Keep you comments on customer service coming in - we're interested in both your good and bad experiences, and this help gives us a feel for how a company performs once it has your money. If you prefer, you can email them to us at pcwletters@vnu.co.uk.

2 years ago i ordered a Dell Dimension on the net. After upgrades, a £800 computer eventually cost me £1,600.Among the specs i ordered was XP Professional. (i was away on business,so i paid for professional instalation at £100)When i arrived home the operating system was XP home. I eventually contacted Dell,and they eventually believed they were at fault(they took some convincing) They sent me the XP Pro disk,and left me to sort it out myself. I paid £100 for professional installation charges,i do not believe i was given a good service.I had expected them to organise an engineer to supervise the upgrade, but i obviously expected too much. Their loss, i will never buy another Dell,and i will never recommend Dell.

I would like to know how you got your emails to CC to the board of directors of Dell and would like to share to you my story of what a nightmore Dell Customer Service has become. I have spent the last 30 days pleading with Dell and all I've gotten have been "promised" return phone calls which I've never received, or very rude customer service managers that have all sounded like broken players have all been completely useless. I have tried to be extremely patient, but in the end, I can't help but to sound like a sour grape given that I've been transfered to perhaps some of the rudest, most incompetent, and perhaps the most patronizing customer service representatives I've ever come across.

Since I am not able to document all my customer service conversations, please allow me to explain my frustration to the best of my memory.

I had bought a Dell Inspiron 700m using the $750 off $1499 coupon. Upon receiving the computer, my sound display was not working. while I understand that it was a minor glitch, it was still a glitch on a brand new computer. My experience has lasted over a month and since a Dell computer cannot be returned after 21 days (21 days of them avoiding me), I'm stuck with it. The best they could do was offer me $100 in compensation and would not help me any further.

I first contacted Dell Technical Support. The first guy ended up being extremely rude. I purchased a 700m laptop. They were trouble shooting with a Dell Dimension laptop. When I asked him if he could please get a hold of a 700m, so that we'd be working with the same computer, he said that he nor any other of the tech support representatives had access to a 700m, that all of them were assigned a Dimension and that there would be no possible way for them to trouble shoot with an Inspiron 700m. He then proceeded to mock me by saying "You're right! You're absolutely right! I don't know why we're so ill-equipped to service our customers" in a very sarcastic tone. Thus, we proceeded to trouble shoot but ultimately failed (my sound display still doesn't work). He told me that Dell's technical support was closing in 5 minutes (he lied, Dell technical support is open 24/7) and that I was to call back tomorrow morning or he'd transfer me to another tech guy who would be able to better assist me. However, he then proceeded to transfer me to Dell's non-technical support (just to spite me) despite the fact that he had been trouble shooting with me for the last hour. I have since not been able to find anyone who can resolve my technical problem and have not been offered a replacement or service on my computer. One technical guy asked me "Does it really even matter if you can see the sound display screen?" While I understand that it is a minor glitch, I paid for a fulling functioning laptop and a warranty and feel that I should expect nothing less than what I paid for. What respectable customer service would ask this to a paying customer?

That was only the beginning of my nightmare. I then had to talk to Customer Service because I was overcharged approximately $400+ dollars. When I initially made my purchase, my order came out to be $848.XX. However, when I looked at my credit card bill, I was billed $1309.68. When I called customer service (MANY MANY TIMES at least 10 times or more), I was initially offered a $100 compenstation. But they overcharged me $400+!! Then I noticed that there was a tax added. I looked at Dell and double checked with 3 customer service reps that there should be no tax if a laptop was shipped to Indiana (maybe I'm wrong but they all seemed to agree with me and no one know where the tax came from). While I decided to temporarily overlook that miscellaneous tax to focus on my $400 overcharge, I presented to Dell's managers (5 managers in total) the coupon code that I had used during my time of purchase.

The first manager was pleasant and said that he would personally handle the case and give me a call back. A week later, no call. Two weeks later no call.

The second manager was somewhat pleasant. He apologized for the phone call not being returned and said that he would look into the case and follow up as well.

