Dell hell.

[nihil]

Hey RC~ level#1 is level#1?...................

We have a saying over here "horses for courses"................... the only problem is that you might have to go through #1 to get to somebody who has the answers?

[RoadClosed]

I think the "home" should be Shady Acres. Where the coffee of the day is Ritalin. Not even at level 3 support will they assist without verifying a valid support agreement. On occasion where I call level 1 support I just play the game and answer without doing anything. When they are asking me to open properties and check a setting I am reading a magazine. Today it's fresh copy of CPU, but I wish it was Razzle. There is an excellent article on the DisplayPort standard. It's almost like USB for High Def video... imagine what it must be like at Sony... "My ****ing DVD player won't eject, how to I get this ****ing DVD player to eject my DVD you stupid ****ing ****." - Ritalin it's a beautiful thing.

[phishphreek]

I got extremely frustrated with HP/Compaq today. We rarely ever use HP/Compaq for desktops/laptops. However, we needed one in a pinch at the time and picked it up at the local CompUSA.

The laptop started having memory errors. BSOD Stop errors.

I reseated the memory and it worked fine for a couple of weeks.

Today, I get in and no matter what, it's BSOD shortly after booting into XP. Sometimes it doesn't even get to XP.

There are 2 512mb modules of memory in it.

I take one out and the problem persists. Just more quickly.

Switch the memory around to test the other one and the problem stops.

I call support and they confirm that the problem seems to be a bad memory module. They want me to ship the laptop to them in order to replace it. I ask them to just send it to me and I'll install it myself.

They refuse to juse send me the fscking memory. They insist that I have to send back the laptop. I tell them that I can't do that because it has to be used. They then tell me that there is nothing they can do for me except for send me a box to send in the laptop to replace the memory.

I can buy a replacement memory module and install it myself before they can even get me the box. They say it'll take 2-3 weeks after I send it in to get it back.

How fscking stupid is that?!

I never liked HP or Compaq really to begin for desktops or laptops with but we use them for servers and for backup tape drives.

I informed them that I will no longer be purchasing any hardware what so ever from them ever again. They lost a lot of revenue in the future because they don't want to send me a memory module for me to install myself. The rep didn't seem to care.

I kindly told him that I think HPs policies suck. I thank him for nothing and I hope that his wife comes home and gives him herpes that she caught from her business partner.

I never once raised my voice or yelled. I used a "polite" voice the whole time. Oh, and I am already on Adderall. It's basically ritalin but lasts all day.

[RoadClosed]

HP has left me hanging a few times. And one time on a server 3 days out of warranty, they would not help me after offering to pay by the hour nor would they tell me where I could get a local tech to help. I got on google and had someone there in a couple of hours.

Recently against my better judgement I bought two laptops because they were cheap. They had XP home on them so I bought an XP pro upgrade for each. Mind you XP versions are basically the same with some extra feature sets turned on. After each upgrade reboot resulted BSOD with a driver error. So much for cheap. Called HP, once they learned XP pro was on there, no deal on support. I asked to just have access to all the latest drivers... no deal. So off we go and pay for support from HP. They say its a microsoft issue after running through the whole install and restore from factory partition.. 3 times. So I paid Microsoft, they say it's an HP OEM driver issue. But at least they looked at **** and not just reinstall, reintall, reintall. Back and forth. Past the cost of the laptop. I am like look you ****ers, one of you has a bad driver and both of you can fix it... HP especially who probably sells millions of these things...

No dice. Took the laptops to CompUSA paid like 65 bucks each and XP Pro was loaded and working fine at the end of the day.

HP you suck. I can't believe you passed Dell in Computer sales. Having said that I am typing on an HP Pavillion that works great with all the crap I throw at it. Nothing is black and white.

[fourdc]

In 2003 I bought two HP/Compaq desktops (same model) for my kids. Within a week one of the hard drives froze up, insufficeint burn in at plant.

I called their help desk and explained the problem. Mind you I have 2 computers with the same equipment, I personally verified the bad hard drive by swapping between units.

