
A Dell Customer Service Dispute - t27
https://www.facebook.com/Dell/posts/10206079690990070
======
sixtypoundhound
Facebook comment thread is cute.

Memorializing their intial response before their social media team is paged
and freaks out...

We apologize for the inconvenience caused to you. We will take this as a
feedback and we will forward it to the relevant team. As per our records, we
see that the Escalation team is handling this case and they are the highest
point of contact. Please continue to work with them to avoid any confusion.
Our team defers to the Escalation team.

-Senthil

As this case has been escalated to the highest authority, we will have limited
options to work on it. Apologize as I cannot comment on this but I would still
recommend you to contact them as they are the only team who can help you to
resolve the issues on your system. -Krishna

------
jpatokal
There's one missing piece in the story here:

 _I told him if [returning the laptop again is] the best solution that he can
provide (customer care is not an iterative process), I would have no option
but to pursue this through my university 's legal department._

So what was the best solution that the complainer wanted? It seems like a
replacement would have been a pretty reasonable thing to ask for at this
point.

This, on the other hand, from one of the complainant's Facebook replies: _In
that case, please give me all the details of Prawin K from Dells Bangalore
office so that I can sue him in India and the US._

Pro tip from someone running a support team: threatening legal action is
usually a surefire way to cause your support case to screech to a grinding
halt, since this requires that lawyers get called in and support engineers
have to stop work until they've done their due diligence. What's more, the
result of that due diligence may be "we'd prefer not to have you as a customer
anymore, kthxbai".

Then again, this buffoon on Dell's side clearly hasn't received that
particular memo: _He simply told me that Dell was a very big company and had
ample resources to outlast me and my university in a legal battle._ Facepalm.

~~~
jaredklewis
For sure, I think the "complainer" here didn't handle things perfectly, but I
am prepared to give him a lot of leeway considering what he has endured so
far.

The fact that the issue persisted after the out-of-pocket repair, makes it
obvious that the original product was defective. I know if I paid the price of
laptop, was told it was my fault (when it wasn't), paid the price of a repair
that didn't fix the issue, and was without the laptop for 60 days, I would be
seeing red and probably prone to making belligerent statements.

After bungling so badly, Dell should be tripping over themselves to offer him
a refund.

~~~
Terrorblade123
I know that I that I did not handle this properly.

But I desperately needed this laptop working since I had two computational
projects that were up for review.

What Dell does not understand is that for each trip my laptop takes to the
depot, I am left without a laptop (these 2 months, for example). They said
that this was not their problem, and compensating me for these hassles is not
their headache.

~~~
toomuchtodo
I ask this only because I'm generously curious, and not out of any malice: has
this incident caused you to reconsider Dell products and perhaps look at other
manufacturers who might have handled this better, like Lenovo or Apple?

~~~
Terrorblade123
I will never buy anything branded with Dell, be it a laptop, monitor or even a
mouse.

------
digital_ins
Dell's focus on selling cheaper laptops has resulted in treating the consumer
as fungible; and that's the reason for their absolutely appalling customer
service.

You're starting to see this across industries where their products and
services are commoditized. Quite surprisingly, when the service / product
turns into a commodity (due to competition), so does the customer (due to
budgetary constraints)

~~~
ocdtrekkie
I understand why this school bought the laptops they did, but I have to point
out: The support costs of the requested help for these laptops outweigh the
actual laptops themselves value, and certainly Dell's profit in it. Cheap
laptops include cheap support.

If the school had purchased business-line PCs which are more suited to large
organization use, they'd likely A. have gotten much better laptops, and B.
gotten drastically better, on-site next day repairs.

But that costs about five times what they paid. So while I acknowledge, this
situation sucks for the school, I kinda feel like we need to point out that
they got what they paid for.

~~~
keithpeter
Just wondering: would refurbished core-duo Thinkpads with something like
neverware's ChromeOS on them be a better way forward for a cash strapped
school?

