Dell demanding to see passport

Grab All Association

Bought an Alienware Area 51m with a 14% discount (since ended) on the 28th. Got an email from Dell today from one of their tech support no doubt in Bombay to call an extension which I did and they then demanding I send a copy of my passport (not a drivers licence!) through a school or work email. Note that there’s nothing in the terms of sales saying I have to send them anything, especially to customer care in the Far East. It’s a consumer purchase nothing to do with school or work. They are now threatening to cancel my order if I don’t do this.

Note that I have purchased from Dell typically every 1-2 years using the same account I’ve had since 2007. Long purchase history of not only notebooks but accessories too. The verified by visa text I had to enter should be sufficient anyway

I miss the days when these laptops were assembled in Athlone and Limerick. Order on a Monday and receive it Wednesday via Interlink Express. From now on I think I’ll go to Curry’s in Mahon point.

If they cancel it then **** them. Just a heads up though to those people on here thinking of purchasing a new pc from them. I personally wouldn’t trust sending anything like that outside of Ireland/European Union.

ancapailldorcha

This is really weird. Is the email definitely from Dell and not some adept scammer?

I'd be telling them where to go to be honest. They have neither right nor reason to ask for your passport.

HalloweenJack

Sounds like a scam.

Did you check the email address?

skinny90

whats their reason for this? Perhaps the transaction was flagged as suspicious?

Thats the only logical reason I can see them asking for this, which isnt something I would have a problem verifying if thats the case

Grab All Association

Definitely from Dell. I offered to show my drivers licence but he insisted I show them my passport. I technically don’t have one anymore as it’s expired. Has to be in date

Atlantic Dawn

Are you getting it on finance?

Grab All Association

Atlantic Dawn wrote: »

Are you getting it on finance?

No payment in full. €2248 - 14% with promo code. Here’s what I got in the email

Riskymove

https://www.dell.com/community/Customer-Care/Asking-me-for-proof-of-ID-and-bank-statement/td-p/5144521

Quigs Snr

Grab All Association wrote: »

No payment in full. €2248 - 14% with promo code. Here’s what I got in the email

.... there is no reason for Dell to see your passport. I buy much higher value items online and have never been asked for that. And those phone numbers dont seem to show up much info.

I also dont love the capitalisation of Dell in the email.

Interested to see how this works out.

L1011

Is the discount connected to a specific employment?

What was the promo code?
If say it was a student discount do they want to see that Jim Murphy can email ID (the only formal one for Ireland is a passport), showing his name, from a valid college email account in his own name?

Cuddlesworth

After googling "dell order verification department", you would nearly think its a department set up deliberately to cancel discounted sales. I suppose the safer answer is that its a student discount and they want to see ID and a email linked to a student body.

Grab All Association

Was a promo code Play14 on all gaming laptops. I called Dell and yes it was really them. Order is now cancelled. I presume my money won’t be back for days/weeks. Never again will I order from them. If Irish/EU style drivers licence isn’t sufficient. Can’t reasonably expect someone to go out and get a in-date passport issued within a few hours. I did offer (just now) to show them my expired passport btw and they said no it needs to be valid.

That's odd.

Fraud verification possibly?

DesperateDan

I would definitely make loud noises about this on Twitter

johndoe99

Grab All Association wrote: »

Was a promo code Play14 on all gaming laptops. I called Dell and yes it was really them. Order is now cancelled. I presume my money won’t be back for days/weeks. Never again will I order from them. If Irish/EU style drivers licence isn’t sufficient. Can’t reasonably expect someone to go out and get a in-date passport issued within a few hours. I did offer (just now) to show them my expired passport btw and they said no it needs to be valid.

I was only browsing there site last night, was going to get a pc. This whole passport debacle puts a damper on that. More so that i have found out there no longer assembled here.

Cee-Jay-Cee

Grab All Association wrote: »

Definitely from Dell. I offered to show my drivers licence but he insisted I show them my passport. I technically don’t have one anymore as it’s expired. Has to be in date

So what happens if you said you don’t have a passport? There’s no onus on anyone to own a passport.

