Dell = Issue: Not Resolved

Here are the events that took place with Dell Customer Support in chronological order

2008/11/02: Laptop shipped.

2008/11/06: Laptop received

2008/11/08: E-mail to Dell about a continuing error message about the AC power adapter on start up

2008/11/18: Since I haven’t gotten a response back from Dell I call to find out if they got my e-mail. I am transferred to a technician who handles the case very professional, who knows what he is doing and who I can have tech talk with.

Issue 1: A new power adapter is sent

Issue 2: He tests Dell’s e-mail system and finds out that only certain domains are accepted. He advises me to use a .com e-mail address because Dell seems to accept only e-mails that end on .com.

An e-mail is sent out by the agent about my case stating: “If you need further assistance with case …, you can contact Dell via chat, email or by phone.” I reply to this e-mail stating that I get an error message when I want to contact Dell via chat and what causes the problem.

Status: no reply

2008/01/11: 3 phone calls to Dell, where I talked to 3 technicians for over 2hrs due to an audio issue.

One “technician” who was connected remotely, was messing with parts of my laptop that didn’t even have anything do with the problem,  whereupon I had to ask her to stop what she was doing. I simply do not understand why it was necessary to go into my network settings to look if I am online when she is connected remotely with me. I am furious, especially because I am a very security aware person! Furthermore she made changes on my system without asking me like switching to a different view in my Control Panel, selecting a program to run on AutoPlay which I had on “ask me every time”, selecting sounds in my Windows sounds although it was on “no sound”, configuring my speaker setup and asking me if I have 5.1 speakers although I told her multiple times I have a problem with the internal speakers, messing with my HDMI settings, reinstalling new drivers and not being patient enough with the installation and almost canceling it in midst of it.

I had to restore my system to a restore point before I called Dell. I simply do not understand why I have to deal with people in support that have no clue what they are doing on a system, where I have to tell them to stop what they are doing and where just the mere presence of them on my machine makes me nervous.

I had to call Dell again to explain to them that it is not a software issue and that I won’t reinstall Windows to fix the problem because the speakers kept failing to the point where only one speaker was active any longer until it finally gave up also whereas the headphones still produced sound fine. After a discussion that went back and forth that it was for sure a hardware issue they finally agreed of having my speakers and the motherboard exchanged and that a Dell technician will come by on the 13th of January 2009.

Side note: On my final  call to Dell I asked the technician about TPM and if it is possible to get it somehow on my machine (maybe with a motherboard upgrade) since I am using full drive encryption, well, he didn’t even know what I was talking about and put me on hold to find out, only to tell me later it’s only available for business models and not for their high end machines used for gaming and multimedia work. I asked him if those people don’t deserve security? Then why put a fingerprint reader per default on those machines also?

2008/01/13: Waiting for the Dell technician to show up and repair my speakers, but nothing so far, no notice, no call. Waiting since the morning and getting more frustrated with time going by. In the evening I call Dell and they say I should get a call tomorrow before noon by the Dell technician.

2008/01/14: Waiting again for the Dell technician to show up or call today to repair my laptop; and again nothing. I called Dell again and they escalated. I was put on hold as the Dell agent on the phone was put on hold for 8 minutes by this vendor before she got back to me to tell me she is still on hold and I should wait longer. She told me that I should get a call tomorrow at 10:00 AM.

2008/01/15: Day Number 3 for Dell technician to show up or call: No luck today either with a Dell technician that should have called at 10:00 AM. Calling the vendor BancTec directly who cannot get a hold of the technician. During the second call to the vendor BancTec the technician suddenly calls on the other line. I finish the call to BancTec and call the technician back to have a rather disconcerting conversation with him resulting in an e-mail to Dell stating:

2008/01/16:

Please cancel all the appointments that have been made with the vendor BancTec to repair my laptop.

This vendor is unprofessional and unreliable because of the following reasons listed below.

As Dell said on Sunday, Jan 11 2009, a technician by BancTec should have replaced the parts on Tuesday, Jan 13 2009 which did not happen.

A phone call to Dell on Tuesday, Jan 13 2009, resulted in an agreement with BancTec that a technician should have called me on Wednesday which did not happen.