Cheap to buy, the machines have survived N years so by a Darwinian process any
clunkers have been removed from the pool and they are built to a decent
standard to start with. ChromeOS would imply cloud storage so students don't
lose work &c. Depends on the use cases I imagine.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
Plausibly. An aged Dell Latitude or Thinkpad today still works great, and has
as much power as the sort of cheap hardware they bought.

------
Nition
Reading the separate petition about the same support rep that's linked from
there[1], the corporate nonsense is worse even that what's described in the
Facebook post.

[1] [https://www.change.org/p/prawin-k-dell-com-dell-computers-
fi...](https://www.change.org/p/prawin-k-dell-com-dell-computers-fix-38-of-
our-school-laptops-you-sold-us-15f5ede6-6a6e-447d-ace7-2e022e9957cf)

~~~
foota
Seems like these are different situations under the same support rep. I feel
bad for the rep honestly, they're probably not allowed to do any more and I
wouldn't be surprised if they ended up taking the fall for this.

~~~
cjslep
Support reps are always allowed to do more. There's always a path of
escalation that ends at the CEO. If a Dell-partnered senior exec (like from
Fry's or Best Buy) was having a terrible customer support experience trying to
RMA their Dell device, you can bet that if it didn't get resolved ASAP that
there'd be a Dell exec personally flying out a new device and repairing their
business ties in-person.

It just sucks for us little guys, because the only way to apply the same
pressure is with publicity.

~~~
foota
True that the path exists, not that they're supposed to use it for some guy
trying to get his laptop fixed.

------
beezischillin
I work for one of the largest PR companies in the world (we are in the EU,
where customer protection laws are kinda okay, too) and as a rule of thumb
they buy Dell when it comes to PCs, don't ask me why!). When I was employed, I
chose to go with a Mac and my manager had his old HP replaced with an XPS 15
at the same time. We all got brand new machines, but his XPS bit the dust
within 2 weeks, so he sent it back to IT. We have premium enterprise support
from Dell. They took 3 weeks to send a deffective machine back, which got
returned instantly. Not sure if they eventually replaced it or not because
after another 3 weeks of waiting IT just told him to pick another Dell. He
went with a Mac instead.

Thought I'd share this with you to underline how bad their support is on every
level.

~~~
WayneBro
I run both Dell and Mac systems in my office too and my Dells regularly
outperform and outlast my Macs. Not only that, but Dell offers premium support
and they actually come onsite. Apple would rather waste your time so they can
make their store look busy, which is the same reason why they space their
stores so far apart.

Furthermore, Apple engineers just about everything to polarize you against the
vast, vast majority which run Windows and Android. They also have an severely
anemic selection of hardware that they are always using to experiment on how
to get most of your money without providing any value.

In short, I'm sharing this with you to underline how shitty Apple is to their
customers in every area, including support.

~~~
lstamour
While I agree getting support from Apple in-store can currently require
multiple trips, hours waiting for an appointment and potentially $800 or more
to replace a motherboard everything's stuck to, there are alternatives,
including AppleCare, which allows for phone support from the US, a very easy
escalation process to senior support and managers, and again with AppleCare,
if urgent, you can get service from local authorised repair centres (not Apple
Stores) where Apple foots the bill. Apple will even pay for an on-site visit
if your computer is less portable, like an iMac. And AppleCare covers select
accessories from Apple purchased for use with your Mac, but that's less
relevant as Apple exits the networking and display business. Frankly that's my
main concern about buying an LG display, will I get Apple-like support and
repair?

------
twelvechairs
I'm very sympathetic to the plight of this school, however I'm also very
concerned as to the emerging trend of 'customer service only to those who have
the ability to make a PR issue of it'.

My advice: Just buy a $5 usb wifi for each of these computers.

~~~
techsupporter
> I'm also very concerned as to the emerging trend of 'customer service only
> to those who have the ability to make a PR issue of it'.

Established companies are looking at these "new-fangled startups" and how the
newer companies don't have expenses for cost centers like "inbound call
queues" and "customer service" and managers at the older ones are thinking,
"hey, how can we cut those costs, too?"