The third manager was very condescending. I can tell by her accent and broken English that she was probably a manager in the Philippines since the customer service representative that transferred me to her also had a very strong Filipino accent. I also calculated the time difference and realized that no where in the United States would Dell still be open. She again said that she would follow up with my case and told me that there was absolutely no way that she would credit me my $400+. I told her to give me her name and badge number so that I would be able to contact her again should I have any problems. She gave me her name as "Julia" and refused to give me her any number that would identify her. She then told me that the burden of proof was on me to produce some sort of documentation that the coupon was applied. Because I didn't print out the final page of the coupon, I have no proof of my $868.XX final price.

There was one manager/representative that was perhaps the most sympathetic to my case. A manager named Laud. However, while he gave me his name, an extension I can reach him at, his badge number, and a promise to call me back with a resolution to my case, I still have yet to get a call back. Also, I apparently cannot get a hold of him either. Although he gave me his information, 2 representatives and 2 managers refuse to connect me to him and told me that it was impossible. The only way I'd ever be able to get a hold of Laud was if I called back and by sheer coincidence, I would get the same call center and he would be the random manager assigned to my case. What are the chances of that happening.

The last customer representative was by far the rudest CSR I've ever encountered. She proceeded to raise her voice at me and told me that there was no way that she could refund this $400+ overcharge because the coupon was invalid even though I told her that the coupon was off the Dell website. She checked the expiration date and told me that the coupon expired 4/14/05. I asked her to check her records and tell me when I made my purchase was made. She confirmed 4/13/05, I asked her if my coupon was valid at the time of purchase and she told me that it wasn't. Then I asked her why it was expired. She then proceeded to lecture me on how she cannot explain every detail of this transaction to me, otherwise we would never get off the phone. She then told me to hold so that she can connect to the sales department. Whether or not she did is a mystery to me since she never involved me in the conversation. When she returned on the phone, she proceeded to tell me that the coupon I used was NEVER VALID and that I did not meet the minimum purchase requirements. Although when I checked out, the $750 off $1499 was displayed before I submitted my order. Then she told me that I had never used a coupon at all....the story was no longer that the coupon was not valid. After that she became especially rude and said you have one option. "You keep your laptop or you sell it to someone else. We will not return your money because we didn't overcharge and I can't do anything about the glitch."

All of the managers promised to give me a call back once they figure out what happened or if they can help me within 3 business days. My case has been open for over a month. The only call I received from Dell was a Customer Satisfation Survey and they too promised to follow up on my case. I, of course, gave them the lowest score possible. I would have given them a negative. If there was a negative, they certainly earned it.

I have tried contesting my case with American Express and they are not able to resolve it until they hear back from Dell (in that case, I'll never get my money back). It's been over 2 weeks now. Until now, my case has not been resolved. I will never ever buy anything from Dell ever again. I also want to recommend that unless one wants to be on the phone half their life with Dell, they shouldn't either.

I am not asking for anything free, I am not in any way trying to take advantage of Dell. All I wanted was the computer I bought at the price that showed up on my computer screen when I purchased the computer.

This was the coupon that I used and I made this purchase some time before Wed, 13 Apr 2005 09:10:49 -0600

Coupon code: J096TQ8TFFG2VX [Exp 4/14, 5:59am CST]

i'd just like to add i bought a computer from Dell, in the first year my monitor just went, something happened i called up and got a new one next day at no cost. After that the computer was fine i took out a three year guarantee with dell that cost me 60 pounds and thirty three pence, in teh first year of teh gurantee my mother board went my keyboard went my mouse went and in all occasion i called the dell suport centre on 0845 270 9550 and i had my computer fixed at al occasions with new replacements. i just want to say that Dell offered me a fantastic service. and i would reccommend Dell anytime

I have had the worst customer service experience EVER through Dell, I attach my letter...

"I am writing in extreme fury at the appalling customer service I have recently received at Dell.

May I elaborate, and bring you up to date with recent events in the hope that someone in control can bring this situation to a satisfactory conclusion.