Michelinextra.

Cee-Jay-Cee wrote: »

So what happens if you said you don’t have a passport? There’s no onus on anyone to own a passport.

They just cancel same

The likes of Revolut don't accept drivers licence

Vic_08

Michelinextra. wrote: »

They just cancel same

The likes of Revolut don't accept drivers licence

Revolut and other providers of banking services have a legal responsibility to verify identity for money laundering prevention. A seller of electronics does not, Dell have no legitimate reason to be requesting this data.

Grab All Association

Money was just refunded to my account. Wasted my time and their customer care is a joke.

Darc19

Grab All Association wrote: »

Money was just refunded to my account. Wasted my time and their customer care is a joke.

Thought you said that you didn't expect the refund for "days or weeks"
You got it in 24 hours and you say it's a joke.

It's simple fraud protection.

And the reason for the passport is that an Irish company has developed a system where they can confirm identity from a passport. (a lot of financial institutions use them)

I'd have no issue sending a copy of mine whatsoever.

JohnC.

Darc19 wrote: »

Thought you said that you didn't expect the refund for "days or weeks"
You got it in 24 hours and you say it's a joke.

It's simple fraud protection.

And the reason for the passport is that an Irish company has developed a system where they can confirm identity from a passport. (a lot of financial institutions use them)

I'd have no issue sending a copy of mine whatsoever.

He didn't have a passport. That'd cause a bit of an issue.

Grab All Association

JohnC. wrote: »

He didn't have a passport. That'd cause a bit of an issue.

And

I got the refund because they never collected it in the first place off AIB. The money was on hold/pending by AIB for Dell to collect it.

Order is still showing as confirmed too. Unbelievably after informing them of this, Dell then proceeded to waive the passport requirement and tried to assure me they had taken the funds. AIB was telling me different. They changed their mind pretty quick when I read out my entire purchase history including the piśś poor customer service in the past with GPU problems Dell Precision m90 (that was a battle back then to get them to replace, twice)

My current laptop is a 7th gen Alienware AW17R4 and will get me by for another while anyway. I’ll check around Curry’s anyway in the next couple of months when the a51m night go on clearance. As someone commented on here earlier, I now suspect they didn’t want to honour the 14% discount as they probably got more orders than they anticipated. It was my first time ordering with a promo code.

Credit Checker Moose

I remember that Dell had it in it's T&C's that you would not supply the likes of the Taliban or other terrorist organisations.

Maybe the passport requirement is to do with some US law?

Grab All Association

They shipped it despite not taking the money and all of the above! Jesus Christ talk about incompetence.

I presume just to reject the package when it arrives? I had to do similar with viewsonic a few years back. They sent a replacement product for a technical issue that didn’t require a replacement.

silver2020

Grab All Association wrote: »

I’ll check around Curry’s anyway in the next couple of months when the a51m night go on clearance.

If you think Dell have poor service, you're not going to like currys/pcworld. They are as bad as it gets when it comes to service.

Why not take the pc in when it comes, wait a while, see if the contact you and negotiate a further discount

degrassinoel

Credit Checker Moose wrote: »

I remember that Dell had it in it's T&C's that you would not supply the likes of the Taliban or other terrorist organisations.

Maybe the passport requirement is to do with some US law?

Yeah they've a trade embargo with the likes of Iraq and Cuba
used to work for them back in the day, but never heard of them asking for a passport to take money from anyone here.

D3V!L

Grab All Association wrote: »

They shipped it despite not taking the money and all of the above! Jesus Christ talk about incompetence.

I presume just to reject the package when it arrives? I had to do similar with viewsonic a few years back. They sent a replacement product for a technical issue that didn’t require a replacement.

Exactly the same thing happened to a "friend"

Dell never got paid and my "friend" got a free server.

Thargor

I'd be keeping that package to punish them. Nothing they can do about it.

L1011

Thargor wrote: »

I'd be keeping that package to punish them. Nothing they can do about it.

Unsolicited goods legislation, you need to make it available for collection.