I wonder if Bryan Duffin used Dell's excellent support services to repair his computer before incurring the repair costs. I have always had excellent technical service from Dell after struggling with broken English in the diagnostic part of the process.

Dell purchase gone rally wrong.
It never worked out of the box and took half a year to get the money back.
This is my workmates experience.
I would not buy a Dell EVER!
Really bad Karma Company.

ORIGINAL COPYS FOLLOW

To: XXXXXX@dell.com.au
Cc: Alan
Subject: Fw: Purchase of Dell Laptop - Reference Dell Technical Support / Service Tag# 8JHP12S

Hi Kevin

I just posted on Trade Me in New Zealand for some help with a situation I have with the purchase of a Dell laptop, and lablovr01 suggested you may be able to help expedite things for me.

Below is a copy of the complaint email I sent about 2 weeks ago detailing where I was at so far. Since then I have sent further emails and made several phone calls, and the most recent information I have been given is that my order for a purchase/replacement laptop has been cancelled, and a refund approved. I have received one call from Dell to my mobile where there was no message left (unfortunately I was unable to take the call at the time), and I have attempted to contact them to find out what their call was about. I'm assuming it may be relating to my bank account or credit card details to arrange the refund?

In any case I would very much appreciate it if you are able to check my Service Tag and let me know where I'm at. Every time I contact Dell I am told a different story and at 15 weeks down the track the situation is getting a little old. The inconvenience, frustration, time wasted and cost involved for me doesn't seem to have made any difference to the lack of support I am getting and the time taken to resolve.

It would be fanastic if you're able to help or make any suggestions as to what I can do.
would be fanastic if you're able to help or make any suggestions as to what I can do.

Thanks again,

Alan

----- Forwarded Message ----

To:
Sent: Saturday, 18 July, 2009
Subject: Purchase of Dell Laptop - Reference Dell Technical Support / Service Tag# 8JHP12S

Dear Dell Support Team

I am writing to express my dissatisfaction with the process I am currently experiencing concerning the purchase of my new Dell laptop.

On Friday 8th May this year I made a purchase by telephone of a Dell studio XPS 16 laptop. The reference number provided for the spec was S540105NZ1.

I was pleasantly surprised to receive the laptop so promptly on Wednesday 13th May , only to find that it would not start, and there was no indication of power. Upon ringing your XPS customer service line and informing them of the issue a Dell technician contacted me and arrived on Saturday 16th May with a replacement motherboard for the laptop. After installing the motherboard, there was no change to the situation. The technician rang the XPS customer service line to advise what was happening, and then told me a second motherboard would be sent for installation.

I was not happy with this due to the fact that I had paid for a brand new laptop and did not wish to have one with parts which had been replaced more than once. I phoned the XPS customer service line that afternoon 16th May, and requested a new replacement laptop. I also asked for an email approving my request, and although I never received this email I assumed the replacement of the laptop was going ahead as discussed.

Later that same week I was telephoned by a different Dell technician, who wanted to arrange installation of a second motherboard. I informed him that I had already requested a new replacement laptop as there was to be no real reason to install a motherboard a second time, and that I was of the understanding that the application to replace the faulty laptop (in full) was currently being processed.

Within 24 hours I was surprised to receive a call from the same technician’s Supervisor asking why I had “refused” the visit. Once again I had to explain the full scenario regarding the replacement laptop I had arranged, and that a new motherboard was not necessary.

Since this time I have called the XPS Dell Customer Service line on several occasions to enquire about the progress on the delivery of a new replacement laptop. Each time I had to re-explain the whole experience I had been through so far, the problem, and what had been promised. At the end of each call I have always asked for a confirmation email to confirm what had been discussed and the agreed resolution. Every time I was given an assurance that my case would be personally looked into and contact received, however this appears just to have been “lip service” as no-one has taken ownership and contacted me. It is difficult for me to understand why the process has been so excessively drawn out.

I finally received email contact from Voon Kiong Ooi at Dell dated 19th June . It was an official letter outlining the Terms and Conditions for the new replacement laptop, and advising that the faulty laptop was to be returned once the replacement was received. I read and replied to his email on 23rd June as I did not have an earlier opportunity to access the internet. Although I was not happy with the requirement that my 12 month warranty would not begin from the date of the replacement laptop but would continue from the receipt of the faulty laptop, I agreed to the terms and conditions. Essentially I just wanted a new laptop that worked as soon as possible, given that it was now five weeks since the problems first began.

About two weeks later on 6th July I emailed Voon Kiong Ooi (the Representative the agreement had been returned to), to enquire if the new replacement laptop had been shipped as I had received no further contact, and nothing had been delivered. I received a prompt reply on the same day from Voon Kiong Ooi advising “Form the status shown here, it says that the system has been sent out".

