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Dell Found Guilty of Fraud, False Advertising 402

Posted by timothy from the among-other-things dept.
Last year, the Attorney General of New York instigated a lawsuit against Dell for practices like long hold times, repeated call transfers, and disconnects for customers waiting for phone support — all of which make it harder to cash in on promises of (and paid-for) technical support." Now, raptor78 writes "IDG News reports on New York Attorney General's victory over the poor services and deceptive practices employed by Dell over the past years with regards to technical support and promotional offers. It is about time someone spoke up and realized some of the horrors people deal with at Dell." Another reader points to a quick report from Fortune magazine on the ruling.
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Dell Found Guilty of Fraud, False Advertising More

Dell Found Guilty of Fraud, False Advertising

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  • It's just business? (Score:5, Funny)

    by autophile ( 640621 ) on Wednesday May 28, 2008 @02:21PM (#23574737)

    I like this quote at the end of the article. Are they ha ha only serious?

    ...Dell said in a statement. "We believe that our customer service levels are at or above industry standards."

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Divebus ( 860563 )

      That, unfortunately, is becoming the norm with MegaCorps. Verizon is the same way [lets get them next].

      You know all those people following the Verizon guy around - "The Network"? I think I get transferred to every one of them just to get a bill straightened out or a service changed. If you want to add a phone line, they'll get you one that afternoon, but forget about anything looking like good service.

      The Verizon Techs themselves are great, by the way.

    • What industry? Mind you, commodity desktop hardware support has always sucked, but their server support is a joke compared to companies that really specialize in servers.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by TheLink ( 130905 )
        I think support quality varies from place to place.

        Dell server support seems decent here. Their technicians seem to get a lot of practice in fixing stuff on site, I wonder why ;).

        Their servers aren't total crap, they are just not that good.

        My dept also had a bad batch of Dell Dimension desktops - nvidia vidcards with bad caps, and a few desktops had power supplies going "pop" rather audibly, releasing the magic smoke and thus not working...

        I like the IBM server designs better and nowadays IBM x86 servers ar

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Samalie ( 1016193 )
      In my opinion, not only does Dell "meet" industry standards, but generally they go above and beyond. At least, that has been my experience.

      I'm a sysadmin, and have worked with Dell and their systems for the last 10 years.

      I find they generally have a lower failure rate than other manufacturers I have used in the past, and their tech support has been second to none. I call them up, I get someone in North America, I explain what the problem is and how I've reached my diagnostic conclusion, and I have the par

      • Re:It's just business? (Score:5, Informative)

        by AKAImBatman ( 238306 ) <`akaimbatman' `at' `gmail.com'> on Wednesday May 28, 2008 @02:48PM (#23575165) Homepage Journal

        I find they generally have a lower failure rate than other manufacturers I have used in the past, and their tech support has been second to none.

        To offer a counter-point, my last place of work saw regular failures with our Dell server equipment. My personal favorite was when the SQL Server database went offline and no one could figure out why. At first it appeared to be a disk failure. But if that was the case, why didn't the RAID array continue working with the other drives? Turns out, the RAID controller failed. Corrupted all the data on the disks, too. We had to pull the previous day's backup and apologize to customers that the day's data had been lost. (Thankfully it happened on a Saturday.)

      • Re:It's just business? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by SatanicPuppy ( 611928 ) * <Satanicpuppy@gmai[ ]om ['l.c' in gap]> on Wednesday May 28, 2008 @02:51PM (#23575207) Journal
        Pack it in schill. I had 5 servers with bad RAID cards a few years back (PERC 3 cards) and they managed to utterly corrupt the raid in almost every case, to the point where it could not be rebuilt but only restored from backup. It's only almost because I refused to let the guy touch it the last time, and, magically, that time it recovered normally.

        I've had printer techs who couldn't take a printer apart. I've had server technicians who couldn't handle basic terminology. I had hours and hours of sitting on the phone with optiplex capacitor problems trying to convince them to just fricking replace the motherboard like they claimed they were doing on their website. This is fricking GOLD corporate support here! I'm glad they got nailed, they richly deserved it.

