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Getting the Best Deal From Dell — Or Not
Posted by
kdawson
on Sun Jun 17, 2007 05:16 PM
from the consumer-advice-or-proprietary-information dept.
from the consumer-advice-or-proprietary-information dept.
Nom du Keyboard writes "When The Consumerist published 22 tips for getting the best deal from Dell Computers, according to a self-described former Dell sales manager, Dell fired back with a take-down notice. You might want to look quickly, in the event it does get taken down. The Consumerist's lawyer's initial response was to deny the takedown request."
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Well, since it might get taken down... (Score:5, Informative)
Anon because I'm not a karma whore and because I add nothing to the post. Enjoy
***
A former Dell kiosk manager writes us to share helpful tips about doing business with Dell. He has no particular problems with Dell, he just wanted to share some helpful tips for consumers looking to get the best deal. He includes info on getting the best deal from the website, different kinds of promotions the Dell offers, insider details on how the kiosk sales reps are compensated, what coupons and deals they have to offer you to close the deal, the email format for Dell in case you're thinking of launching an EECB, where to take your Dell credit card complaints, which extended warranties to avoid, how to get a domestic tech support rep... and more. It's very comprehensive. Enjoy!
I am a former Spherion rep that later became a Dell Branded Rep (manager) of a Dell kiosk in the Philadelphia, PA region. To work at one is to work at all, and I worked at four different kiosks in the region. I worked from July 2005 until October 2006, but keep regular contact with some of the guys I trained and brought up. Other than the usual complaints, I have no problem with the company.
Things most people know already:
1. Small business is better than home and home office - Small business typically runs a few dollars more than the home office, but you stand a better chance of getting domestic tech support rather than non-native English speakers. As an added perk, small business promotions are occasionally better than home.
2. Play with the web site - There are many different pricing packages for the same product throughout the various sections, typically three or more per segment. If you're buying a Dell soon, configure a unit from a link off the main page, from the product listing on the drop down and from the "As Advertised-Newspaper" drop down. Configure the same system each way at the home, small business and the Direct (kiosk) site (http://www.dell.com/directstore). It is very likely you will end up with nine different prices.
3. Extended warranty for laptops - Do it for as long as you feasibly see using your laptop, and include accidental. Two years is typically the lifecycle from "new product" to "no longer produced/no more refurbs" though YMMV. Once your model is off the refurb site, drop it. Voila! New laptop. The standard warranty will not cover any screen defects.
UPDATE: Current Dell rep says: If a system is no longer shipping a used/refurbished is always sent, though the refurb should be equal or better as far as hardware is concerned. As of this writing if a system is exchanged, via either Complete Care warranty or concession, and the system is still a currently shipping model a new system is to be sent.
4. Extended warranty for desktops - There is nothing in a low end desktop (non XPS) that is worth the price of the warranty should you have to replace it. Only pick it up if you have absolutely no clue what you're doing once the case is open.
5. Tech support phone - If you do go with the home/home office/direct route, tech support is outsourced (duh!). The tech support instant messenger typically provides a calmer, more understandable conversation due to the fact that accents are taken out of the equation. Think back to high school Spanish. It was always easier to translate the foreign language you were reading than if you heard it. Same concept applies here.
6. Tech support web site - If you're having a common problem, hit the product forums (however crippled they may be now). It is very likely your question/problem has been resolved before, and usually a domestic tech rep posted a solution there.
7. Warranty Repairs - On all but the two lowest warranties (90 day and 1 year limited), warranty repairs wi
Re:Well, since it might get taken down... (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
That business model is ancient. And the phone/ca
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
1. Do not pay by snail mail. They will hold onto the check without cashing it to give you fees as you start to pay down the balance.
2. Whatever they tell you the interest rate will be, its going to be higher. Wait before buying the PC to see what your rate is. Its a hassle to send the computer back.
3. When you finally pay it off, a rep (indian) will beg you to stay. You have to convince him you want it canceled and expect to wait on the phone 20 minutes. They t
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Anyone who deals with business leases or other financing knows that this is standard for the industry. I am forced to issue lease payments 10 days before they are due to ensure I am not assessed late fees. This is annoying for cash flow.
The other solution I've found is to send a couple payments a year via certified return receipt (make sure to mark that no signature is requi
wtf? (Score:3, Insightful)
When are these companies going to learn that trying to suppress information on the internet just makes it multiply?
Re:wtf? (Score:5, Informative)
Yesterday. [direct2dell.com]
Parent
Re:wtf? (Score:5, Interesting)
HP is going to be at a disadvantage because it has the same corporate setup that it has always had, no one person can step on and change the direction of the company like Jobs and Dell have done. In a world where change happens hourly, a bureaucratic organization is always going to be slower to change than a company where a person with a vision can cause change. It happened at Apple, and hopefully, it is happening at Dell.
ttyl
Farrell
-----
FLIEGENDE KINDERSCHEISSE!
