Buying from Dell ?...never again !

peasant

A tale of woe:

It all started when my old computer (also a Dell that had never given any trouble) got hit by lightning. What to get? ...a new Dell of course.

-Off to the website to build my computer (like you used to be able to) ..oh no, that feature doesn't exist any more.
-Well then, I'll pick a computer ..oh no ...they all have Vista, I don't want Vista
-Ok, so I'll "chat" to a salesperson and ask ...not possible, I have to ring the dublin sales office
-Fine, so i'll talk to someone in Dublin who will sell me what I want ...instead
I get to talk to an Indian girl who doesn't understand me and I don't understand her either
-I give her the promotional code of the computer I want, just with XP and not Vista ...sorry Sir, but this configuration is not available
-Finally, after lots of misunderstandings, she coaxes me into buying a system that costs more than I actually wanted to spend ...and as I later find out, also more than on the website :mad: (advertised with Vista)
- Then I have to spell my name and address about ten times ...in Nato alphabet (Whiskey, Tango, Foxtrott ??)
- Ten minutes later the confirmation mail arrives ...guess what? half of the details are spelled wrong ..at least I can correct everything in writing this time.

- five days later; a phone call ...no, no ... it's not Dell, it's Interlink ..my computer is in Mayo ...incorrect address
- arrange with interlink to pick up the following day (Saturday) from their depot
- bring new computer home, connect, plug in ...IT DOESN'T WORK !!
- ring tech support ...only available Monday to Friday
- ring customer support ...ditto
- ring sales ...yes, they are working (in India), but unwilling to help or register my faulty delivery ...very sorry, sir, but you will have to call again on Monday
- come monday, ring customer services ...wait for half hour ...talk to another Indian ...we will contact you with a return adress where you can send the faulty computer.
- ask for supervisor ...explain my problems so far in a few choice words ...technician will come to fix it tomorrow:D
- technician comes (not from India ...from Sligo this time) ...fixed (new power supply, new motherboard)
- take new computer home, connect, setup, works ...except that you have to download and install 3 years worth of windows updates ...another evening wasted
- good lady wife wants to record something from internet radio ...doesn't work (used to no problem on the old Dell)

- I'll cut the next one short, as my wife made all the calls ...but essentially after about twenty useless calls(two days wasted), being sent from pillar to post and back again (Indian pillars and Indian posts of course) it turns out that Dell have decided not to support the "record what you hear"-feature that our soundcard actually has, but the Dell driver doesn't run. They are unwilling/unable to provide a fix or even recommend or sell an upgrade that would sort this.
[insert Indian accent]
We are very sorry Sir, but we can not help you with this issue
[/Indian accent]


Anyone from Dell (Ireland !) reads this ...have mercy ...HELP !!!

SeanW

Dell's tech support is worse than useless.

Spiritine

They defo have a prob wit the staff all being indian, even sales is thay way now:mad:

Gran Hermano

And Dell wonder why they are constantly loosing market share to HP...

Like the OP I've had a rather similar experience with Dell's sales and customer
service. I've made sure both personally and professionally we never buy Dell
any more.

meglome

I've never had any real problems with Dell PC's. BUT... I'm not loving this Indian call centre, service is very patchy indeed. I've rung for some friends of mine. And they undertstandably don't have a clue about any local issues as they are at the far side of the planet.

mikemac

That truely is a tale of woe OP.
I got a huge shock when I rang the Dublin sales line and got through to India. I always thought they had a sales office in Cherrywood, South Dublin

Last time I dealt with them Interlink lost my package so order was cancelled after 9 business days later. To be fair, the Indian staff were helpful but maybe more training is needed.
"What d'ya mean you can't understand my thick culchie accent?":D

Shinto

I bought a laptop off Dell only last week. I customized it online, and i chose windows XP instead of Vista.

OK they've changed the website a little, but up untill last week anyway i could still customize my order. I imagine it's still that way. They'd be mental to delete that facility.

I think Dell are great. Although, i do admit their tech support is kinda crap...from the one unhelpful email i've received from them. But their products are good and reliable. And no i dont work for them at all. Im just someone with a different opinion.

shanethemofo

I actually know somebody who has become racist towards indian people through having to deal with dell support, honest to god im being DEADLY serious.

irlrobins

Moving to consumer issues.

squibs

There was a big hoohah recently about dell bowing to customer outcry and offering XP as an option with new PCs again. I bought mine 6 months ago with XP and a free vista upgrade, but have no intention of loading vista

Re the soundcard, it sounds like it's a creative labs? You may be able to install creative's own drivers to enable the what-you-hear function.