Through your order tracking service I leaned that my laptop and printer would be delivered to my address on Monday 18th July. I rang your office to confirm that this would indeed be the case and was told the same. At 4pm, and after taking the whole day of work, I rang Dell again to check if they were definitely coming – I was then told a different story – half the goods had been delivered to Leeds, and half to Sheffield, and it would be Tuesday before my goods would be in my possession. I explained that I couldn’t take another day off work just like that, and said that Friday 22nd would be the only day that I could probably make. We agreed on this date, so I went ahead and booked another day off work.

However, I received a card through the door the next morning saying that the courier had tried to deliver my goods. I then rang the courier on the number stated on the card and was told that he could re-deliver it after 4pm, so I finished work early and went to meet the courier. I couldn’t believe it when I opened the package and it was a printer. I rang Dell up Tuesday 19th to explain the situation, and was PROMISED that my laptop would be with me Wednesday 20th. I arranged for my neighbour to sit in most of the morning, and took ANOTHER half day off work to take over, so imagine my utter dismay and anger when I rang the courier to check the delivery time only to be told that my lap top was not in his possession, and that he thought that the other half of my goods were missing.

It is worth mentioning here that I installed Broadband and paid a month’s rental in advance as I thought my laptop would be ready to use for work Monday 18th July.

After a lengthy conversation today AGAIN with Dell Customer Services, I was assured that there would be a full investigation carried out. At no time could your customer services divulge exactly where my goods were, and every time I am forced to call your office (after a great length of time wasted either being put on hold or frantically trying to choose from the inappropriate range of options), I have to run through the whole sequence of events again and again, plus, speaking to your very impersonal ‘robot’ speaking customer services, who cannot understand anything I say only adds to the frustration. I have also, on the last 2 phone calls, been cut off half way through a conversation.

I have probably no need to state that this has been totally unacceptable. The fact that your ‘tracking service’ is supposed to aid customers is a complete joke, not to mention your incompetent couriers and lack of communication between you both.

I cannot stress to you enough how angering and frustrating this whole affair has been and that it is probably some of the worst customer service I have ever encountered.

The fact that I have still not received my goods has forced me to make the decision of cancelling my order. I have been in touch with the credit card company and they are dealing with my request.

Similar experience with Dell Outlet. Weeks turned into months with no result. Eventually turned to newspaper (Sunday Post - Raw Deal) help and problem was solved within a week.
They are on internet - rawdeal@sundaypost.com.
Give them all the info you have and they just might work their magic for you too.

I charge my battery all night ..and when i turn it on the next day for a bout half hour and then shut down...then turn it on after that for about another half hour and I have to plug it in the
wall plugs...I just got this thing in june..why is it not holding the charge...
Thank you,
Judy Howard

In reply to miriam's comment, unfortunately that phone number no longer exists. I did use it when it existed and very helpful they were too. Sadly the outsourced customer services and total lack of internal communications mean that there is no way of getting hold of anyone who may be able to do anything other then follow on screen help tips.

Here is my expereince at Dell..

No one at Dell will try to help; all you get is the run around from their Customer Service reps, all the way up to the Corporate Office.

They really don't care about their customers. I purchased a Dell laptop, and printer a few months ago from Dell. I use it mostly for photography stuff with my digital camera.

I was hired by a company to do a photo shoot of their 20th anniversary party. Everyone was dressing up in 20's outfits. So the company wanted me to come take pictures and print them that night off of my printer so that everyone could have a keepsake from the night.

They wanted the pictures to be in black and white. So thinking I just needed black ink I went online and ordered black ink. (Well first be aware if you purchase a Dell printer, you can't get ink anywhere except from Dell). After ordering the black ink I thought I had better call just to make sure that I don't need the color ink also.

The lady I spoke too said that I needed the color ink also to print pictures. Then she recommends that I get the Photo Ink. I said that was fine had her send that. Then I asked if I needed anything else. She said I needed the black ink also, so I kept both on order.

Order came day of the job. Went to put the ink in the printer, and the photo ink would not fit in the color slot, it was designed to go into the black ink slot.

