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Dell Customer Service: a warning

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Douglas Griffin 09 Jan 2015
Ordered new laptop and monitor from Dell, just before Xmas.

Arrived Wed 24 Dec; both boxes very badly damaged. Refused to accept them; telephoned Dell Customer Support. Was told that replacements would be sent right away and that an E-mail confirmation to that effect would be sent.

Wasn't expecting to get anything Thu/Fri (Xmas Day/Boxing Day)!

Following Monday - nothing by mid-day, so I phoned to see what was happening. Told I'd get an E-mail Tuesday am at the latest. Tuesday noon, nothing - same again. Wednesday noon (31 Dec), finally got through to someone who knew what they were speaking about, told that no, there wouldn't be a replacement but instead I'd be offered a full refund, but that it would be another week before I got this.

So, that deadline came and went, and still no refund. Today I've been told that it'll be another week before we see the money.

There seems to have been a problem in returning the damaged goods to Dell - Dell's policy is not to refund until they have received the damaged packages. (I have had this confirmed today via Dell's online Twitter support.) In the meantime, we are out of pocket to the tune of nearly £1k.

I'm not sure whether Dell's policy re. refunds is the same as other companies but it seems they may be in contravention of UK Consumer Law:
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2013/3134/contents/made
which requires the trader to offer a refund "without undue delay", and in any case within 14 (Calendar) days from when it was clear that a refund would be needed, i.e. by last Monday at the absolute latest.

Goes without saying that when (if?) we eventually do see the money, we won't be spending it on a Dell product.
Flatus Vetus 09 Jan 2015
In reply to Douglas Griffin:

Sadly I purchased a £1200 package from Dell on 3rd December. I'm still waiting for it.
Douglas Griffin 09 Jan 2015
In reply to Flatus Vetus:

Bloody Hell!
 balmybaldwin 09 Jan 2015
In reply to Douglas Griffin:
What courier was it? Citilink have gone bust in the meantime not to mention loads were up the spout over xmas due to black friday volumes.
Post edited at 22:18
Douglas Griffin 09 Jan 2015
In reply to balmybaldwin:

It was UK Mail.
KevinD 09 Jan 2015
In reply to Douglas Griffin:

> Goes without saying that when (if?) we eventually do see the money, we won't be spending it on a Dell product.

Dell have always had a so so reputation when dealing with joe bloggs as opposed to the corporates.
Picked up a new computer from Chillblast recently. good service.
Douglas Griffin 09 Jan 2015
In reply to dissonance:

Ta for the tip.
 balmybaldwin 09 Jan 2015
In reply to Douglas Griffin:

Ive had bad experiences with them before, except they signed for a phone they delivered to my neighbour who was away for 3 weeks.
 RichardP 10 Jan 2015
In reply to Douglas Griffin:

contact your credit card company,
explain what happened and they should do a charge back
 Philip 10 Jan 2015
In reply to Douglas Griffin:

Like all large companies, dell can be hit and miss. I use them for machines for work, sometimes they arrive next day other times the machines disappears in their system and they cancel your order.

It's good to get it out of your system, but I bet you buy from them again. You obviously picked them in the first place despite the reputation, and there's pretty much only one reason to go for dell - price. The machines are a lot less reconfigurable than they used to be 10 years ago, and they're the price they are because the components are not the newest.

If you want another option for cheap, try ebuyer. If you want something that will last get a smaller company to build you something.
Douglas Griffin 10 Jan 2015
In reply to Philip:

> It's good to get it out of your system, but I bet you buy from them again.

Bet you I don't.

Douglas Griffin 10 Jan 2015
In reply to RichardP:

Will try that; thanks.
 Bruce Hooker 10 Jan 2015
In reply to Douglas Griffin:

I heard they were in difficulty not long ago. I have one because my brother in law swears by them. He maintains PCs in a university and they have maybe a thousand of them. I'm quite pleased with mine apart from the battery going after a couple of years but both of us were a little put off to discover they were run by that crew in Salt Lake City!
Douglas Griffin 10 Jan 2015
In reply to Bruce Hooker:

We've had 5 or 6 in a row from them. They've generally been very reliable.
In reply to Douglas Griffin:

I bought a new Dell desktop a year ago in the US. In the three days I had it, it caused more trouble (crashing completely on several occasions) than all the other computers I have bought for myself and my children over the last 20 years, added together. I was on the phone to the Dell help desk for a large part of those three days. The machine was so dysfunctional, it was actually difficult to tell whether the problems were caused by hardware or software faults, or both. The Dell help desk couldn't not sort it out, so I took the machine back to the shop and got my money back.

Do yourself and get yourself another make of computer, such as Lenovo or Toshiba.
Douglas Griffin 10 Jan 2015
In reply to John Stainforth:

We've found them to be generally pretty reliable, but I'll certainly be looking elsewhere for the next one!
 Indy 10 Jan 2015
In reply to Douglas Griffin:
> which requires the trader to offer a refund "without undue delay", and in any case within 14 (Calendar) days from when it was clear that a refund would be needed, i.e. by last Monday at the absolute latest.

Surely it's not unreasonable to want goods to the value of £1000 back in your possession before giving a refund... no? I do though understand your frustration.
In reply to Indy:

> Surely it's not unreasonable to want goods to the value of £1000 back in your possession before giving a refund... no?

