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DELL SUCKS ASS
Posted: Fri Jan 05, 2007 11:14 am
by zparker
Here is something that i have been dealing with hands on.
This is a very long story so i hope you have a few minutes to read!!!
Warning to potential dell buyers
I work for a international liquified petrolium company, I am the IT Coordinator for the Houston located project.
I have a dell laptop that took a hit on the usb port when one of the engineers was plugging a printer in. The laptop was DOA handed over to me. Called the service number and got the run around on the 1st call because this is a machine (not even 6 months old) from europe with warranty (next day parts/service) untill 2009. The guy could not pull up the service tag in the us database, but could see the information on the dell website!. Took about 45 minutes before someone around him told him to use a dummy ticket.
the technicians are from Unisys which i will go into detail on in just a minute and you will not beleive it either
The original deal was that they were sending a replacement laptop since this thing was a shock hazzard. 10 minutes after that 1.5 hour service request call i got a call from scheduling saying that a tech was going to come replace the mother board!? I was like, ok?
The guy shows up with the wrong mother board. "young kid"
3 days later
A different Technician "woman" shows up with the correct mother board, installs it, breaks the bezel, comes on for 5 seconds and shuts off, does not troubleshoot a damn thing, look at anything else "EVEN AFTER SEEING THE CORNER OF THE MOTHER BOARD LOOKED LIKE IT HAD BEEN ON FIRE" calls in and says its still not working, proceeds to ask me what I think should be ordered! So I told her order everything (ram, processor fans etc.). She gives me a order number and says she will be back in 2 days with the parts.
next afternoon
I get a call from this technician- “we cant order the parts since this laptop is not registered in the US.â€
Posted: Fri Jan 05, 2007 11:20 am
by Apoptosis
damn... now that's a story... nuts
Posted: Fri Jan 05, 2007 11:30 am
by zparker
I think i got corpal tunnel typin that one... hopefully this can become a warning: sticky

Posted: Fri Jan 05, 2007 11:31 am
by bubba
Man that sucks, I've got 70 dells in the building (none of wich are laptops) have only one go bad and that was due to the onboard nic crapping out. That sucked to get replaced. can't even try to imagine the headache of having to talk to them near as much as you have.
Posted: Fri Jan 05, 2007 11:39 am
by zparker
yeah i left out a lot of emails and conversation stuff but highlighted (if you want to call it that) the important facts. I am about to call corporate again. Will update.
Posted: Fri Jan 05, 2007 11:45 am
by chotachatri12
well ma cousin just recently bought a dell xps, i mean it looks amazing, i personally like xps style, but i didnt have much time to check out the specs. but also it depends on the type of dell u purchase, but thats besides the point most of them suck anyway
Posted: Fri Jan 05, 2007 12:03 pm
by FZ1
Well, I hate to say it but this is indicative of the current state of the level of customer service you will receive with most PC vendors today. I can't think of another company where you could Email the CEO (maybe Apple?) and have him get involved or at least send a reply. It sucks but the net is full of these stories. I feel for you. It is entirely frustrating and the really sad part is that if they just repalced the PC from the start it would have been resolved and you would now be a very statisfied customer rather than a disgruntled one. Sometimes taking the cheap route isn't always the best route and it always takes companies an extraordinary amount of time to figure this out and when they finally do, they are so big that individuals customers no longer matter.
Posted: Fri Jan 05, 2007 12:26 pm
by zparker
True! Customer service sucks everywhere you go no matter what industry you deal with. Except for a few companies here and there.
But the sad part is that they have now replaced 2 lcds, processor, a gig of ram, bluetooth card, wifi card, heatsink, fans, as well as paid for warranty labor i dont know how many times, and it still does not work. I is going to cost them more then if they had sent 2 new ones to replace this one.
Know I know why Dell cost me 250k in stock 4 years ago. "which i did not know my uncle did not have a sell point on" which i about killed him for
so very very sad
Posted: Fri Jan 05, 2007 4:27 pm
by DeusEx
hate dells... bought an inspiron 1505e i believe it was. came dirty i had to clean it myself. the case was also cracked and glue didnt help. sent it back. never buying from dell again. Currently expecting their bankruptcy
Posted: Fri Jan 05, 2007 5:32 pm
by pcrobot
Wow, that's sad.
One more reason for me to buy a Macbook Pro.
macbook pro?
Posted: Fri Jan 05, 2007 6:43 pm
by xander9791
my friend at school has an indentation on the corner of his macbook in the exact same place as on another macbook he says. he's also not the type of guy to bust it. i could go on and on about these macbooks. The macbook is garbage!
Posted: Fri Jan 05, 2007 7:00 pm
by xander9791
wouldn't worry about lighting it on fire it should light itself on fire
Re: macbook pro?
Posted: Fri Jan 05, 2007 9:21 pm
by FZ1
xander9791 wrote:my friend at school has an indentation on the corner of his macbook in the exact same place as on another macbook he says. he's also not the type of guy to bust it. i could go on and on about these macbooks. The macbook is garbage!
How did you get from Dell to Macbook? I have a Macbook Pro and I think it's far from garbage.
Posted: Sun Jan 07, 2007 9:51 pm
by camaroguy1998
I do the computer maintenance for a small company here in town and they have 4 Dell Optiplex 270's and a server, all have been repaired at least once and 2 of them twice!
All 4 Optiplex's have new mobo's, seems the capacitors are cheap ripoffs and they all popped!
2 Maxtor HDD's in the Optiplexs and the mobo in the server due to the onboard ethernet going south!
I'm not impressed with Dell at all !!!