On 13th July I emailed Voon Kiong Ooi again, asking when the new replacement laptop had been sent. At this point in time I had still received no sign of it, despite having been advised a week ago it had been sent out. By 15th July I had not received a reply, so once again I called the XPS Customer Service line to find out what was going on. The person I spoke with was unable to tell me when it had been sent, so they offered to email the relevant department and have them contact me directly. I also requested a copy of all personal information relating to my order and subsequent enquiries.

It is now Saturday 18th July. I am yet to receive any contact advising when the new replacement laptop was sent, the records requested, or delivery of the laptop itself. Throughout the 10 weeks I have been dealing with Dell I have had to make repeated phone calls and email contact in order to instigate any type of perceived progress. It is difficult to understand why the process of sending the new replacement laptop is taking so long, as I was able to order the original laptop and receive delivery within a week.

I do not feel that I have been looked after by Dell, and the loss of personal internet access and applications I require a laptop for has had a large negative impact on my leisure time and the ability to contact my online community. I would have appreciated the offer of some form of acknowledgement of the inconveniences caused, and the excessive delay in replacing the faulty laptop. I have been more than reasonable in my dealings with your customer service staff, and giving Dell the chance to resolve the present issue and put things right. I would be very surprised if this situation is considered acceptable.

The lack of progress and ongoing frustration caused by the failure of Dell to keep me adequately informed about the replacement of the faulty laptop has made me feel I would have been better off making my purchase elsewhere. I no longer wish to support a company which does not support me as a loyal customer, and as a result am cancelling my order immediately. The Consumer Guarantees Act of New Zealand allows me to request a refund for a product or service which has failed to live up to its expectations. Please refund my MasterCard the NZD $2327.79 paid in full on 8th May 2009.

Should the courier arrive with replacement laptop before you are able to action the cancellation, I will refuse delivery so it may be returned to you via standard returns process. I have already received an email from Elizabeth Day at DB Schenker regarding the return of the faulty laptop, so once I have received my refund I will arrange the return with her.

Having made a previous purchase of a Dell Inspiron 6000, I feel severely disappointed and let down by Dell on this occasion. I have been incredibly patient and expect better customer service from a respected company such as yourselves.

I look forward to your reply and acknowledgement of my concerns.

Regards

I have been trying to get a quote from them for insurance purposes since August and have had absolutely no luck. Wouldnt you think they would be keen to do this so that I can get another Dell??

I need to replace my laptop and looked at Dell because they seem to be very reasonably priced. I am very pleased to read these comments and will certainly cross them off my list of options. I would rather pay a little more and get the service. Thank you everyone.

I think the Dell service is reasonable for what you pay.

Once the problem is diagnosed the service is normally prompt.

I had an issue with Dell where there were problems with my laptop and under the Consumer Gaurantees Act 1993 should be resolved by the company. I phoned the freephone numerous times and didn't get anywhere due to them being overseas. I contemplated going to the disputes tribunal but in the end gave up and just got it repaired elsewhere. I will definitely not buy a computer through Dell again!

The Dell warranty of one year had just expired and they said that the Consumers guarantee Act didn't apply to them and that they weren't liable for repairs hence we went to court.

3 Against,
1 for buying a Dell.

Or is it really about having a local bricks and motar (NZ) to fix the whatever it is for very little more than the cyber "buy of the day"?

That would also be with NZ ethics that are not just hoping you will give up and go away if it is too hard!

Research world wide and buy local could be a good way to start.

As an ex manager, any staff member who gave that sort of dis-service would have been fired and a new training scheme would have been started.

The motherboard on my laptop fried two months after the three year warranty ran out. I knew i was still covered by the Consumer Guarantees Act even though they refused to pay for the repair. After many phone calls and emails i just decided to take them to the disputes tribunal because you never get anywhere on the phone with these guys.

The day before the hearing Dell rung me and offered to pay for the repairs on the laptop if i withdrew my case from the court. I have simply put my case at the tribunal on hold for 3 weeks to ensure they pay as it seems like it may be hard to actually get them to pay. They should know the Consumer Guarantees Act applies to them as you can't contract out of the Act at all and i urge anyone that has a problem with Dell that falls under the Act to take them to the disputes tribunal and claim for all costs including court costs. This company really needs to learn how the law works in New Zealand

@Matthew: yep, based on all we've heard, taking companies like Dell to the Disputes Tribunal - or threatening to - is often the only way to get results.

They know all too well how the law works, but they successfully bet on consumers giving up after an initial complaint.

My partner ordered a back to school package from Dell 19 Jan 2010 - to date we have received no delivery - every time we phone its another non english speaking person and every time we email - we get the same response its on its way ! We just want delivery of our computer or our money back. Will NEVER deal with Dell again

@Leanne I also ordered and paid for a "back to school" package from Dell in early February - nothing has arrived. I sat on hold for nearly two hours today with absolutely no luck. Every time I finally get through to customer service they tell me a new delivery date in the next couple of days but nothing ever happens. I managed to get through to a local company (PBT courriers helped me out) who deal with Dell's logistics on NZ's end and they told me that they haven't received anything into the country. WORST customer service experience, there is no way I will EVER deal with Dell again!!!