        Just as a footnote, we switched to HP about 18 months ago, and I have no idea what their customer service is like because we haven't had to call it yet.
        • I'm no Dell schill...all my home equipment is OEM parts from the local computer supply. And I have no reason to doubt what you've said...you've had serious problems, and believe me, I fucking feel your pain...nothing worse than a server going to hell on you with a faulty controller card. I'm only relating my personal experience with Dell & their tech support - I don't believe Dell marks the second coming of christ, or that Michael Dell somehow shits pure computing gold. Due to my lack of problems, an

        • Re:It's just business? (Score:4, Informative)

          by Ephemeriis ( 315124 ) on Wednesday May 28, 2008 @03:59PM (#23576361)
          We're an "authorized Dell reseller" if that matters to you.

          We, obviously, recommend Dell to pretty much all our clients. The failure rate for individual machines and components is about what I'd expect from any manufacturer.

          Their technical support is generally OK for the business-grade stuff (like your GOLD support) and crap for home customers. But I won't rave about it. I've been on the phone with absolute morons entirely too many times.

          I've had printer techs who couldn't take a printer apart. I've had server technicians who couldn't handle basic terminology. I had hours and hours of sitting on the phone with optiplex capacitor problems trying to convince them to just fricking replace the motherboard like they claimed they were doing on their website. This is fricking GOLD corporate support here! I'm glad they got nailed, they richly deserved it.
          The problem is that Dell's on-site tech support is all outsourced to someone more local. We were, for a while, an authorized service center as well as reseller. We'd get the calls to go swap out somebody's motherboard or whatever. And I'll tell you right now that their testing/training does not qualify someone to actually work on their products. You really need the hands-on experience, which you don't get with their testing/training process.

          We'd get sent out on calls to work on their printers because were were authorized and someone had taken the test... But we weren't given any special technical documentation. So we had no better idea where the parts were located inside any given printer than the end-user did.

          Eventually it got too frustrating and we stopped doing the service calls.

          • Re:It's just business? (Score:4, Insightful)

            by Feanturi ( 99866 ) on Wednesday May 28, 2008 @04:35PM (#23576927)
            And I'll tell you right now that their testing/training does not qualify someone to actually work on their products. You really need the hands-on experience, which you don't get with their testing/training process.

            I can attest to this - I worked for Dell for three years until they just recently shut down our call center (the Edmonton site, in Canada - curse our rising dollar!). For the past year my job was to field calls from the onsite technicians Dell sends out to fix laser printers. They'd call in having no idea what they were supposed to do, and would frequently make the problem worse in their struggles, prompting me to replace the whole printer rather than trying to replace the parts the tech broke, since it would just be the same inexperienced/untrainable tech going back out with the new parts. It wasn't always a training or documentation issue either though, these contracted locals were often bottom-of-the-barrel labor force types that had no concept of basic troubleshooting. You get what you pay for.

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by Bobb Sledd ( 307434 )
          OH, let me tell you.

          I work for the government. Apparently much of our equipment has contracts for support.

          This particular item did not.

          So I had a network printer where the network card failed. I also found out that it was a NIC that was on a faulty replacement list.

          So, I called HP support and explained to the person my problem. "OK, we will need $59 by credit card to speak with technical support." He says.

          "But the card is on the faulty NIC card list, I shouldn't need to give you anything."

          Still refused.

        • Re:It's just business? (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 28, 2008 @05:33PM (#23577903)
          Dell doesn't do onsite service. They outsource it to Unisys [unisys.com] and BancTec. Don't expect better service from HP as they do the same.

          As far as quality of the actual systems goes, all of the pieces, if not the final assembly, are done by ASUS, Foxconn and a handful of other overseas companies. Dell and HP are marketing and distribution companies.

          Anecdotal evidence of support problems will not prove a case either way. Statistically all of the major hardware companies are very similar. Shipments to support cases is around 4%.