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
The "These are the steps that we have taken to insure that this does not happen in the future" part.
Re:wtf? (Score:5, Funny)
Note: Seems whenever a take-down notice is given, the number of hits grows... exponentially.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Actually that's exponential decay. Logarithmic growth is growth, but very slow growth. Slower than linear growth.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Oh wow, an adequate car analogy!
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Imagine that the Y axis is on a logarithmic scale, you will see small increases at the beginning then bigger increases. Like 1 2 5 10 25 100 1000 10000
Re:wtf? (Score:5, Interesting)
This is already well documented as the Streisand Effect [wikipedia.org]. If I were Michael Dell, I would fire whomever sent the take-down notice. The outcome was quite predictable by anyone with half a brain (especially after the very recent AACS fiasco).
Parent
Re:wtfraud? (Score:5, Insightful)
Doesn't #3 bother anyone else? It is explicit instructions on how to commit insurance fraud. If I were Dell management, I'd want it taken down for that reason alone. ( How would you feel if someone posted your bank password on the net, thus enabling any reader to defraud you? )
Parent
Re:wtfraud? (Score:5, Insightful)
This looks pretty clear to me. On a certain date, deliberately damage the merchandise, and the insurance that you bought will get you a new one. This part is advice on how to commit fraud. Surrounding it with other advice doesn't change that.
Parent
Dell already apologized (Score:4, Insightful)
http://direct2dell.com/one2one/archive/2007/06/16
Re: (Score:2)
nice try (Score:4, Funny)
keeping people honest (Score:2, Insightful)
Somebody lets the cat out of the bag about the crap and value within a company product suite, and they go back to DMCA and takedowns.
We are reaching the middle of the sigmoid on information exchange - until now many have still been in the old model, and moving forward there will be more activity in the new (open free information exchange) model. Old-style enterprises are pissed off by the new model. How DARE they tattle on where they make some extra money at te expense of their cusotmers.
Re: (Score:2)
Stop smoking your hippie dust (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Best Dell trick I found was... (Score:5, Informative)
About 2 weeks after you receive the system, you'll get a phone call and an offer to upgrade to the full 3 year on-site support for around £30 ($60). That worked out at about a third of the price than if I'd bought it.
Insurance Fraud (Score:5, Insightful)
Will this work? Yes. I knew a guy who did this with Dell's plan... got a nice upgrade for "free." I'm not convinced, however, that insurance fraud is really such a great idea. Nor am I convinced that this guy should be encouraging people to commit crimes.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Insurance Fraud (Score:5, Insightful)
Agreed, and it makes me wonder if The Consumerist read the article carefully. They're pretty aggressive about bad behavior [consumerist.com] by companies [consumerist.com]. So it's OK if a consumer steals for personal gain?
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Insurance Fraud (Score:5, Insightful)
And yes. The price of insuring your laptop may very well go up. Insurance companies aren't in the business of losing money. At the end of the day the of insurance fraud will be paid for by honest people.
Parent
But... (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, but the downside is that you'll have to spend the rest of your life with a known criminal: you. Personally I think that's too high a price to pay for a lousy Dell laptop.
Re: (Score:2)
obligatory IAALIA (Score:5, Informative)
You're right. It's called a moral hazard.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_hazard#Moral_H
The writer of this article needs to apologize publicly for encouraging this.
Parent
Why I hate buying PCs from Dell (Score:4, Insightful)
If dell is trying to figure out why its market share is declining, it is likely because of the difficulty in knowing what you are buying is the best price. I don't think HP makes people go through all this nonsense.
Oh and also the whole small business vs. home office crap. What an annoyance how they both contain the exact same machines with just very slight differences.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I haven't seen a rebate on a Dell deal yet (though I may be wrong) though they do have just about every other type of discount: coupons, percent off threshold, dollars off threshold, special base configuration prices, certain upgrade promotions (double memory, upgraded hard drive, upgraded CPU, etc.) and so on.
While you can relate the process t
Re: (Score:2)
Obligatory Coral cache (Score:4, Informative)
Apple? (Score:2)
Can we have one of these only for Apple?
As another poster has already pointed out, (Score:5, Insightful)
And this article was posted to Slashdot AFTER that happened, and there is STILL no "Update: Dell actually apologized before we posted this article, 'cause we're dumb."