A phone call to Dell on Wednesday, Jan 14 2009 resulted in an agreement with BancTec that a technician should call me on 10:00 AM on Thursdays, Jan 15 2009, which did not happen and upon which I should call BancTec directly with the given Dispatch Number. BancTec customer service tried to reach the technician and put me on a conference call with him which did not happen because, as I found out on the second call with customer service, they were only able to leave a message. They informed me that the technician will call back before 5:00 PM when he was finished with all his customers for today. After calling BancTec customer service again on a conference call together with my husband to verify what has been said I received the first call from this technician … . After the call ended with customer service I called … back to only hear from him how I am a hard to reach person and basically blaming me for not being able to reach me. I do not know why I should justify myself in pointing out that my phone has been with me all the time and I did not get a call. After this he was ranting on about Dell’s strange policy that they were only allowed to cover hardware and not software because maybe a technician who didn’t know anything about computers messed with customer PC’s. He also pointed out that he doesn’t know much about software and only hardware which gave me an uneasy feeling that he should repair my laptop. As I told him about the problems with my speakers to give him an idea about what’s wrong (that the left speakers do not work and the right speakers come on and off) he said that Dell’s speakers are anyhow of poor quality upon which I felt clearly offended because I bought the top of the range laptop of Dell to make sure to get good quality. Furthermore I pointed out to him that I have a full disc encryption running on my laptop and the problems it could cause when the motherboard is swapped. He clearly did not know what it meant and only assumed that I was worried that data gets changed on my harddrive and only said the motherboard exchange does not have anything to do with the harddrive upon which I pointed out that I know this. I tried to get him to understand that in order to decrypt my harddrive the BIOS is setup to stop in order to get the right code to be able to proceed. A new BIOS would not be set up to know that I ran full disc encryption and would not stop to decrypt my hardware. I finally got him to understand that I do not run just an password on the BIOS where upon he finally said he doesn’t know about this set up. This whole incident leaves me frustrated and also with the feeling that I have purchased a low quality laptop.

Please cancel all appointments being made with BancTec, I simply do not want to deal with this vendor any more. I wasted already almost a whole week of time just waiting for a repair. Please come up with another solution.

…”

2008/01/16: Calling Dell again to ask if my e-mail has been received. The technician states that the e-mail should have been received by the previous technician I have been in contact with. The technician tells me that he will contact the other technician to call me back on my issue to wanting another vendor.

Status: No e-mail, no phone call from the Dell technician.

2008/02/04: Calling the Dell customer service again to ask why I haven’t gotten an email or phone call back as promised. The Dell agent tells me confusing statements that the e-mails are received by others and not them. Question: Who are the others? Answer: She does not know (Question to myself: Am I in a Lost episode?) I am being put on hold for 90% of the time now. There is still no answer why they haven’t contacted be back via phone or e-mail in the past three weeks that I have been waiting for them to solve the issue. She tells me that she will contact the other Dell agent to contact me back who should have received the e-mail (déjà-vu!). I told her that I was in the same situation already the last time where  I was promised the same thing. She assured me that I will hear back from them at 4:00 PM. No conformation e-mail has been sent out after the call to confirm my call and state the agents ID and name.

Status: No e-mail, no phone calls from Dell.

2008/02/12: I participated on a survey regarding my issue.

Status: No e-mail, no phone calls from Dell after stating my issue in the survey.

2009/07/28: I sent a message to “Unresolved Technical Support Issues“: I am dealing with this issue since January 11 2009. All my e-mails to Dell were not answered, as I asked about the emails on the phone Dell Support told me that they are sent “to the others”.
The Dell Support on the phone first messed up all my settings not knowing what they were doing so that I had to restore all my settings on my PC. After calling several more times to get the hardware finally fixed a technician was contacted that couldn’t be reached for a week although I waited several days for him to show up. After finally reaching him on the phone I realized he had no idea about computer hardware and I canceled the appointment requesting a different technician.
My last calls to Dell left me with promises to call me back but no one ever called me back. I didn’t even get a confirmation email that I have called.
I participated even on a survey regarding my issue and I didn’t hear anything back.
I am waiting for 6 months now that the PC gets repaired although I have a next business day support.
And then, after all this, you have the nerve to send junk mail to my house and you want me to buy more Dell products?
I can assure you that this was the last item I ever purchased and I make sure that no one else in my circle of influence buys any of your products because this customer treatment is absolutely ridiculous!!!

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