In my last job, we outsourced a bunch of stuff to India. All clever people, but communication was a nightmare in most cases because of Cork and Indian accents on the English language. We mutually agreed to do all communication by email eventually.

mickoneill30

Gran Hermano wrote:

And Dell wonder why they are constantly loosing market share to HP...

Are HP better now? I used to support our server room (about 100 HP servers). Any time there was a problem it was a quick 10 minute call to HP support to get the replacement part or engineer. Until they moved the number I call to India. Then it generally took about 40 mins to just explain what kind of server I had (with serial numbers and warranty numbers). We don't buy HP now.

Jip

It's not just a Dell issue, most large companies have moved their support centres to India so I feel the ops pains as I've been in the same situation myself many times. There's something of a backlash in the UK at the moment with some companies moving their support centre back to the UK due to the amount of complaints there were receiving, with one company (can't remember which one now) using the fact that their call centre is in the UK as a selling point.

cornbb

I've always found Indian call centre staff to be pleasant, well-educated and helpful. If the accent wasn't such a challenge they'd beat the hell out of Irish/UK call centre staff (I say this having worked in an Irish call centre).

For what its worth I've only had one experience of needing tech support from Dell (c. 3 years ago, needed a replacement power supply) and I found them to be excellent.

mathie

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fp8PZMn8-_E

M

TerrorFirmer

cornbb wrote:

I've always found Indian call centre staff to be pleasant, well-educated and helpful. If the accent wasn't such a challenge they'd beat the hell out of Irish/UK call centre staff (I say this having worked in an Irish call centre).

For what its worth I've only had one experience of needing tech support from Dell (c. 3 years ago, needed a replacement power supply) and I found them to be excellent.

I once had to ring them a few years ago and it was a pain as well. Not because he was useless - in fact, on the contrary, he was excellent and certainly far more helpful then anyone I'd gotten before, but his accent was so heavy it was impossible to understand anything without him having to repeat it several times.

Gran Hermano

mickoneill30 wrote:

Are HP better now? I used to support our server room (about 100 HP servers). Any time there was a problem it was a quick 10 minute call to HP support to get the replacement part or engineer. Until they moved the number I call to India. Then it generally took about 40 mins to just explain what kind of server I had (with serial numbers and warranty numbers). We don't buy HP now.

Guess it depends on what level of support/maintenance you have with
either Dell or HP. Dell are constantly loosing share to HP and the fact that
all but their highest levels of support are off-shored is not helping them.

Here's the latest figures from Gartner on market share for servers:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/10/19/hp_wins_dell/

1. IBM: $3.83bn Q1 revenue, 29.8 per cent market share
2. HP: $3.64bn Q1 revenue, 28.8 per cent market share
3. Dell: $1.44bn Q1 revenue, 11.2 per cent market share
4. Sun: $1.37bn Q1 revenue, 10.3 per cent market share
5. Fujitsu: $698m Q1 revenue, 5.4 per cent market share

heyjude

Last time I was ordering a PC from the Dell website, I specifically opted out of having Norton installed, the cost of the Norton product was deducted from the invoice, but when the computer arrived, the Norton product that I didn't want was installed anyway. :mad:

I don't feel I am getting the full benefit of the new PC as I think Norton is taking up a lot of processor time and harming the PC's performance.

I'd be very reluctant to buy Dell again, the purpose of going to the website and specifying all the bits and pieces you want on your PC, is to get the machine and software you want, not to have the opportunity to say what you want and then have them give you something completely different. An earlier Dell I had, saw its hard drive pack up just after the guarantee expired.

thefinalstage

heyjude wrote:

Last time I was ordering a PC from the Dell website, I specifically opted out of having Norton installed, the cost of the Norton product was deducted from the invoice, but when the computer arrived, the Norton product that I didn't want was installed anyway. :mad:

I don't feel I am getting the full benefit of the new PC as I think Norton is taking up a lot of processor time and harming the PC's performance.

I'd be very reluctant to buy Dell again, the purpose of going to the website and specifying all the bits and pieces you want on your PC, is to get the machine and software you want, not to have the opportunity to say what you want and then have them give you something completely different. An earlier Dell I had, saw its hard drive pack up just after the guarantee expired.

To remove Norton use the Norton removal Tool Here(use the top file)

Than follow the instructions here

Its really easy and quick to do. Whenever I go to repair computers I bring this along because 80 percent of the problems are caused by Norton.

eth0_

Any time I have dealt with an Indian call centre I have come away dissatisfied. It's not just a problem with accent, they are all reading from scripts like a sheep, they seem incapable or are not allowed to think outside the box.