          The reason everyone (and I do mean everyone) has shitty support. Is that tech support is a shit job. Anyone who has ever worked the phones will tell you this. Most techs last around 6 months to a year. Consumer support, speaking with the unwashed masses, 8 to 12 hours a day, trying to squeeze bits of useful information out of the lady on the other end of the line who thinks her monitor is her computer. Who installed Microsoft Live Support AND Norton 360 with all the addons even though their system with Preloaded with McAfee. The guy sticking floppy disks in jewel cases and shoving them in the CD drive. Angry people trying to get you too pay their phone bill because they downloaded a porn dialer. The guy with wire snips trying to cut his AGP video card to make it fit in a PCI Express slot. Who is pissed off because everyone keeps telling him he can't.

          *twitch*

          Anyone that even comes close to having a clue will find a better job. I promise.
      • You realize of course the complain is about CONSUMER products and services, right?

        If you call as a consumer, you get "Joe" from India, and all the problems described.

      • I too had the Optiplex line in my ranks with a different problem involving the power connection. It happened to 10 machines by the time I started working for this company. After I realized that it was a recurring issue and knew I had 30 left I tried to get Dell to send me a bunch of replacements, no go. Contrast that with a PSU issue for Gateway about 8 years ago, I identified a common problem and they just asked for all the serial numbers of the affected boxes. Once they had that I received a shipment the

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by meatspray ( 59961 )
        We deal exclusively with Dell, (about 800 end user units and 75 servers) their business support is indeed top notch. I was somewhat dismayed when I called in on my parents home system a year ago and ended up in India with someone reading from a script in broken English without any idea how to troubleshoot.

        It depends on who you are, what you bought, what time you call and luck of the dice....

    • People buy Dells because they are so freaking cheap. Apparently some people expect to get someone to hold their hand too for that price. Silly people.
      • Freaking cheap...

        Well I don't know in the states but here in Europe they usually give you price...and It means nothing. To get the price you must follow the little (*)
        So the laptop of your dream is at Eur 499(*) and the real price is Eur 694.54. Then you compare the 'real' price with competitors and suddently Dell isn't that cheap...In fact, the price is almost same and in sometimes more expensive.

        The real advantage (and I guess that is what you meant) are their discounts. There you can get sometimes g

        • It's the same here, and in some respects, yes, that's cheap.

          But I used to buy top of the line dell's for my home use (this is almost a decade ago now), and shelling 3,500 dollars for a machine that is basically un-upgradable is the opposite of cheap, especially when you know that their motherboards are utter crap, and their power supplies are barely adequate (and expensive to replace, due to proprietary connectors).

          I haven't bought a dell for personal use since 1999, and the crap I deal with on the ones at

    • Re:It's just business? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by qortra ( 591818 ) on Wednesday May 28, 2008 @02:37PM (#23574993)
      I'm willing to bet that average end users get a much different experience then corporate customers, but I can provide my experience as a corporate customer.

      The small business at which I work purchases Dells in low volume, and has a few smaller Dell servers (really, glorified NAS units). Their support for our company has been exceptional. Just troll through my posts to see that I am absolutely not a Dell shill - I dislike Windows, I dislike Dell supplied crapware, I think their systems are ugly, and I would never personally purchase a Dell. However, all those things aside, corporate and server support is truly excellent at Dell. When I have problems (which is comparatively rare), I get personally attention, overnight shipping of replacements, people who speak flawless English, and courteous follow-ups after the problem has presumably been solved.

      One might claim that, by supporting their small-business clients well, it makes their poor consumer support all the more inexcusable - I won't argue that point one way or the other. All I can say that is that there are support sub-infrastructures at Dell that are excellent.
      • I would say you would win that bet. The last time i contacted Dell (part replacement for an in-law) After being on hold forever, I got an agent that spoke terrible English. He actually said "U as in Eugene" when going over the service code. I also think he was in training, every response took at least a minute. He used the mute button quite a bit, and had difficulty explaining his answers, like he didn't really understand what he was saying.