The first tech I spoke with was little help, English was his second language and he wanted to follow a script. After a frustrating 15 minutes, I said that I try some step he wanted and would call back. When I called back I got a tech who was in Canada.

He understood my troubleshooting and said that I had 3 options, send the box back, or wait a week + and someone would come to my house and install a new drive or FedEx would bring a drive to my house in 2 days & wait for me to put the bad drive in the box and take it away. I work evenings, so i went with the FedEx offer.

[phishphreek]

fourdc: Thats what I'm finding out. I just called back and got another tech. They said the HP has no such policies and there is no reason to send back the laptop just for a bad stick of RAM. He apologized for the other tech and is getting me the memory needed. Still. The amount of time I'm spending on the phone with support I could have just drove up to compusa and got replacement memory. It would have been less expensive than me sitting on the phone.

[RoadClosed]

The Dell Vista Upgrade system is/was a nightmare. The server crashed with a SQL error the day I tried to order a copy. All other copies worked fine but the system was saying I had already used my upgrade when it wasn't processed. THREE weeks of calling Habib tech support and I still had no order. I called my sales rep told them to **** off and went and got a coppy at Wal-Mart. Sometimes you just have to bite it. Or bend over. I have since gotten about 7 apologies and a magical copy of Vista in the mail.

[alakhiyar]

that has to be the worst customer i've ever heard. the tech kept his cool pretty well.

i deal with dell almost every day and they go out of their way to be kind and considerate. they even follow up...of course we have the platnium servive plan

Yes the people at Dell are fairly nice. However that is not as important as knowledge. After all do you call Dell to talk to have a friendly conversation about the sun or do you call to get answers to your questions? They need to be considerate AND knowledgeable. And being knowledgeable is more important for if they are not knowledgeable and don’t know the answer to your question, there is no point in calling.


And their customer service is not that good either. A long time ago there was a charge put on my account for a XPS410 system. The item came to me in the mail and I denied the shipment and it got sent back to them. Well I still got a bill in the mail for $1,500. I called them up and asked WTF is going on and they said they will take care of it. Well a month later I got another statement with a late fee on it. I called again inquiring about the bill and they said there will be a 10% restocking fee. I said fine and paid the restocking fee. Once again I got a bill. The bill showed my payment I made and the removed the cost of the tower from the bill but the cost of the monitor was still on there. So I call them back and ask them what’s going on for the Nth time. They said monitor purchases are not refundable. I said bull ****, I sent it back and the package was not opened. I spoke with the service manager and she said the problem will be fixed. Again I got a statement with a balance on it. It was lower then last time but there was still a balance. I called again and they said there was a 10% handling fee. I told them that the last person I spoke with said it was 10% total. I said "look this is the last time I am calling. Either you remove the balance or the next person that calls you will me by attorney serving you with the law suit papers". And sense then I haven’t received any statements.

I had to threaten them before they removed a charge on my account that wasn’t even ever suppose to be there in the first place! It took 5 months and 5 payments before this got resolved! I ended up paying them $200 in payments for something I never even bought! I had to call at lease 30 times (not lieing) because every person I spoke with either "couldn’t help me" or said something that contradicts what the last person says. I ended up speaking with 5 different “managers” to try to fix things. Afterwards I tried to cancel my preferred account and they gave me hell!

How’s that for customer service? It’s sad when you have to threaten legal action to get things done…

[brokencrow]

IBM/Lenovo's just as bad as HP/Compaq. I couldn't get them to re-image an hdd in the field. Re-images are only done as a depot repair. Fortunately I had an image and after a slighty heated exchange, they agreed to replace the hdd sans their image. We've had other problems with their support.

Nihil makes a good point about support levels. Level 1's often useful at an ISP just to verify they can train on the modem and verify the basic network stuff. My last experience with Dell a couple of years back was pretty bad. Went thru both levels 1 and 2 (Indian) who both advised me to delete a partition with no mention of the user's data. I finally blew them off and fixed the MBR. Dell's support was a potential disaster.