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Dell Tech Support

Jon of Exeter, OTHER January 27, 2006

Jon of Exeter, U.K. (01/27/06)
My Dell laptop motherboard failed a few days ago, after a life of around 18 months only, almost all without being moved around. It turns out that this is a very common problem, which they do not mention at sale time. This event has caused chaos in my office; we have data backups but we are a workstation short and these are unusable without the software in the laptop. Contacting anyone in Dell (from UK at least) means hours of call centre music, followed by robotic responses from Indians who barely understand English.

The Bracknell UK office responds to any request to talk to someone in authority by transferring the call to India, and does not respond to faxes. Dell's view was expressed pretty much verbatim by a "Manager" in India; " "no-one has a right to expect that electronic components will last 18 days, let alone 18 months. That's why we sell extended warranties. If you refuse the option then you have only yourself to blame".

After much chasing Dell have quoted nearly £400 to repair the computer, with a return delivery of 3 weeks. (The warranty period for the repair is 3 months, repeat, 3 months!) Dell's policy is to sell poor quality products with limited service life at very cheap prices. Customers captured by this process are then ripped off either by the "extended warranty" charges, or by the repair charges. Dell don't care which; they get the money either way because the computer will fail, probably more than once (why only 3 month warranty on repairs?). Dell refused to supply a motherboard for our local engineer (who repairs computers for several manufacturers on on-site warranties) to fit. As far as Dell is concerned, I must either pay them this sum or throw the computer away.

There are two huge problems with Dell. The first is the quality of their products, lowered so as to be able to sell at silly prices, and their support policy, or lack of it, associated with the extended warranty rip-off. The second is their refusal to communicate with customers and the robotic scripts that their Indian call centre staff use. Their website is an education in how not to give a customer any contact information other than a call centre. The lesson is to think twice. If you buy a Dell, ALWAYS add the highest level warranty cost to the purchase price before comparing with others, because you'll need it.

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