I initially ordered a Dell Precision T3500 on March 1, 2010. Firstly, by checking my order status online, my "order date" was gradually changed from 03/01/2010 to 03/08/2010.

A week later that order showed up as "canceled".

I started calling every other day to try and work out what was happening, I was told the order had indeed shipped from Dell.

However a week later I had a new order number on the online tracking, with no details as to what this order was. I would call once a day, but no one could help me as to the status of my order. On average I was transferred 6-9 times per call, repeating my information and request to every representative until the rep was inaudible due to call quality deterioration.

Finally after about 5 days of calling a representative said that the new order number was because a part was missing when i first ordered my Precision and had now indeed shipped and would be there next week.

A week later however, a new order number showed up online, so now I have three order numbers for the same order, one canceled the other two are at "order received" and are showing dates received as the 23rd and 25th respectively. I called Dell once or twice a day, was transferred several times each call, again - repeating my order #'s and my situation to every representative only to be transferred again - until it was inaudible due to terrible call quality after so many transfers.

I called again today, finally talked to someone at Dell and they gave me a fourth order # for my order, so now I have one canceled order number and three other numbers for the same single order with no detail as to what/when/where they are.

During this time I sent at least 12 emails to Customer Service and Customer Care as well as Missing Orders and have had NO replies, not one.

Dell, this is my last order with you.

Just adding myself to the list of unsatisfied Dell customers.

Purchased a monitor from them with HDMI/audio support but it didn't work right with my PlayStation 3.

Dell gave me a replacement monitor but it had the same problem.

Took Dell a month to "investigate" my issue, then finally say that they'll give me a refund.

It's now been one month since they said they'd refund me, but of course I first must return my monitor, but Dell keeps stalling when it comes to arranging its return. Dell reps keep saying they'll get back to me but never do.

Don't buy from Dell.

As a follow-up to my post above, I was able to resolve my matter by using Twitter, communicating with the @DellCares account: http://twitter.com/DellCares

Unlike Dell's front-line phone and email support, the staff manning this Twitter account were actually helpful and on the ball. They listened to me and were able to escalate my ticket and forward information to a manager, who got in touch with me and saw through that my problem was sorted.

The @DellCares staff are based in the USA, whereas the NZ support staff are based in Malaysia.

Although Dell finally came through in the end, I still would not recommend them due to the enormous hassles I had to go through.

I bought a Dell desktop online in January 2010. The delivery was tricky, to say the least, because they wouldn't tell me what day it was being delivered, let alone what time of day. I had called to try and find out this info and the helpdesk guy was completely useless.

I wasn't home when it was delivered the first time, so I got them to re-deliver it to me at work, which meant 2 taxi rides to get the computer and then the monitor home.

Things were fine for about a month, then I installed some anti-virus software and my computer stopped working. On their website it said that you could use various help screens on the computer to get back to the factory settings, so I tried but couldn't find the right screen.

I called their helpdesk again and spent an hour with a woman who talked me through the process until she realised this particular computer has no factory settings to get back to! Soon after that she basically abandoned me to do a full reinstall by myself from disk as she was finishing work for the day. I couldn't figure out from their website which drivers I needed to download and install, so I ended up paying Geeks on Wheels to come out to my house and fix it for me.

All was fine for about a month, and then it completely died. I called the Dell helpdesk again and we spent another couple of hours working on fixing it, but failed. So I paid for another visit from Geeks on Wheels, and it turned out the hard drive had died - with the computer only 3 months old.

I called Dell again, and was told that they would send out a technician to install a new hard drive. As I had spent days downloading and installing a bunch of virtual PCs onto the machine, I asked if the technician could do a backup before he put the new hard drive in, and then reinstall all my VPCs. The language barrier was pretty much insurmountable with the guy on the helpdesk and I came away with the impression that they would do that for me, although I had had to be very insistent on the phone.

A couple of days before the technician was due to come, a friend at work offered to do a backup for me, so after another taxi ride to work and back with my computer I was the proud owner of a completely perfect backup of everything on my machine (even though the hard drive was a goner! Very impressive!). It's just as well, because the technician completely refused to do any kind of backup for me, saying that it was against company policy to do so. Useless.

Once he had installed a new hard drive (and left a vital screw off the machine in the process) I took the computer back to work yet again and my friend re-installed the backup. It worked perfectly. Thank goodness for geeky mates! The technician rang me the next day and told me he'd been completely unable to get anything off the hard drive at all - so I guess my friend's a better geek than Dell's technician.

Final result:
4 completely unhelpful helpdesk calls totalling about 5 hours of my life I'll never get back. 6 taxi rides to and from work with my computer. 2 callouts to Geeks on Wheels which I had to pay for. 2 hard drives in 3 months. 1 company I will NEVER buy a computer from again. Thanks, Dell!