Horrifying Dell customer service, anyone have any experience/advice

MickeyFinns

MickeyFinns

MickeyFinns

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Hey everyone,

I have now be dealing with a Dell laptop that has been non-fuctional from about 2 weeks after purchase (it was received in early November). I'll quickly overview the problem.

The system randomly powers down. This happens irrelevant of what the system is upto i.e. within Windows, in BIOS etc.

I have sent/recieved more than a dozen emails with customer support asking me to perform a lot of diagnostics. They have also sent out an engineer on two occasions to replace (in total) motherboard, CPU, Heat sinks and Hard disk. None of this has resolved the problem and since the machine noe powers down during any attempts to install the OS it is totally un useable.

I have raised the complaint/case up a level in the services department but they are reluctant to go any higher.

Does anyone have any advice on how to deal with them?

Thanks for any time, sorry for any spelling errors I am quite frustrated right now (machine just powered down after second engineer repair).

edit: update in post 12
 
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Ask for a refund or a replacement unit, if the issue was found within two weeks of recieving the unit and you contacted Dell at that point I'd never have accepted anything but a replacement in the first place.
 
According to Dell refunds/replacements can only happen within 7 days of receving the item. The problem first occured about 2 weeks after receiving and I spent about 2 weeks living with/attempting to debug the problem myself.

I have asked for both refund and replacement but have been told this is not possible.
 
you are entitled to a repair or replacement if the fault was present when you bought it. it does not matter what dells policy is. read up on the sale of goods act 1979 ammended and then ring them back and ask for another repair or a replacement. not sure on where you stand on refund though, can't remember off the top of my head.

edit: the cynical side of me thinks you are entitled to a refund within the first 6 months and they are trying to stall you until then.
 
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MickeyFinns said:
Bought on debit unfortunately.

To be honest from what I've read googling about, Dell's post purchase support is pretty awful.
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Heard some horror stories myself, but then they replaced a motherboard in an XPS system for me last month at no cost when it was 9 months out of warranty so there's a definite hit and miss situation with regards to their support.
 
Within 28 days you can reject goods as not being fit for purpose/satisfactory quality and demand a refund. After that, up until 6 years the retailer has to repair, replace or refund (their choice) goods that were faulty from the off, or which generated a fault due to an inherrent problem at the time of construction. The first 6 months the onus is on them to prove there is no fault, after that the onus is on you to prove there has always been a fault.

With the records they will have of the work undertaken, they will not be able to refute there was a problem out of the gate.
 
philjohn said:
Within 28 days you can reject goods as not being fit for purpose/satisfactory quality and demand a refund. After that, up until 6 years the retailer has to repair, replace or refund (their choice) goods that were faulty from the off, or which generated a fault due to an inherrent problem at the time of construction. The first 6 months the onus is on them to prove there is no fault, after that the onus is on you to prove there has always been a fault.

With the records they will have of the work undertaken, they will not be able to refute there was a problem out of the gate.
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Yeah the thing is when they choose repair, replace or refund. They always choose repair, the thing is though they seem unable to fix the fault and I;m conerned I;m gonna be stuck in a loop of random repairs. I would be happy with a refund or replacement thats the thing.
 
I'm pretty sure that after a certain amount of repairs they have an obligation to either replace or refund as the laptop is clearly not fit for the purpose, especially if it is being repaired for the same issue which implies an inherent fault.
 
After much phoning around and chatting with switchboard operators etc. I eventually have been passed through to upper management and have bee given the home/mobile numbers of UK's head of resources (Matthew Evans). Been on the phone with him for a quarter of an hour running through the whole history of my case and he seems pretty shocked by it, he's passing my details across to his equivalent in consumer sales/support in the Glasgow offices who will get back to me today. He has also logged an internal complaint.

Finally progress :)
 
I had an issue with Dell a few months ago and couldn't get past the stone wall that was their Indian tech support claiming there was no such thing as a UK office and they didn't have phones and no I couldn't talk to them. They soon appeared when I did a credit card chargeback.
 
Touch wood, I haven't had to use their support, I've got a Vostro 1700 latop, Inspiron desktop, XPS 710 desktop.

The first day the XPS arrived, I got a bluescreen "video memory management error" I just restarted the pc, never had it again. So I didn't bother phoning them. The only thing I can fault is that the PSU is running increduously HOT! It's heating up the room it's in. Don't know if this means it's on the way out or not...

I did have to phone Dell support on behalf of my friend who had a Laptop. His laptop didn't recognize hid dvd drive. Support got me taking out the drive, blowing on the connectors, and putting it back in. Problem sorted, so that is my only experience of their support, and it solved that problem.
 
Just had a nightmare trying to order a laptop from Dell only for them to continually cancel the order without teling us because they couldn't build it with the specifications asked and paid for.

It's as if they don't want my custom.

The Indian support staff haven't been helpful either, not calling when they say they will etc.

Just going to buy something pre-built now, which is a shame as the studio 15 seemed to tick all the boxes - blu ray, 9 cell battery option, added cost option for 64-bit vista (which was what initiated the problems) - but the customer/sales support was so bad I just can't be putting up with it.
 
hiroofheroes said:
Just had a nightmare trying to order a laptop from Dell only for them to continually cancel the order without teling us because they couldn't build it with the specifications asked and paid for.

It's as if they don't want my custom.

The Indian support staff haven't been helpful either, not calling when they say they will etc.

Just going to buy something pre-built now, which is a shame as the studio 15 seemed to tick all the boxes - blu ray, 9 cell battery option, added cost option for 64-bit vista (which was what initiated the problems) - but the customer/sales support was so bad I just can't be putting up with it.
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Mines a studio 15 so I'd be tempted to push you away from them :p. To be honest right now I would advise you to go with any manufacturer other than Dell.

On the phone trail I have found a few strange things. The secretarys/switchboard people in the Bracknell Office(English HQ apparently) has no idea of who does what, if you ask to be put through to 'head of sales' you can't, you have to give names. On top of that the Bracknell building seems to be nigh on empty.

The only success I had was when I found the range of phones numbers that are extesions to differant managers and just worked through.

The most concerning thing I have to say though is that the guy in charge of resources said they also have trouble getting their laptops sorted :eek: . If they can't service their own buildings machines then I don't have much confidence in their ability to fix mine.
 
The "support" offered by Dell is atrocious at times.

Simple answer is know your rights before you call them again and don't accept their attempts to fob you off. Stay CALM and RATIONAL and for the love of god do NOT yell at them or lose your temper. I did this after being wound up by one service rep calling me a liar and after that they refused to deal with me again even though i had a valid warranty and a knackered laptop which was only a few weeks old and delivered in an inoperable state.

You have rights as a consumer to recieve value for your purchase commensurate to that offered by the seller, this is above and beyond any guarantee or warranty offered on purchase, if you have not recieved that, then you are well within your rights to demand a replacement and, on occasion and dependant on the situation, a full refund.

Mobile phone sellers are experts at this, it's all bravado and "company policy" and it means squat. They cannot dictate your rights as a consumer, thats beyond their capability.
 
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