GrandSlambert

Archive for the ‘Complaint Department’ Category

What has happened to tech support at Dell? For over 10 years I have been a very happy customer of Dell and have recommended it to everyone. Recently I purchased a new Studio XPS 16 laptop, and for the most part I am extremely happy with it. Until this week.

On Monday I was having problems with Windows Vista, see my previous post. I blamed it on a faulty operating system because, well, it’s Windows. Later that day the machine stopped working so I decided to reboot, only to end up with a black screen. I tried everything I could think of to fix it, but with no luck. So I called tech support. After going through all the stuff I had already done, we finally ran a confidence check on the drive to verify the hard drive was dead. Good, ready to rock now, right?

WRONG! Even though I had registered the machine when I bought it in May, it was still not registered to me. So I filled out the registration form again, and the tech I was talking to also submitted all the information. This was done late Monday evening. I was told I would be called about the replacement. Nothing on Tuesday.

Finally, around 2:00 today, after hearing nothing from Dell, I called back. No record of my call on Monday and the machine still was not registered in my name. The tech on the phone puts me on hold, and two minutes later the call was dropped. So I figure I would try an online chat. Even though I gave the test results to the tech on the chat, he or she still wanted me to try and reinstall Windows. Hmm, why hadn’t I thought of that? Because you can’t install Windows on a dead hard drive. I even tried loading Ubuntu Linux on the drive and it also verified a bad hard drive.

So what does the technician on the chat do? He or she tells me to register the machine! Again! I refused, so then I was asked for my information, which I assume means they will try to register it again. Then I was told they would ship the drive to me in two to three business days. Great, so I have a $1400 brick for another half a week.

Finally, the tech asks me “Would you mind sparing 2 minutes to have a word with my Supervisor?” Hell yeah I want to speak to a supervisor! Maybe this person can help me get the drive quicker. Of course, he doesn’t commit to shipping quicker, but promises he will do his best. At least this time I was given an issue tracking number so I can see what’s happening with this.

So, to sum it all up, my Dell laptop is great, but Dell Tech Support is NOT.

The fourth word in the title for this post should be “WinBlows”, but since I want people to see this post I decided to spell it the old fashioned way in the title. I was reluctant to start using Winblows Vista because of all the bad things I heard about it. But, when I bought my new computer it was preinstalled so I though I would give it try.

It’s a joke.

Less then 7 hours into using the computer I got the dreaded blue screen of death. Now today every time I type anything with the letter “P” in it the thing flips back to the login screen. Then if I hit the letter “U” it brings up an accessibility screen, and since my password has a “u” in it I can’t log back in. So then I have to reboot the machine. I am so frustrated with Vista right now that I am actually typing this post on a Macintosh computer, where there are no blue screens and I have almost never had it crash. If it weren’t for two programs that I need to use that are only available for Winblows, that laptop would get Linux installed on it.