If customer service is made so difficult to obtain as to be nearly impossible
to receive except under the most outlying of circumstances, surely the
companies in question will go out of business...or become Google.

------
edejong
I thought it is generally known that Dell customer support has been rated
appalling for the last dozen years or so. People keep buying products
manufactured by this company at budget prices. By now they should know what
they buy: a lottery ticket.

~~~
chris_wot
Can only have got worse since the EMC merger.

------
arjie
Back in 2008, I had an XPS M1330 with an Nvidia 8400M GS. Now, if you guys
remember this, it was the infamous integrated GPU which it would fail after
some heat/cool cycle because the BGA would crack or some such rubbish. I was
covered under warranty when I first bought it, but as soon as I exited the
period, they clammed up. It was comical - the thing came with a built-in
expiry date! Eventually, of course, they caved and extended the warranty on
the motherboard to 1 year longer for everyone who bought that. But before
that, man, they denied everything.

~~~
beilabs
I had that Nvidia card replaced 3 times. Each time an 'expert' came to my home
and replaced the motherboard in front of me.

Each time I had it replaced apparently it extended the warranty for 1 more
year.

The laptop scorched a mark in my table.

The charger exploded and scorched my carpet. They wouldn't exchange it until I
told them I would send my bill for the carpet as well....

I didn't buy a Dell again for 8 years...wonder what is going to happen with
this one.

~~~
gbil
In EU the warranty resets for the component that is replaced. Of course there
are many times the seller/manufacturer will try to present it in a different
way and you might have to contact the chamber of commerce or even a lawyer but
the EU law is there for the consumer to use.

~~~
Flow
> In EU the warranty resets for the component that is replaced.

Do you happen to have a link stating this?

I only found
[http://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/shopping/guar...](http://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/shopping/guarantees-
returns/faq/index_en.htm) but it doesn't say exactly what you say.

~~~
gbil
You might have a point here because there is the general direction for 2+
years of guarantee and then each country in its legislation can provide even
more benefits like this one. For example if you check here

[http://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/shopping/guar...](http://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/shopping/guarantees-
returns/czech-republic/index_en.htm)

Per country you'll see that eg. Germany and Greece reset the warranty period
after repair/part exchange but Czech Republic and UK don't. As I come from a
country that does reset the warranty period I wrongly assumed it is part of
the EU regulation.

Bottom line some countries respect the consumer more :)

------
bArray
I've had experience with Dell, but it was a nice one. I'm from the UK, so not
sure if the service is better than the US counterpart of I just got lucky.

Like an idiot, I bought a cheap 3D printer called OneUp, built it, plugged it
into the laptop and blew the laptop up. The 3D printer company both refused
responsibility for printer replacement and laptop replacement despite somehow
putting 240V onto the USB like due to bad circuit design.

Last port of call was to contact Dell for advice how to fix it, who then
informed me it's still in warranty (bought the laptop from eBay so had no
idea).

Sent it away, got it back and the parts sheet mentioned that they replaced
everything in it. Everything. They gave me a brand new laptop inside it's
slightly older chasis!

~~~
lucaspiller
I had the same around 8 years ago. My girlfriend spilt Coke on her laptop, and
half the keys stopped working. They sent a guy to repair it (for a £300 laptop
with standard warranty) he said "looked like someone spilt Coke on it", and
proceeded with the replacement. I didn't get any charges for the repair even
though it was obviously accidental damage.

------
gizmo686
Dell's customer service is terrible. I had my harddrive die. My laptop was
still under warranty, so I decided call Dell to get it fixed. After about 4
hours, I was able to get someone to start working on my case (I was
transferred between departments 5 times, and only got someone to deal with the
issue after I insisted that the previous person stay on the line until I did).

We than spent the next hour diagnosing the fact that it was, in fact, a broken
harddrive. Although I told them this from the start, I can understand them
wanting to verify this, but the we had found what seemed to be enough evidence
that it was a broken HDD within the first 10 minutes, then just ran around in
circles (I assume looking for a scripted error code that never showed up for
some reason).