You're doing them a huge disservice by letting this stand uncorrected, kdawson.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Dell needs to quit the shell-game. (Score:5, Insightful)
-jcr
For laptops, go with the longest warranty possible (Score:5, Interesting)
I bought a Dell Inspiron 8200 when they first came out. I bought the extended warranty (3 years) and was very glad I did. Dell laptops are going to break. I had the little clip which holds the battery on break three times, the hard drive fail twice (and then the pins broke on the replacement hard drive, counting as a third breakage), I had it serviced for LCD-related issues three times, and there's some other problem I forgot about. This all happened over 3 years, and Dell was very quick on the gun to get my stuff fixed, usually sending replacement parts in 24 hours. I would have been screwed if I hadn't gotten the extended warranty.
As my warranty period came up, I started to get worried. The laptop was going to break again, and I'd be out in the cold. Turns out, in CA, if you get a computer serviced 3 or more times for the same problem, you can demand your money back. After some arguing with the Dell guys, they sent me an 8500 (refurb). My 3 year warranty expired the next week.
Point is: Paying the extra couple hundred bucks for the warranty saves you from buying a new laptop. After a feeling of joy, I felt a bit guilty about getting 2 laptops for the price of one. Then again, Dell chose to make laptops which fail constantly, not me...
Re:For laptops, go with the longest warranty possi (Score:2)
Point is we consumers do it to ourselves. We want the cheapest possible product, then wonder why the quality is low. This is with all things nowdays, ESPECIALLY airlines!
Sometimes you do get what you pay for
Maybe some trouble for the lawyer. (Score:2)
those dumb categories (Score:2)
This is one prime reason why I never order online from dell. I just have this deep feeling that they shouldn't care about why I'm buying this computer... just give me the best deal, which frankly, ain't gonna very that much whether I'm a big company or joe blow. (Yes, I know bulk purchasers et bulk discounts, but still)
So that, plus, call me old fashioned, but if it's a model I don't know, I need to touch and feel the formfactor first hand, especially
#6 in the kiosks... (Score:4, Informative)
Nothing like pissing off legit customers so you can score a little higher on a phony performance score. A store I worked at dropped the mystery shopper crap while I worked there, but never explained the reason. I strongly suspect it was because the test isn't grounded in reality, but in the random chance of a single shopper once a month. They replaced it with a survey system, which is probably almost as bad... Surveys only get the best and the worst answer... Why would someone take the time to fill out a 'I got pretty normal service' answer? They don't, even if you offer $$$ prizes randomly.
A Few More Points (Score:5, Informative)
Same goes for July, Oct and Jan.
* * *
ALWAYS check the website for deals. Probably 1 in every 5 times I've gotten quotes from our Small Business Sales rep I've found better deals online. Tell them and they'll match or beat it.
* * *
Get your Small Business Sales Rep to set you up a custom page with the equipment you normally order, INCLUDING ADD-ONS. For over a year I was able to purchase 15K RPM SCSI drives off of the custom page for 1/3 the price quoted on the normal site. Ditto for rack rails, RAID kits and extra CPUs.
Much of this I consider to be common sense (Score:3, Interesting)
I didn't realize, however, that there would be a noticable difference in cost depending on which type of shopping you do. I will keep that tip in mind.
As for the warranty stuff? Definitely. And *USE* the warranty. I must say, I feel a little guilty if I were to intentionally break my laptop at the end of the warranty. That's just plain abusive and dishonest. But on the other hand, if I have an actual accident, I like knowing I can get it fixed. That said, I bought my current Dell laptop some time ago and I had forgotten that I had any warranty at all. When I realized that I was good until 2009, I called support and told them my keyboard needs to be replaced. Okay, so not really... I mean it's "worn" but it was functional. (Except when I've been playing UT2004... then sometimes the keyboard doesn't seem so responsive... but maybe that's me.) But I ordered a new one anyway. I do think my processor cooling fan is making a bit more noise than it did when it was new so I will probably make another warranty call some time before the warranty is out as well. And I ask myself once more... would I really "drop it" to get a new laptop? No... I just can't bring myself to even think about it. It's sorta sacriligeous doncha think? Who knows... I might change my mind when the time comes.
Lately, I have found that the last few calls I have made to Dell support has gone through central America and their accents were more than acceptable. I was very pleased with Dell's selection. I mean I'd prefer that Dell hired college kids for their support... fairly bright and fairly inexpensive. But I could barely detect much of an accent from the central Americans that I heard and they also had no difficulty understanding me.
Dell's service and pricing options are good especially when consumers know about it. Frankly, even though it's a guide to abusing Dell's good faith, it still shows Dell in pretty good light since they do offer these kinds of options for people. After all, even at the cost of giving bad people good service, it still offers good value to good people and I want to believe good people are in the majority.
Watch the deals sites (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)