Dell Computers and Customer Service

Wow, has it really been 18 days since I last posted?? Scary! Well, today's topic should shed a little light on why I have been gone so long.

I become a Dell customer one year and five months ago when I purchased an Inspiron 300m notebook from them. Being so happy with my purchase, I then I bought a printer. Still happy, I referred my mom to Dell. She bought a Desktop. I bought her a printer. I referred lots of people to Dell, some of whom actually purchased Dell products.

Then one day back in July 2004, I saw this little smiley face that was beginning to be burned into my LCD. I searched the Dell Community Forums and saw that many others had the problem. Being that it was a known problem and I was still under warranty, Dell happily and somewhat quickly replaced the LCD and gave me a free bluetooth card for my trouble. I was saying hoooooooray for Dell! So I bought I bought a Dell Axim x30 Pocket PC. And for a time, life was good.

That's right, I said for a time. I (perhaps stupidly) let my warranty run out after 1 year. Five months later(2/26 to be exact), I noticed that while my notebook was plugged in and on it was running on batter power. I figured the adapter came unplugged or loose or the outlet went dead. Not the case. So I contacted Tech Support. I did some more tinkering (flashed the BIOS, removed the battery, etc.). Nothing worked. So I bought a new A/C Adapter. It came (after a brouhaha over shipping) after 5 days of having no power to my computer. I very excitedly plugged it in and viola! NOTHING. The shipping brouhaha did result in my getting a nice $50 concession coupon for my next purchase. How nice.

So, I contacted Tech Support who said that my motherboard needs to replaced and I need to call two numbers to get that set up and since I am out of warranty, I would have to pay before I sent it in. So I called Out of Warranty Service. They very cheerily told me that the cost to replace the motherboard was $699 plus tax. I said no no, Tina is not going to pay that amount of money for that. I searched the Dell Community Forums again and found that a good number of Dell notebook owners had the same exact problem. I thought to myself "Dell wants me to pay $699 to replace an unreliable product???" I DON'T THINK SO.

I contacted Customer Care (they don't really care) and the first rep I spoke to actually advised me to buy another cheaper dinky notebook (worth less than the cost of the new motherboard) and sell my old piece of junk on eBay. Ummmm no. Then he offered me a $50 rebate on the repair or a $100 coupon. Ummm no. His supervisor offered me $75 towards the repair. Still, no. I contacted Tech support, who could offer me no better.

I contacted Customer Care again. This time I got offered a $100 rebate on the repair. Aha! Now we are moving up in the world, but still, NO. I wanted a free repair or the option to purchase an extended warranty that could be made retroactive to cover this repair. All they kept saying is "no, sorry, you are out of warranty".

What does all this mean? You get what you pay for with Dell. Cheap prices, cheap product. Many companies nowadays make a good chuck of their profits off the sale of warranties, so it really isn't too bad a deal for Dell. I would say don't buy a Dell if you are not willing to purchase an extended warranty. But if you are going to go ahead and shell out more cash, why not go for a studier, more reliable product? I am currently looking into either a Sony Vaio or a Mac PowerBook. I will most likely go with the Vaio, but who knows.

I will be sure to let you know what I get and give it a review. In the mean time, I will post a review (finally) of Places Left Unfinished at the Time of Creation. Next on the reading list is either Sister Helen Prejean's Death of Innocents or The Rising from the Left Behind series. But I digress, it is time for the bottom line.

Bottom Line: Don't buy Dell, I NO LONGER recommend them, I own a dead Dell.