I can't fathom why American companies are STILL outsourcing support to India. They have such bad press, and lots of UK businesses actually make a point in their adverts that they have "UK based call centres" because banks etc have lost so many customers having had enough of ringing Bangalore to discuss an item on their credit card bill..

Ruu_Old

Bought a couple of PCs and one laptop but thankfully never any bother with them or having to call their support.

Oryx

Ive just come off the phone to an Indian call centre (Apple support). The guy was very helpful, but the combination of accents and VOIP made it an agonising call.

I own a Dell, and its run perfectly for years now *crosses fingers*. The only problem Ive had was the preloaded mcaffee, which is a nightmare, and no system discs supplied.

goose06

I ordered a laptop about a month ago through Dell Finance, still no sign of it, I ring them everyday to find out what is going on and everyday the same story, . Call goes the same way every day, I ring them they ask for my IR number, I give them that, they ask how can they help me, I tell them to read through the previous calls, they always come back saying that I haven't sent in the finance forms and proof of ID, I tell them I did and that I have recieved my passport back in the post on the 11th of July so thats proof, I ask them can I speak to someone in the online team, they say they do not have a direct number but that they will send an email to get the Online Team to ring me. I tell them that I have been told this everyday that I call and that I still have not recieved a call from this fictional online team, they then proceed to promise me that they will definately follow this up and will contact me by close of business, never happens, so tomorrow I intend on ringing them up and hopefully I'll be able to cancel the laptop without as much hassle.
So a friendly bit of advice don't ever bother try and get a finance deal from Dell, if you think they are slow when you paying up front, way worse trying to go through a finance deal...
Like talking to robots, at least with an irish helpdesk you will come across people who will actually follow up and try and help you out.

griffdaddy

if people are worried about the crap that comes with a dell just format the hard drive and reinstall windows before you put any files or anything on it. That way you'll have as clean a system as possible with just windows on it.

Oryx

griffdaddy wrote:

if people are worried about the crap that comes with a dell just format the hard drive and reinstall windows before you put any files or anything on it. That way you'll have as clean a system as possible with just windows on it.

Would you need discs to do that?

griffdaddy

just the windows disk that comes with the computer, it's very easy to do, the lads in the windows forum would probably be able to walk you through it in a matter of minutes.

dahamsta

Dell computers don't come with Windows disks. As standard restore capability is stored in a hidden partition on the hard drive, which can be accessed from the boot menu. You can also pay extra for a restore CD. Both options will restore all of the crap you get when you buy the machine.

adam

griffdaddy

ah ok, is that a relatively new thing? i bought a desktop a good few years ago (when 512 ram would've been a lot) and it came with just a normal windows xp cd. They must've changed it now. although that was a business pc, would that have made a difference?

Oryx

griffdaddy wrote:

ah ok, is that a relatively new thing? i bought a desktop a good few years ago (when 512 ram would've been a lot) and it came with just a normal windows xp cd. They must've changed it now. although that was a business pc, would that have made a difference?

My dell is over 4 years old. Business customer, no disks. I rang them and they said its not policy to send discs. Which is why I asked if youd need them when reformatting the hd.

jaggeh

I had a fairly serious problem with my XPS yesterday. spoke to tech support.

20 minutes later my pc is fine and working. i mentioned to the operator that i had upgraded my graphics card and hes sending me out a new one, i just have to send back my old one.

ive never had a problem with tech support or dell in general. my next pc will probably be an XPS laptop.

dahamsta wrote:

Dell computers don't come with Windows disks. As standard restore capability is stored in a hidden partition on the hard drive, which can be accessed from the boot menu. You can also pay extra for a restore CD. Both options will restore all of the crap you get when you buy the machine.

adam

yes they do. and it costs 4 euro to order replacement restore disks which are seperate.

dahamsta

Yes they do what? Did you read past the first sentence? Did you understand it?

antoinolachtnai

Let's be realistic here.

The cost of a Dell computer is extraordinarily cheap for the amount of stuff that's in it.

The reality is that there isn't enough gross margin in the product to provide a very high quality level of technical support. It just wouldn't be financially viable.

It's a terrible thing to have to say, but the reality is that quality support doesn't really pay financial dividends. When people go to buy a new computer, particularly for home use, they're looking at the price, not the service level. (This may not be true of all home purchasers, but it is of many.)