part of the tech, to just have people do a fresh install. 90% of the time people are happy, sure they lost their junk but they now have a brand new computer. They say "Wow it's so fast" and it will be until they go and install every stupid pop up and ancillary AOL program.

In all honesty it's really hard to even find blame when you know what you're doing. Suppose you find a nic that is just requesting over and over again. Is it a bad driver? Is it a windows issue? Is it an AOL thing that is going to cause a winsock error? Who knows. You could refer the person to AOL who will only reinstall AOL as they can't support anything that's not theirs. You can point them to MS who doesn't have access to any DHCP logs so they'll just go to "Device Manager" and see a green check and pass them along as OK. You can point them to Linksys who will also just go to the "Device Manger" and say "all looks good". Or you can take grandma into the registry or into the netshell to rebuild her ip interface which if it is an AOL issue will cause a winsock error. SO what is the best way to support this issue from Dell's standpoint? It's not their issue honestly. Their product didn't cause the issue but since they sold the product to this person the person holds them accountable. Truth be told Compaq/HP, Gateway every company handles these situations this way as do large corporations and any sys admin worth his salt. You Wipe Clean and start over. It's the fastest way from broken to working. Or you could hire truly skilled American sys admins to do tech support at 80-100k a year and bump up the price of the computers by say 100%.

Apple has great tech support because they are a closed system. One software, one set of hardware. It's like a TV set. Very easy to support. The open nature of x86 architecture and windows gives an endless array of variables that is impossible to predict and even support in the way you suggest.

also bigup!

 

[reefman]

basically, it is cheaper to replace it than fix it .
this is the trade off we get for cheap(if u believe) computers. "outsource" = cheap labor= more profits.
u guys better get use to "hard to understand english" and bad support, or start learning basic pc trobleshooting.
most problems r not hard to fix; learning is never a bad thing.

 

[fritz]

basically, it is cheaper to replace it than fix it .
this is the trade off we get for cheap(if u believe) computers. "outsource" = cheap labor= more profits.
u guys better get use to "hard to understand english" and bad support, or start learning basic pc trobleshooting.
most problems r not hard to fix; learning is never a bad thing.

here here. Learning some basic PC good practices are a good start. I've tried with my in-laws and own parents but it hasn't been very successful. The other side is that the wages that tech support workers are paid in India is VERY HIGH! It would be the American equivalent (in New York dollars) of about $120,000.00 a year. Those with basic PC troubleshooting skills and a love of tikka masala could always move to India and get paid being the only American English sounding tech support worker.

 

[Chiefmcfuz]

When you are dealing with warranty items it is not cheaper to replace the item sorry. It's their responsibility to replace them and their responsibility to listen to the consumer as well especially if the consumer sounds like they know more than the tech on the phone reading from dummy cards. Yes Comcr@p/HP, Gutterway, and Dull/Alienwhore they are all the same. ANd they were my reason to build every computer I own from now on.

This subject has been like a dead horse.

 

[inkblue]

:dead: jH sPlit up with the giRl aLready... he dont care no mo'