Buying from Dell ?...never again !

here.from.day.1

chrislad wrote:

Not true. My sister was told she only had a 3 month warranty and they were trying to charge her 300euro to get the laptop fixed. I quoted EU law of 2 years warranty and they fixed it for free after that.

It is true. You go onto the site any try to purchase a computer without the 1 year standard base warranty - you cant. Perhaps the particular employee you were talking to was new/clueless or meant you had 3 months left on the warranty. Either way im sure it was a case of crossed wires and does not prove anything against the fact that Dell are completely obviously a legitimate company complying to nessesary law with a huge satisfied userbase.

PeakOutput

you missed my point completely

warranties are an added extra that dont mean that much at all..........even after the standard warranty runs out after a year they still have to fix or replace or refund the computer

technically they have to do it until the product is 6 years old but for a computer this is not reasonable

btw i have nothing in particular against dell and if i was buying a ready made comp id get it from them or alienware but i just dont like the way they run their warranty policies

chrislad

here.from.day.1 wrote:

It is true. You go onto the site any try to purchase a computer without the 1 year standard base warranty - you cant. Perhaps the particular employee you were talking to was new/clueless or meant you had 3 months left on the warranty. Either way im sure it was a case of crossed wires and does not prove anything against the fact that Dell are completely obviously a legitimate company complying to nessesary law with a huge satisfied userbase.

Again, nope. I got the laptop for her online about 18 months ago. The options at the time were 90 day CAR, 1 year and 3 years. I got the 90 days as I knew they would have to cover it for at least a year anyways. If the employee meant that she had 3 months left on the warranty, they wouldn't have tried to charge her 300euro.

I have no doubt Dell are legitimate, and the PC I've been using for the past 2 years is a Dell and I've had zero problems with it. Fact is that they told my sister that she only had a 3 month warranty. Nothing anyone can say can make that less true. Regardless of whether or not the employee got it wrong, she was still going to be charged 300euro if law had not been quoted at them. Again, this hasn't put me off Dell, but it just goes to show that you need to know your rights.

curiosity

Interesting thread folks.....my dell experience in a nutshell.

Bought first computer just under 3 years ago, found getting onto sales ppl via phone needed patience. Ended up calling them anyway to clarify something about an online promo, and the rep said he'd give me the same deal if I wanted to buy over the phone, good of him, I thought. Emailed me the specs of what I'd decided to buy, but I had a change of mind on the specs so I asked if they could alter it. System had been dispatched, so they picked it up from my address and sent the revised spec one. Happy days, well done Dell.

All worked well til a few weeks ago when it just died while I was sitting in front of it:( . Tried the obvious (different power lead, disconnecting everything and plugging tower into a different socket) no joy. So I rang Dell a few days later. (I was one of those who bought a 3 year warranty, as I was being cautious). I got thru quickly, spent a good few minutes giving express service code on side of tower and having the Indian(!) chap on the other end verify my details. Then we got to my problem. He suggested a lot of what I'd tried, then asked me to pop off side cover and reconnect power supply. Still no joy. So he said they would pick up the tower 2 days later and try to repair it, and return to me a week later. Ok, says me. Asked them to pick it up at work (wasnt going to waste a days hols waiting for them). They called next day to offer an engineer to come to my address and fix it on site. I said I'd rather they take it away and sort it fully. An hour or so later they rang again to say it would be the following day before they'd collect it. That they duely did, and it was returned to me a week later in working order, no cost to me due to warranty, or no time lost waiting for their people. So, some minor annoyances, but overall I'm happy and would buy off them again.

Mezcita

dahamsta wrote:

Who do you know kits out a Dimension 9200 with 3.5k's worth of kit?

People spend this type of money on home systems all the time. Sorry Adam, despite what you mother tells you, you're not special. I sold a 6K home system to some chap last week. He got an XPS. Why? because I advised him to. He certainly won't have the any issue if it comes to after sales service. In fact judging from most replies here, we have established that the people who bought the XPS system (which is what you should have bought) are quite happy with them. Your problem is that you decided that Dell was not worth calling for advice based on a previous bad experience. I admit that it is entirely possible that your experience left you hounding for Michael Dells blood, but your mistake was that you generalised and assumed that the entire Dell sales staff were useless based on your dealings with one rep. As a result, you bought the wrong system for the budget you had. You basically got the flagship home system, and kitted it out to the max. That's kinda like buying a nissan micra and spending 30K on kitting it out.

dahamsta wrote:

I didn't want or ask for advice, and I'm not upset. I'm simply saying that Dell support is sh*t, and Dell is a sh*t company. That's my opinion, and I'm obviously not the only one here with it. Would you like me to spell out the words individually; would that help you get a grasp on the notion?

Yeah please, if you would - stop being so vague. You're saying you really love Dell?

dahamsta wrote:

If you're an example of the wonderful, polite face of Dell, it's no f*cking wonder people are buying HP these days. Buy Dell, We've Got Attitude. I hope your marketing department doesn't see your posts, you can be damned sure you'd be out on your ear if they caught you.