Posted: Mon Jan 08, 2007 8:23 am
by Sporg
I remember about 10 years ago when Dell was decent, they really have gone south in recent years. I still have a Dell P166 (that's 166 Mhz pentium) from 1995 that runs - don't ask, I keep everything.
Posted: Mon Jan 08, 2007 1:34 pm
by stev
Forget lighting it on fire. They do that themselves.
The Dell (L)ATTITUDE laptops are just that, they have an attitude of working when they feel like it.
I'm not impressed with the Dell hardware in the last six years. However, I got a few older destops that are built like tanks. They are still running strong. These are the Dell GX1 series.
Posted: Tue Jan 09, 2007 12:42 pm
by tomato
The Dell of yesteryear were a GREAT company to deal with, and I had no qualms about recommending their products to friends & family...
However, the "new" Dell of present day leaves alot to be desired... It's too bad that the product & service has plummeted, as most people probably associate the Dell name with quality and reliability, which is now obviously gone

Posted: Tue Jan 09, 2007 2:37 pm
by Razorbacx
I had a Dell several years ago and before I got laid off I worked on a Dell Optiplex, which never gave me a lick of trouble. We moved from Gateway, which was pure crap, to Dell and our reliability greatly implroved. This must be something fairly new and is sad because Dell was at one ime a very reliable machine. So sorry to hear about your current troubles. I don't have much patience for poor Customer Service and will generally go straight to the next level if I don't get the service that I feel I deserve. You can always contact the Attorney General's office as well as the BBB and seek their assistance.
Good luck!
Posted: Tue Jan 09, 2007 3:08 pm
by kenc51
Dell's are only good for budget users or first time users!
Why give someone else all the fun in building your rig?
When you build yourself, it's
yours. When I built my first PC, it was something I was proud of.....I knew every model No. of every part, I knew how fast each part was compared to others.......It was mine
Don't let OEM companies take that pleasure away from you...........Because of that PC...I discovered I liked IT and now I'm working for the same company doing tech support for over 4yrs...........before that, the longest I stayed with a company was 18mths.
But yeah....I have to agree with Razorbacx, they (sometimes) can make a very stable PC!
just my 2 eurocent
Posted: Wed Jan 10, 2007 1:36 pm
by zparker
The US atty gen wont give a crap about this since it is an internation laptop. They say they cannot replace it since it is from europe. Even though it is the same company!!! Anyways it was just packaged up to go back to dell corporate for more parts replacments.