        In Dell's defense, I got the same quality of support from HP.

      • Re:It's just business? (Score:5, Informative)

        by Volante3192 ( 953645 ) on Wednesday May 28, 2008 @02:54PM (#23575279)
        I'm willing to bet that average end users get a much different experience then corporate customers, but I can provide my experience as a corporate customer.

        Based on personal experience, you'd win that bet.

        Laptop my boss purchased for personal use, Latitude (well, consumer line...I don't recall if that's the Latitude or not). Busted keyboard. Literally ended up taking MONTHS to get it replaced.

        Stupid techs never listened to the diagnostics, best part was it got shipped to a repair depot, they turn it on, "Computer turns on fine. User needs to type password in." was the return. NEVER actually typed anything otherwise they'd see the keys jam and repeat.

        Fortunatly, since the initial issue was placed before the warranty expired, all work was done under warranty (even though it was finally fixed 4 months AFTER the expiration date.)

        However, on our Optiplexes and Inspirons, service is all but flawless. PowerEdge support is like five nines of satisfaction, and the PowerVault tape loaders? Best. Support. EVER. They'll literally bend over backwards to support those devices.

        I cannot, for the life of me, recall one single instance where I have been completely disappointed by Dell support on our business class products, and we've had to call in about 40 LCDs, 40 HDs, 30 PSUs, and single digit quantities of mobos, cd-rom drives, RAM, and LTO tapes.

    • Re:It's just business? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 28, 2008 @03:15PM (#23575617)
      I worked as a phone tech support guy for Dell, and I'm of two minds about this.

      On the one hand, at no point was I ever encouraged to give less than anything but the highest quality service. There was no "nudge, nudge, wink, wink" about getting customers off the phone without really helping them, no prodding - subtle or otherwise - to cut corners. We were required to stay on a call for as long as it took to get it right, even though call times were of course monitored.

      However, they treated us like crap. Although Dell had put a fair amount of time into training the techs, we were treated like service employees rather than technical professionals, and there were never enough people. Trust me, when you, as a customer, were sitting on hold for hours at a time, it wasn't because the call center folks were goofing off or whatever. It's because we were backed up like you wouldn't believe, because Dell was too cheap to hire enough technicians.

      I worked for Dell tech support, and I've had three friends who did as well. There was/is absolutely no conspiracy to deny customers their service - on an individual-call level, Dell demands high quality performance from its techs. However, there was/is systemic disregard for the techs, their expertise, and their workloads, which led to, naturally, a shortage of highly qualified individuals (meaning that in many cases, Dell could only hire marginally qualified people, like myself), which exacerbated hold times as well as lowered the quality of service once the customer got a technician to talk to. There were also some glitches in the system as far as how transfers between departments were handled.

      Customers never *intentionally* received the short shrift at Dell. We were all working as hard as we could. But poor employment practices often undercut customer service.

      • Re:It's just business? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by greyspectre ( 1114091 ) on Wednesday May 28, 2008 @04:09PM (#23576517)

        Customers never *intentionally* received the short shrift at Dell. We were all working as hard as we could. But poor employment practices often undercut customer service.
        Exactly. As an escaped Dell tech (four years clean and sober, thank god!), I can verify that we were absolutely required to support our customer through to resolution of problem, 100% of the time. If we had to send parts, we sent parts. If we needed a tech and parts, we sent a tech and parts. If they needed a system replacement, we could swing that too.

        Where things fell short was in the quality of people that they chose. The Gold Technical Support team was advertised as the equivilant of Tier II consumer support at Tier I. The ad for the job indicated that 'advanced technical skill' was a requirement. I thought that I could put my skills to use in such an environment, and it wouldn't be like the wonderful folks I worked with at HP DeskJet support while I was in college.