Once we were done, they agreed to send me a replacement drive, and I asked if
it would be possible to upgrade the drive and pay for the difference. They
then spent about half an hour looking up what HDD options were available. Once
I decided which one I wanted, I was informed that I would be paying for the
full price of the drive (but they could still send it instead of the free, non
upgraded, one I was entitled to by warranty). I declined and asked for the
free one.

Once that was done, as we were finalizing the shipping details, I was informed
that I would need to send back my broken drive, which I was not willing to do.
Eventually I agreed to just pay for a new drive (in retrospect, I should have
hung up and bought the drive from another source). They sent me a drive and
told me I would be receiving a bill.

The bill never came. Two weeks later, I called them again and spent another
two hours trying to pay; before being told that I cannot pay because I have
not been billed yet because I had not yet failed to return my broken drive in
time. About a month after that, I get a voicemail from them about my failure
to return my drive.

I try to call back, but due to ( I presume) time zone differences I never
managed to reach them during office hours, so I just got to voice mail where I
had to leave a message asking them to call me back. Despite this, I still had
to wait through about half an hour of holding to get a line to the voicemail.
After going through this dance a few times, I just asked them to email me the
bill, after which point I payed them the $70 for the hard drive.

~~~
CJefferson
I have to be honest, quite a bit of this seems reasonable in Dell's part -- I
would expect a like for like swap, and to have to give back the broken part,
else the possibility for fraud is too high.

~~~
ex3ndr
Well, logitech is very different in this case. Couple years ago my trackball
got broken and i was a fan of trackballs, but they started to disappear from
shops. Then i just emailed them that my device broken and they immediately
send me a replacement, they even didn't ask about check or any warranty proof.

~~~
throwwatgku
Same happened to me. I have an unreasonable loyalty to Logitech not just
because their product are decent but because their customer service is great.

The only other company to come close is Sandisk, who once sent me an upgraded
version of my mp3 player when my head phone jack broke

~~~
tunap
MSI sent me 5 out of warranty mobo's during the 'great capacitor plague'[0].
Never before or since have I had anything that close to painless doing
warranty work.

[0]

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague)

------
IntelMiner
It's very strange how far Dell's support has slid

The first machine I bought from Dell (A Studio XPS 1640) I wound up breaking
the charger on during a flight to the US (I lived in Australia at the time)

I called Dell's support at 4:55 PM (they closed at 5:00, I'd literally just
gotten home)

The agent immediately booked me a tech for 8:00 AM the very next day! said
tech arrived promptly at 8:00 and also "as per policy" as he stated, came with
literally every single part to my laptop, he could've built an identical
replacement right there on the dining room table!

This initial impression of Dell lead me to purchase a machine of theirs again,
an Alienware M17xR2

Unfortunately upon even first booting the machine, it immediately began to
display issues. Connecting or disconnecting the AC adapter would freeze the
machine (even at the login prompt). Running it on battery it'd freeze after a
few minutes, even idle on a desktop

Dell took the unit back, then returned it after about two days. Unit still
defective!

I shipped the unit back AGAIN for repairs. After two weeks, the unit was
returned!...with no hard drives or battery

AGAIN I sent the unit off, Dell then helpfully informed me it'd be 45 days(!)
until I received the unit back, due to a "shortage of parts"

After about 60 days I received the unit back again. The unit did indeed have
the hard drives and battery inserted this time however.

Though when I went to turn on the unit, there was no operating system
installed. Upon calling Dell, one of their (seemingly endless) Indian support
agents helpfully offered to send me an install CD...For $180 (AUD)

How is a company able to continually be simply this incompetent, without
collapsing under its own weight?

------
gizmo686
At what point does this rise to making the "warranty" Dell offers rise to the
level of fraud?