The goods were never delivered (Doug refused to accept delivery of them). Therefore, they were in the hands of Dell's chosen courier, and therefore, IMHO, Dell's responsibility.

Now, what the courier told Dell had happened to the delivery is another matter...

Having bought a TV yesterday that turned out to have a broken screen, I'll be very of accepting anything with even what looks like moderate damage to the box; on closer inspection of the box, one corner had about 1" of crumpling in the corner, that looked pretty innocuous, but is probably evidence of the impact that broke the screen. Fortunately, Sainsbury's didn't quibble one bit, and despatched a replacement that evening with an employee on their way home... Problem resolved within 3 hours, which I think is exceptional service.
Douglas Griffin 12 Jan 2015
In reply to Indy:

> Surely it's not unreasonable to want goods to the value of £1000 back in your possession before giving a refund... no?

That's not what the law says.
 hamsforlegs 12 Jan 2015
In reply to Douglas Griffin:

I've bought several times from Dell; they are just very good value.

However, I do so in the expectation that customer service/support will not be there in any form if something goes wrong.

Sadly, the delayed refund trick seems to be standard practice for Dell; loads of people on the forums left out of pocket as a result.

Generally corporate contracts seem to be handled better, but even then I have heard mixed stories from the tech support folk that I know and work with.

The way I see it, Dell is likely to be good value for me on average, but I'll probably have to write off a purchase at some point.

To be clear, I've had no problems and have had a number of good machines from them.
 Indy 12 Jan 2015
In reply to captain paranoia:

> The goods were never delivered (Doug refused to accept delivery of them). Therefore, they were in the hands of Dell's chosen courier, and therefore, IMHO, Dell's responsibility.

I suspect the small print in the contract says something like once its left our premisis then it will have been deem delivered until we recieve the item back or some such.
 IPPurewater 12 Jan 2015
In reply to Douglas Griffin:

I've had very poor service from Dell in the past. I wouldn't touch them with a barge pole again.

Got my last PC from Overclockers.co.uk - they were very good !
 Xharlie 13 Jan 2015
In reply to Douglas Griffin:

Last machine I bought was also from Dell - will never deal with them again, either.

It took them two months to deliver it, with multiple botched payment transfers and weirdly cancelled orders and when they did deliver it, they had put the wrong components in it. It took them another six months to send me the correct components and I had to manually replace the incorrect ones. It was a laptop and replacing something as simple as RAM required the removal and replacement of 42 screws in a specific order. I had to do that twice because the first set of replacement RAM that they sent me was the wrong voltage - something I only discovered AFTER I had seated it.

The thing that confuses me is that MOST of Dell's problems are trivial to solve. So many people complain that their orders are cancelled with no reason and no notification, even after payment is made. Isn't the obvious solution simply to NOT cancel people's orders? How hard is that?

Douglas Griffin 14 Jan 2015
In reply to Douglas Griffin:

Update: still no sign of the money from Dell - they have told me that the refund has been processed but that it will take a further 4 working days (at least) until it appears in our account. So, by Dell's most optimistic estimate, that will be over 4 weeks that we've been out of pocket.

I contacted Trading Standards, who confirmed that Dell is breaking UK Consumer Law by insisting that they receive the returned goods before processing the refund; they also confirmed the absolute 14-Calendar-day limit for the refund (which expired over a week ago). When I pointed out to them that Dell was openly flouting this law, the advice I received from them was to 'put a complaint to Dell in writing'.

You really have to wonder what the point of the Consumer Legislation is. Caveat Emptor.
 Dark-Cloud 14 Jan 2015
In reply to hamsforlegs:

>Generally corporate contracts seem to be handled better, but even then I have heard mixed stories from the tech support folk that I know and work with.

We took £100K a year of direct business off them and gave it to a reseller, still buy Dell but with better pricing and service yet none of the pain....
Douglas Griffin 15 Jan 2015
In reply to Douglas Griffin:

Refunded today.
cap'nChino 16 Jan 2015
In reply to Douglas Griffin:

Good to hear you have been refunded.

I suppose with big companies like Dell, that you are going to get the occasional shit case like yours. It's frustrating that they cannot be brought to account fully but we buy from them on price and not necessarily service.

I've bought 6 Dell computers over the last 14 years and have not encountered a problem with any of them. The oldest still run (albeit slowly) and my laptop is still running fast after 4 years of being abused, though the battery is completely dead now, the suddenness of its demise always makes me think there is some sneaky hidden program which kills it after a few years.
Douglas Griffin 16 Jan 2015
In reply to cap'nChino:

Cheers - we've never had any problems with them before, other than a similar story with the batteries on 2 of the laptops.
cap'nChino 16 Jan 2015
In reply to Douglas Griffin:

Yeah those batteries are a bitch. I'm too tight to buy a new one as its 1/4 cost of what I originally paid for the whole laptop.
 Bruce Hooker 16 Jan 2015
In reply to cap'nChino:

I found a cheaper high capacity one on Amazon, original Dell battery, £69 for a 9 cell battery.
Removed User 16 Jan 2015
In reply to Douglas Griffin:
This is why those who know about laptop manufacturers would never recommend Dell/Acer/HP. They are just utterly terrible, especially when it comes to CS.

edit: spleling.
Post edited at 10:54
 butteredfrog 16 Jan 2015
In reply to Removed User:

I've had brilliant customer service off HP; shit laptop but the service was great.

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