So I called Customer Service again, got gentlemen that told me that the Photo ink did go into the Black ink slot. Then I asked him about needing the color ink, because I had not ordered any color ink based on my last conversation with Dell. He said that I did not need to have the actual ink just have the cartridge in the color slot that the printer would pull the ink from the photo cartridge. So I did this.

Started printing the pictures, everything was fine at first. But then the color ink ran out, and I didn’t have anymore. The pictures start printing with red strikes through them. So it was impossible to do the job that I was hired to do. Because the people at Dell don't have the knowledge about their products that they need to be offering help to someone that calls in.

Needless to say, the Company was very upset, they were going to pay me $600 for the job, and they cut that in half. They were going to hire me for all of there events like this to be their photographer. Now they will never hire me again.

With photography, the way you get clients is word of mouth, being recommended. Well that will never happen from this company. So I have lost 1000's of potential dollars.

I have called and called the customer service line trying to get to speak to someone about this, but all you get is a run around.

Customer Services agents who are not authorized to do anything, their managers and supervisors, who can do nothing but send an email to the corporate office.

Corporate office that doesn't care enough to even give you a call back. One Manager I spoke to promised that she would have someone call me back that day, and that she would follow up with a call to me to make sure that someone had called back. She never called and no one from corporate called either.

So I call back and everyone claims that there is no way to get back in touch with this same lady. So I speak to another manager James, who promises that he will have someone call me within 15 minutes and that he will also call me back to make sure that someone has contacted me. I got his extension before we hung up.

30 minutes later still no call. So I call back, the extension that he gave me was a 5-digit number and you need a 7-digit number to get through. So he gave me the incorrect number.

Going once again through the customer service rep, and their manager, each time wasting my time with me having to tell the entire story again. This manager finally gets me back in touch with James. He then again promises that someone will call me back in 2 minutes.

I hang up with him and Sameer from the corporate office calls me. I explain the entire story to him one more time, he then promises that someone will give me a call back on Monday this was Friday.

Monday came and NO call back. I tried to email Sameer, because no one will give you a phone number where you can reach them. No response. I emailed again, still no response.

I called back to customer service; they will not get me in touch with Sameer, even with seeing in the comments that he was working on my case. They will not get me back in touch with James, claiming that they have no way of getting in touch with them. This guy Joey says that he is going to email Sameer again for me. I get off the phone with him and email Sameer again.

Finally Sameer does give me a call back claiming that his boss Dennis Roach is going to be giving me a call that day. I never hear from Dennis. They are just giving me the run around hoping that I will just go away.

Dell doesn't care about their customers. They are such a big corporation now that they think that they can't be touched or hurt by one person. But I plan to make sure that everyone knows how bad Dell's customer service is after the sell, so that hopefully no one else will have to go through this same thing.

If you have been through this same kind of experience please feel free to contact me at malkii1104@yahoo.com

Malcolm

I have bought many Dell computer's over the years and for the most part I've been very happy. The last one I bought just recently is a Inspiron 530 desktop and it took longer for me to get the computer (almost 3 weeks) than for the hard drive to go out, in less than a month I had to call Dell to let them know, and I had to spend over 3 hours and was disconnected twice and transfered to the wrong department once during that time just so I had a chance to speak with the right person, I know computers so I knew there was no way to fix the hard drive (SMART failures) mean that you should back up your data and replace the drive as soon as possible, so it's a brand new computer with a failed hard drive within a few days, that's bad, so they send the tech to my house and the replacement disk this time the hard drive was a Western Digital (much better than the Samsung it came with) I also had a problem with the memory card reader and no major issues there, had to reboot the system and the problem hasn't presented again, I only have a one year warranty but my wife told me to get my money back after all the problems I had with the hard drive the first week, my advice: Get a warranty and if you have an issue the first week get it resolve or speak with someone who can help you, if the first day you don't get good results then just get your money back, if you don't have computer skills or technical skills to fix something wrong that shouldn't be there in the first place why waste time, it's your money.