------
cjslep
This is absolutely horrendous. Dell is continuously denying the customer from
escalating their case. Probably because this customer isn't a VIP partner like
a BestBuy executive. Anecdotally, customer support escalations for individuals
such as those can go all the way up to the CEO. There's definitely someone
higher that could handle the case. But this level of strict-adherence-to-
policy without escalating internally is an awful sight to see:

 _They are highest level of escalation team at Dell and we cannot supersede
their decision._

 _As per our records, we see that the Escalation team is handling this case
and they are the highest point of contact._

 _ARG and the executive escalation team that you are mentioning are the same
and they are the highest level of contact at Dell._

 _As this case has been escalated to the highest authority, we will have
limited options to work on it._

~~~
t27
Exactly, that's my friend who's suffering, he bieng a US buyer, I'm pretty
sure that there will be a local customer support team who can help him.

------
cmurf
Wait. 38 computers have the same problem, and Dell is saying it's customer
induced?

~~~
mherdeg
I think that the problem outlined in the Facebook post (laptop display does
not work, Dell and customer disagree about whether customer damaged the unit)
is unrelated to the problem mentioned at the very end of the Facebook post
(change.org petition about a Canadian school which bought a lot of Dell
devices, each of which had a problem, and was told to file 1 work order per
device in order to get the units serviced).

I think the only connection between the two cases is that the escalated
customer service complaint was handled by the same Dell employee working in
their escalations department.

This confused me too -- after I read the story in the Facebook post I followed
the link at the end and struggled to understand how the two were related. I
think this customer is saying in their Facebook post that they think they are
not the only customer who has had an unpleasant interaction with this CS
agent.

------
Tempest1981
Public shaming to get better service... I guess it works at first, but seems
like it doesn't scale.

~~~
Terrorblade123
This was the only option left.

I could think of nothing else. Reasoning with and threatening customer care
(or customer harassment?) failed.

------
andrewvijay
This is pathetic. I cannot imagine how horrible it would be for that person. I
was considering buying a dell next. Looks like I have to stick to a mac again!

~~~
parallelist
Get a ThinkPad

~~~
andrewvijay
ah yeah. Thanks for the good suggestion. Thats a decent one. Will check it
out.

------
whyagaindavid
I do admit in this case Dell has messed up a lot. But for heaven's sake, why
does a school buy Inspiron? Here in Europe, we buy Dell latitude - thru Dell
Education Portal. I got 2 harddrives for my group with 10 machines in the
University - next business day. No waiting with my express code. These days I
recommend Latitude even for my friends and family (unless they want OSX).

~~~
gizmo686
Does Dell offer different customer support for Latitudes than it does for
Inspirons? I collected on my warranty for a broken harddrive on my Latitude
laptop and also had a terrible time with their support.

If you are just going through the common path of buying their product, it is
not surprising that they offer a painless experience. The problem comes when
something goes wrong and you need support.

~~~
marklyon
Dell offers different warranties depending on the channel you use to buy. I
always buy through the small business section and buy next business day
service. It's far less of a hassle.

------
vermooten
This sort of thing is why I no longer buy Dell.

~~~
SSLy
And what do you buy?

~~~
jpalomaki
I've moved years ago from Dell to Lenovo. And specifically to professional
models which come with onsite warranty.

The onsite warranty is of course very good thing on its own, but I also
believe it puts pressure on the vendor to focus on quality and getting issues
sorted out quickly (because doing onsite visits is not cheap). It also
indicates the computer is built in a way I can also replace parts, because you
can't field service a machine that has been glued together.

~~~
johnchristopher
And what about the backslash from Lenovo SSL hijack from some months ago ?

It really looks like there are no pro or business solution, just a more
expensive variant of `pick your poison`.

~~~
chei0iaV
What about Dell's SSL cert debacle? It's not much better.

[https://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/870761](https://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/870761)

Only way to escape the issues is to remove the bloated OEM OS that vendors
provide and do a clean OS install (e.g. Linux)

~~~
johnchristopher
Pfff. I missed that one.