Why exactly?? Becuase I'm saying Dell is a good company both for its employees and its customers, and I may have put some jackass who obsiously has more money than sense off ever buying a Dell system again? Your problem is that the problems that you have had with your system are entirely your own fault - you bought the wrong system without advice and now you're stuck with it. The entry level systems have entry level support. Period. You could have had a much better level of support for the same price, but you chose to buy your system un advised. How is that anyone's fault but your own?


Few other points not related to adam here:

Some very basic entry level systems do come with a 90 day CAR. Your full years warranty comes into effect if the system is defective in some way, ie. made incorrectly in the factory. It does NOT cover you for wear and tear. Basically if the system works and then breaks down 6 months later, then it is put down to wear and tear and will not be covered. The problem is that if you have a 90 day CAR and call in to dell on month 10 and claim that your system was defective from day one, it is difficult for the customer to prove this. Now, every time I explain this, someone always says "your year warranty covers you no matter what". Believe me it doesn't.


O/S disks - We were sending them actually on the system for some time, but if you have bought a system lately you should get the backup disks for the o/s with the system. You still have to specify at the point of sale if you want to get the resource disk which has all the drivers (5 euro ex vat), but these can all be downloaded from the website.

dahamsta

I have to wonder now if you're just plain thick or you can't read properly:

1) I didn't buy the wrong system.
2) I didn't complain about the system.
3) I dealt with 4 sales staff. All were incompetent.
4) I didn't even mention support, except as a sidebar to the reference to Dell's dire sales staff.

When you're trying to look like you're clued-in, the trick is to throw what people say back at them. When you make stuff up to throw back at people, you look like a fool. A lying fool.

adam

Mezcita

dahamsta wrote:

I have to wonder now if you're just plain thick or you can't read properly:

Thick? I'm not the one who's making a complete fool out of myself online. Why don't you post some pictures of you with your head up your ass, then your humiliation will be complete.

dahamsta wrote:

1) I didn't buy the wrong system.:

Yes you did. You're just too stupid to realise it.

dahamsta wrote:

2) I didn't complain about the system.

So, you're on this post to talk about the weather? Or are you here to b*tch about Dell, and COMPLAIN?

dahamsta wrote:

3) I dealt with 4 sales staff. All were incompetent.

Hmm, realistically, what are the chances of getting 4 incompetent sales staff in a row? The only thing they had in common besides the fact that they work for dell is that they dealt with you. Seems to me that it's entirely possible, that there's nothing wrong with the sales staff, that the problem is your IQ level. The fact that you spent 3.5K on a Dimension supports this.

dahamsta wrote:

4) I didn't even mention support, except as a sidebar to the reference to Dell's dire sales staff.

This entire post is about Dell support. But then you've probably forgotten that. Memory not the best eh?

dahamsta wrote:

When you're trying to look like you're clued-in, the trick is to throw what people say back at them. When you make stuff up to throw back at people, you look like a fool. A lying fool.

Wow. Can you like, teach me? No seriously, I can only dream that maybe one day I could be as clued-in as you. Keep those suggestions coming please - I am taking notes.

dahamsta

I'll rephrase my comment from a couple of days ago: You're a perfect example of what Dell has become. Rude and clueless.

PeakOutput

right you have been bickering like children for a while now. the confusion is quite simply explained

dahamsta you first said

dahamsta wrote:

I didn't talk to a rep, simply because the last time I tried to buy a server from Dell, I was shunted from India to Ireland, back to India and back to Ireland again, and not one of the four people I talked to had a bull's notion what they were doing.

so you did not talk to a rep when you were buying your last machine

you then said

I didn't want or ask for advice, and I'm not upset

as far as I can see mezcita's point is that if you had of rang and gotten advice you would of been advised to get an xps which would of provided you with better support. you seem to agree with this here

(Although my experience is that anything below XPS - even if it is a couple of grand - gets the same useless crap as everyone else.)

basically you are agreeing but neither one will admit it and you are both as rude as each other so get over it and move on.

dahamsta

That's not an accurate representation of my postings. I've said my piece quite clearly, I won't again. Ta ta.

311

I think dell are grand . Have dealt with them since 1998 ,only had to ring them once about a machine ,they sent a new drive out the next day.

ian.k

i ordered a vostro on the 4th of august, due for delivery on 13th,
dell said they were working on it to see why interlink were taking so long,
i mean i live 10 miles from dell's factory in limerick and only 8 from interlinks depot. Today i called interlink who declared it as "lost in transit" the woman on the phone even said that it isn't uncommon for dell's parcels to "go missing" .I reckon some of interlinks workers see dell parcels as easy targets.
Btw if you order from the dell small business section then you get through to call centres in ireland. Now i have a two week wait for a replacement.