        When I got there, it was apparent that they were picking these people up off the street by driving up next to them, slinging a bag over their head, and dragging them to the training classes. If you could breathe through your mouth and manage to read a script, you were good enough to be on the front lines of Dell's premier technical support.

        Once you were inside, things changed. If you went over the desired average call time, you would have a Tier II standing at your desk, asking if they could "help" so you could move on to the next person. It wasn't because call time was so much a strict requirement as much as we always were 150+ deep in queue, and there was a two minute answer time guarantee. Of course, the center was only ever half-full, with 350 people on-duty for freaking Monday morning, and more than half of those employed because they had a pulse and could read. The return for this sojurn in paradise was a pool table in the break room, and a sandwich machine that only ever seemed to have ancient egg salad sandwiches in it. Needless to say, I escaped.

        Now, as an IT admin, I choose Dell because I know how to game the system to get what I need, when I need it, every time. I have no illusions as to the inherent quality of their wares, and I would never purchase something from the consumer side of things.

        I also never, ever call on Monday.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by HardCase ( 14757 )
      Let me tell you about my experience with tech support. I used to be a manager in the tech support department of what used to be one of the top five computer companies in the US. OK, it's been long enough now, that I feel comfortable enough to say that it was Micron Electronics.

      Our tech support was consistently rated number one. Better than Dell. Better than Gateway. Better, even, than Apple. And we worked our asses off to do it. We had two call centers in the US. We had a group dedicated to email su

  • This is a no-brainer (Score:5, Interesting)

    by moderatorrater ( 1095745 ) on Wednesday May 28, 2008 @02:22PM (#23574745)
    Provide the damn support. Make it simple, easy to use and easy to understand. Support's the sort of thing that makes you customers for life or loses customers for life. Giving them long hold times, poor service, or even someone with an accent will taint their experience with that product forever. Whenever someone comments on the computer, the owner will tell the story of the bad service. When they go to buy their next computer, they'll buy anywhere else unless there's a very compelling reason to stick with Dell.

    p.s. the accent comment also means any strong accent, even southern or north eastern ones. Strong accents are, however, easier to find outside of the country.

    • Re:This is a no-brainer (Score:5, Funny)

      by oodaloop ( 1229816 ) on Wednesday May 28, 2008 @02:25PM (#23574799)

      the accent comment also means any strong accent, even southern or north eastern ones.
      Yeah, there's nothing I hate more than calling tech support and getting Mayor Quimby.

    • Provide the damn support.
      When you make money selling crap that will prematurely fail, you can't afford to support it!

    • Re:This is a no-brainer (Score:4, Funny)

      by sm62704 ( 957197 ) on Wednesday May 28, 2008 @02:53PM (#23575255) Journal
      Support's the sort of thing that makes you customers for life or loses customers for life

      Customers? Fuck the customers. Who needs customers? Customers are a dime a dozen. There are six billion prospective customers on this planet and there are more customers born every day.

      That's the 21st century way of doing business.

      As to the accent, you won't find many American accents that can't be parsed by someone in America. The accent has two bad things in people's minds. First, when you call someone for support you expect them to speak the language that you used to buy the product, and what's more to speak it fluently and understandably.

      Second, if the phone jockey has a foreign accent, the person calling for support is reminded that the thieving, unpatriotic bastards they bought the product from are shipping American jobs overseas. Nobody likes a traitor, and an "American" company that ships jobs overseas is seen by working people as traitorous. Because you know, it IS traitorous. Only a traitor sells out his native country for filthy lucre.

      • Re:This is a no-brainer (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Feanturi ( 99866 ) on Wednesday May 28, 2008 @04:19PM (#23576665)
        Heh, there are plenty of Americans that are difficult to understand, especially as you go further south. The ones that pronounce the letter "R" with two syllables drive me nuts (sounds almost like they're attempting to say "error"), and there's usually a lot of "could you rephrase that please?" coming from me. Pronunciation aside, there are also quite a few Americans that have such horrible grammar that you need a linguistics degree to figure out what they are trying to communicate.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by zakezuke ( 229119 )

      p.s. the accent comment also means any strong accent, even southern or north eastern ones. Strong accents are, however, easier to find outside of the country.