------
user5994461
Looks like complaints from personal buyers.

I always thought that Dell was for "entreprisey-clients only". If you try to
get one for yourself as an individual, you're on your own.

That seems confirmed.

------
Terrorblade123
I am the OP of the Facebook post. I just wanted to clarify some points:

1\. The dept that I have dealt with is called the Advanced Resolution Group
(ARG). No one from basic customer care or tech support or out-of-warranty-
repairs has heard of them. So far, I know of only one person in ARG, Prawin K.
He first told me that he had no manager. When I spoke to a supervisor from
tech support, she told me that she will speak to Prawin's manager. When I
pointed this out, and told him that he had lied, he said "You are assuming too
many things. I did not lie because my manager does not take calls and I AM the
HIGHEST point of contact". Since I had complained to BBB, he told me that no
matter who I complained to, it will all circle back and I will end up dealing
with him each time. Repeated to pleas to get my case tranferred have fallen on
deaf ears.

2\. The tech support initially (read, October) ran diagnostics on my laptop
using remote access. They said that it seemed to be a software issue. After
the laptop reached the depot, I was told that it is possible that someone
spilled something on my laptop when I was not around, and so the damage is
customer induced. I was asked to pay 450$ for the repairs (motherboard,
keyboard, mousepad). I could not pay such money upfront (I paid only 800$ for
the laptop) since I felt that it was a lot for repairing a 1 year old laptop.
They sent me my laptop unrepaired.

3\. After reasoning with them I was asked to pay $350 for the repairs. The
out-of-warranty dept was frank enough to tell me that the replacement parts
will be refurbished ones, but the seal will be broken by the techician in the
depot.

4\. After paying for the repairs, I was told that I will receive the shipping
box within 1-2 business days (email proof). It took them 11 days. First due to
delays because of the weekend, and then for some reason they wanted to verify
my address to mail me an empty box.

5\. After getting the laptop back, it still has the existing issues in
addition to the old one (screen becomes white along the edges). The only way
to get rid of it is it keep tilting the laptop. The way I look at it there are
three possilbilties : the replacement parts are faulty, the laptop itself has
issues that they are unwilling to accept, the technician screwed up and did
not check my system before shipping it back, all of are Dell's mistakes.

6\. I finally got fed up and asked for a refund. I gave them 4 options: Refund
1200$ so that I can take my business elsewhere Refund the out of warranty
repair charge so that I can recover at least some money and rest peacefully
Give me a replacement system of equivalent cost (i undestand the problem of
depreciation of cost) Give me an extension on warranty on the replaced parts
(it only has 90 day warranty). Since the parts failed in less than 2 hours, I
find it impossible to believe that the next set will last as long. I do not
want to end up going through this cycle after 3 months, again.

7\. I have been told that this beyond the ability of the onsite engineer and
the only way is to send the laptop to their depot again.

------
npsomaratna
Did someone change the link? This originally pointed to:
[https://www.facebook.com/Dell/posts/10206079690990070](https://www.facebook.com/Dell/posts/10206079690990070),
but it now points to the change.org petition referred to at the end of the
aforementioned FB post.

~~~
chris_wot
Someone switched it then switched it back and changed the title. Mods on HN
aren't doing a great job lately :(

~~~
Nition
Didn't quite switch it back properly, it's the mobile link now.

~~~
chris_wot
Thanks, I was probably a might harsh.

~~~
Nition
Looks like they've fixed it, it's the original non-mobile link again now.

------
Dylan16807
Oh, I had massively confused expectations because of the title of "Dell's
customer care is forcing a US customer to deal with a rude support exec".

Apparently "support exec" is euphemism I hadn't heard for support tech, and
not an executive position. And "rude" is more of "completely unhelpful".

So yes, this sucks, but I thought something surprising was happening; it's
not.

------
chris_wot
Not sure what happened to the original post, but it can be found here:

[https://m.facebook.com/Dell/posts/10206079690990070](https://m.facebook.com/Dell/posts/10206079690990070)

