Today I spent an hour trying to talk to a live person at Dell.

[texanwitch]

I forgot my old table top computer still had a at home service policy.

The tabletop came with the policy, I found it today when I was looking for other papers.

A tech will come Monday to repair the computer, but damn it shouldn't have taken an hour to talk to someone about it.

[SPKrazy]

1. you prolly had to talk to the one person in

Bangladesh that takes their calls

:P

[barb162]

I usually end up hanging up on them

because their command of English is SO poor.

[SPKrazy]

4. hang up after an hour?

of waiting for them?

:shrug:

[barb162]

7. Hanging up if after three times I state the same sentence and I

can tell the person on the other end of the line is answering a different question. Or the person on the other end has no idea what I just said when I said it in Standard English.

[SPKrazy]

8. oh, well

it can be frustrating i agree

:shrug:

[barb162]

11. Yeah, especially when the dept I am calling is "customer service"

[SPKrazy]

14. now that is bad

:eyes:

one would think that outsourcing ends up not really being money saving if it pisses off your customers

but then, monopolies have little competition... say, can anyone say class action lawsuit? monopoly buster!

:shrug:

[barb162]

16. Heh!

I will say it has gotten completely out of hand.

[SPKrazy]

17. yeah it has...

no doubt about that

i hate the ones trying to sell stuff

but when you have paid for service you kind of expect to be able to access it and have the ability to communicate your issue with the person on the other end of the phone

[barb162]

19. I have been trying to email more and trying to find head offices

in this country as a way around people who don't have a decent command of the English language.

[SPKrazy]

25. yeah. that sounds like a plan

:thumbsup:

good luck with it!

:hi:

[Starbucks Anarchist]

2. That was my cousin!

:D

[SPKrazy]

3. well tell them to answer the damned phone!

:wtf:

i mean, really, what the hell?

:rofl:

[Starbucks Anarchist]

5. Sorry!

:rofl:

[SPKrazy]

9. yeah, sure!

:rofl:

[texanwitch]

6. I couldn't tell by the accent.

The phone connection was really bad also.

Dell used to have great service.

I will be a 3 computer person soon.

[SPKrazy]

10. ruh roh

then they will outnumber you and take you over! :P

[texanwitch]

12. After I get Dell to come out I will get a friend to upgrade it for me.

The computer had the blue screen, so I don't know what is wrong with it.

[SPKrazy]

13. ruh roh double time

the blue screen of death... :scared:

hope you have your files backed up

:pals:

[texanwitch]

15. I did not.

I now have two external hard disk drives, 250 and 320 gb.

I have my lap backed up.

I had my pictures on CD's so I still have them.

I still have one more year of at home service, so the computer will get fixed.

[SPKrazy]

18. well hopefully they can retrieve anything that you don't have backed up

the blue screen of death is bad...

:shrug:

[texanwitch]

23. The blue screen of death.

I don't think I had anything that important.

The pictures were the most important and I have them save and sound on CDs, DVD's, flash drives, and external harddisk drives and google and yahoo.

Yahoo has unlimited picture storage, google is good do photo storage.

[SPKrazy]

24. good!

sounds like you'll fare well whatever the outcome is :thumbsup:

:hug:

[texanwitch]

26. I learned my lesson.

Nobody thinks the blue screen will happen to them.

:hug: :hug:

[SPKrazy]

33. It's happened to me

on my old laptop

and on my puter at work

my laptop was salvageable but the puter at work, they saved some things off the desktop that i didn't have saved to a shared drive, but the hard drive for that one was toasted.

:hug:

[Pierre.Suave]

20. Yet one more reason

I like Apple. I have Applecare, I call up and get to talk to someone that knows english, and is very helpful and knowledgeable.

I have never once hung up on them in frustration, or without having my problem solved.

[Omphaloskepsis]

32. And you don't get shit like....

Calls Dell, "That sounds like a software problem. Call Microsoft."

Calls Microsoft, "That sounds like a hardware problem. Call Dell."

Calls Dell, "That sounds like a software problem. Call Microsoft."

Calls Microsoft, "That sounds like a hardware problem. Call Dell."

Rinse and repeat.


With Apple they know they have to fix the problem. They can't pass the buck, they make both.

[Deja Q]

21. I prefer to build my own from parts.

Not just because IBM did that with their original PC; it's the freedom inherent in the PC world that allows you to have what you want.

I don't like big corporations anyway. They can sell what parts they want, but for service it's clear - none of them is any good and you waste lots of time and money. Yet they want to take over this field, still mostly the province of specialists who really know the products; not Dork Troop or any tin-pot company where only a certain image is preferred.

[texanwitch]

22. This computer is my first and last Dell.

I am thinking of getting the next laptop custom made.

[noamnety]

27. I sent my dell laptop for repairs a couple of weeks ago

Instead of mailing it back to my house, they returned it to an army post of several thousand people - with the wrong city and zip code for that post, not addressed to me personally, but rather to ATTN: US ARMY.


It wasn't actually fixed though, so I had to send it back. This time, I taped a piece of paper to the laptop itself, that said "For the love of God, don't return me to US Army, ATTN: US Army. Send me to (my home address)."

I highlighted it.

Yesterday I got an email saying it was shipped back to me. I checked the tracking number online. Sure enough, it is going to US Army (wrong city), ATTN: US Army.

[texanwitch]

28. Damn, they did this twice.

Your story tops mine.

Did they finally fix your laptop.

Dell sucks.

[noamnety]

31. I guess I'll find out tonight if it's fixed

The connection for the power supply is loose - so you have to jiggle the cord, sometimes every few minutes, to get power.

I told them we have a second identical laptop in the house, and three power supplies. We were able to verify one of the three power supplies is bad, two work fine on the other laptop. None work on mine - the part in the laptop itself is loose.

So I sent the laptop to be fixed (along with the bad power supply, since I also wanted that replaced).

I got it back the first time with a note saying my power supply was bad. :(

(And they said they didn't have any in stock at the moment, so they didn't even give me a new one.)

[noamnety]

34. For the record, it is still not fixed.

It isn't recognizing the hard drive, and I am not sure, but from listening to it, it sounds like they may have installed a small weed-wacker inside it.

[QMPMom]

29. Several people I worked with left to go work at Dell in their CS Dept.

Sounds like their CS isn't what it should be. They may pay a bit more than others here in our area but you couldn't pay me to deal with people who have had to wait an HOUR to speak to someone! Wow!

[mockmonkey]

30. Dell meh

I'm still waiting for the part I needed for my computer. It's on back order from them, for lets see...5 months. I luckily found the part myself locally for $5. Dell is useless and their website is a waste of time.
Good luck on Monday. An hour on the phone with Dell is a short time. I usually end up traveling the world with them, with no positive results. This is my second computer with Dell...never again.

[geiger]

35. which country were they from? India or Pakistan? did they understand your English

I had a representative with the temerity to suggest that I was the one whose English was hard to understand.