      I found that support outside of this country, while access tend to be stronger, often are easier to understand than natives. Case in point... I think I was getting support on a tape drive unit back in the day where it was normal to buy a Wangtek mech, slap it in a case, offer some qic-02 / qic-36 board and some minimal dedicated software. Drivers? We don't need no stinking drivers.

      Anyhow I was told "You were fishing for crawdads and got your self a june bug, better sketter those gizzards and hush that p

  • Triumph or tragedy? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Bombula ( 670389 ) on Wednesday May 28, 2008 @02:22PM (#23574747)
    While it's great that a big corporation is being held liable for false advertising, aren't there worse examples out there than computer technical support? What about false advertising for medicines, diets, and health-related products and services? Alternative medicine is one gigantic - and very dangerous - scam. What about all the food product labeling - low fat, organic, and all that meaningless garbage that is totally deceptive? And what about the goddamn P3N15 3nlArgment pi11s I paid through the nose for - those farking things didn't work AT ALL!

    • Re:Triumph or tragedy? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by SatanicPuppy ( 611928 ) * <Satanicpuppy@gmai[ ]om ['l.c' in gap]> on Wednesday May 28, 2008 @02:40PM (#23575037) Journal
      So holding a company accountable is a bad thing because they didn't hold every company accountable at the same time?

      Whenever one company is held accountable it makes it easier for others to be held accountable.

      Anyway, the class action suits do a decent job of holding big pharma in check. Juries just don't give out the same awards because your computer repair was a couple of days late.

      • So holding a company accountable is a bad thing because they didn't hold every company accountable at the same time?

        Whenever one company is held accountable it makes it easier for others to be held accountable.

        Anyway, the class action suits do a decent job of holding big pharma in check. Juries just don't give out the same awards because your computer repair was a couple of days late.

        1) Dell tech support isn't half bad.

        2) You think that "big pharma" is currently "in check?" The insane markups and massive profiteering that occur at the expense of millions of lives a year are the happy result of our effective class action lawsuits? Just checking.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by alen ( 225700 )
      anything labeled USDA Organic has to adhere to very strict standards. It takes a farmer at least 3 years to transition to growing organic fruits and vegetables with inspections each step of the way

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by sm62704 ( 957197 )
      So, you're saying that burglars shouldn't be prosecuted because armed robbers are worse?
    • To answer your question.. diet and health related products and services clearly have disclaimers that results are typical, or the item isn't used to cure any disease. In other words, read the box, and you have the truth (not to mention the bottom of the commercial).

      Regarding food labeling: there are VERY strict guidelines concerning what is considered low fat, organic and natural. For example, low fat means 3g or less fat per serving.

      http://lowfatcooking.about.com/od/lowfatbasics/a/fatlabels.htm [about.com]
      http://ww [usda.gov]

  • Dell guy quoteth: (Score:5, Funny)

    by Applekid ( 993327 ) on Wednesday May 28, 2008 @02:23PM (#23574765)
    "Dude, you're getting a fine!"

    • The sad thing about fines is (Score:4, Interesting)

      by swb ( 14022 ) on Wednesday May 28, 2008 @03:18PM (#23575677)
      ...that the sharp pencils at Dell probably figured out that the savings they made on sleazy behavior are profitable in spite of the fines.

      IMHO, the fines levied should be something like 3x profits from bad behavior so that we get around this "fines as a cost of doing business" mentality.

  • Not my experience (Score:4, Informative)

    by TomRK1089 ( 1270906 ) on Wednesday May 28, 2008 @02:25PM (#23574783)
    Personally I've not experienced these practices the article speaks of. My video card died on my Latitude D630 about a month ago, and it took me all of 30 minutes to speak with a technical support staffer on the Dell website and schedule someone to come out the next day. Maybe this is a case of "you get what you pay for," since I've got the next-day service contract -- maybe people with lesser maintenance contracts and whatnot get the runaround. Just my perspective.

    • Re:Not my experience (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Oxy the moron ( 770724 ) on Wednesday May 28, 2008 @02:28PM (#23574841)

      You also have the "higher-class" business line in the Latitude and not the "lower-class" lines such as the Inspiron or the Vostro. My experience has shown that just this small difference in PC selection can make a huge difference in quality of service.

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Collective 0-0009 ( 1294662 )
        Unfortunately (or not) I am removing Outlook 2007 right now and can't get to the email. But if you have an account with Dell, you can now pass their tech certification course and skip their tech support all together. From what I remember you can troubleshoot the computer and order the replacement part yourself. Couple hours later, it arrives and you replace it yourself. No tech support, no stupid on-site tech. I have signed up to take the test, but didn't get much further than that...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by og_sh0x ( 520297 )
      The Latitude D630 is a business class laptop. Try that with an Inspiron and you'll get a very different experience, I assure you. I support a network with over 350 Dell machines, and I never have the kind of service from Dell that was described in this artcle, because we use all Latitude and Optiplex. One day my cousin, who had a Dimension (consumer class Dell desktop,) had a hardware failure and asked me to help her call tech support. I had a tech support experience much like the one described in TFA when

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by TheLink ( 130905 )
        The way I see it, support quality could vary from region to region. If you want support, try calling the support number before you decide who to buy from. If they don't answer, go figure :).

        My aunt bought an Inspiron in Malaysia, to use in NZ where she lives, and I told her to go for the "Complete Cover" thing. Sure Dell's "Complete Cover" _might_ be overpriced etc etc, but I figured it would be less hassle than getting the notebook insured, successfully getting a claim and getting whatever problem fixed. A

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Pingh ( 1130313 )
      I can't say I've had any bad experience with Dell for support. Amoung the items I purchased was a 32" TV. When it arrived and I plugged it in, it went into a constant cycle of reboots which made it impossible to do anything with. A quick call and they had a replacement in 2 days, and free shipping on returning the defective item.

      Another thing I like about Dell support is that if you're in an IT firm, you can qualify yourself as Dell certified. That way when you call in you can basically say 'Hey the hd

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by og_sh0x ( 520297 )
        You can easily bypass the "20 questions" runaround with Dell Business warranty support without getting their "certification" by simply telling them what part is dead immediately followed by the phrase "I swapped for a known good from another machine of the same model and the problem was solved." This works for me every time.
    • Does the "next day" refer to the phone hold time?

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by sm62704 ( 957197 )
      You don't always get what you pay for - that's what the trial was all about. You do, however, usually pay for what you get, although not always.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by IorDMUX ( 870522 )

      maybe people with lesser maintenance contracts and whatnot get the runaround.

      Yep.
      I've dealt with Dell both as a home user (my wife's old laptop, now she uses a Mac) and as a corporate customer. There is a world of difference between the two. Their special line for big-money users is really worlds different from their oft-complained-about home user's customer support

      When I represented the big contract, I gave the first guy I talked to an ID number, then was transferred to a friendly support representative. I explained my problem (four failed hard drives--in one month, no less,

  • Wrong ad for the article (Score:4, Funny)

    by jmichaelg ( 148257 ) on Wednesday May 28, 2008 @02:31PM (#23574887) Journal
    Sometimes computer-placed advertising just ain't what it's cut out to be.

    On the way to rtfa, a full-screen Dell ad popped up.

    Or perhaps, the software is very, very clever and Dell was trying to discourage me from continuing on to read the article.

  • Good. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Xest ( 935314 ) on Wednesday May 28, 2008 @02:31PM (#23574895)
    They deserve a kicking in the courts, it took me 3months for them to repair my laptop properly - it went back 3 times and came back still broken 3 times and took 6 months to resolve the issue once and for all. The issue was a knackered graphics card, display corruption as soon as you boot up even on an external device although after they "fixed" it the second time it came back with the same corruption and after 5mins died completely and failed to boot at all at which point their tech support before offering to repair it properly ran me through a series of diagnostics and intelligent questions like "What is the error message". Quite what error message he was expecting from a laptop which I quite clearly explained initially had display corruption (although explaining "display corruption" to someone who doesn't natively speak English in a call centre is hard enough and shouldn't be something I have to do) preventing viewing of any error if there was one to start with followed by not even powering on at all by the time I called them I've no idea, but then, that's Dell.

    In the end they decided to just replace it, told me to send the old one back when the new one was delivered but the courier guy said he only had a drop off.

    I phoned Dell 3 times over the next 6 months to collect it and they told me the courier would be there on certain days yet never arrived yet I've never once had a courier let me down here despite using them like once or twice a week for the last 8 years so it was blatantly them not organising it.

    After that period Dell decided to threaten me for not letting them have the laptop back by charging my card used for the original purchase 2 years prior for the new laptop despite me making every attempt to get it back to them and them not actually being arsed to properly arrange to collect it. When it came to it cost me a sizeable amount of cash in phone bills, hours on the phone trying to sort it out,

    Worst company EVER. It's just a shame they didn't get a harder kicking than this. They used to be awesome, now I wouldn't touch them ever again no matter how able they are to improve because I went in to their service buying the laptop when they were still half-decent and watch them devolve into sheer incompetence and worthlessness over the next few years at which point as unfortunately needed their assistance as above.

    Other practices I've noticed they used not mentioned here in the UK is they advertise really good offers on some hardware but when you phone up to purchase it when it's a phone only offer they say the offer doesn't really exist and try and sell you it for up to £100 more, I spoke to trading standards and they said they can do this as long as they sell at least some laptops for the offer price, even if that's only to 2 people in a population of 60 million despite blatantly infering that the offer is open to everyone until the end of the offer data.

    All that said, I'm not sure there's really a better option out there for things like laptops either - all the major tech companies seem just as bad.
  • Vonage, for example.
    • I find Vonage to be very helpful.

      OF course, I:

      - figure out everything I can and have the info at my fingertips when I call
      - always treat the person on the other end of the phone with courtesy and respect, even when the only verb tense they know is present participle
      - don't expect miracles from entry-level tech support
      - have been with them for years and they value me as a customer
  • Dell said in a statement. "We believe that our customer service levels are at or above industry standards."
  • I have never had good luck with talking with Dell on the phone but the online chat tech support option has usually been very effective. That is of course if you have a machine that is running to chat with them, preferably a different machine than the one you are inquiring about.
  • Yes, Bell, I'm talking about you, and I'm not even a direct Bell customer (but they do own/manage the lines). I'm *still* trying to figure out how to get Bell to fix the intercom for my apartment, which they broke when installing the dry-loop for my ADSL. According to them, the only way to have both is to get an actual phone line (with Bell, of course) and then have the intercom reconnected through that.

    Seems to me that they *could* install a line-filter on the intercom (or add another line beside the dry
  • When I owned a Dell, I couldn't talk to anyone before going through India first. Once I got a really knowledgeable person on the other end, but for the most part, the Indians were incompetent and did everything they could to stall me from getting in-home service from my contract. My computer's motherboard was replaced 7 times in the few years that I owned it. Several times it was because the SMT ethernet or USB ports came loose from the motherboard. So Dell spent $800 to fix a $0.10 part.
  • Between the news of McClellan's book and now this, I've said, "Well, Duh!" twice today.
  • Personally, I believe it totally awesome that when linking to the reference article, that I get a full page advert for Dell that you can't avoid watching before you can skip by it.

    Advertising on the article that announces your conviction of false advertising.

    ...

    Just wow.

  • ... I paid a fair chunk of change to get next-day on site support. When I needed it, what it really meant was "they'll schedule with their subcontractor by the next day". Which in turn became, "The subcontractor schedules with their own subcontractor". Which added up to 7 days.

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