Dell, What the Hell?

It started like any typical service call. Dial the number, get the pre recorded messages, and eventually talk to a real live person! Unfortunately it went down hill from there. I was informed by the young man on the other end I would have to ship my new (2 months old) Dell Latitude D531 to the “Rapid Response Depot.” That my not sound so bad, but all I needed was a hard drive. In the past, Dell would ship me the part and I would replace it myself. That made them happy because they didn’t have to pay a tech to come out, and it made me happy because I didn’t have to let some Bozo touch my system.

I made the call on a Sunday night, so I expected the box to ship the laptop to arrive on Tuesday. Wrong! It showed up Thursday, and because of prior commitments I couldn’t have it picked up until the following Monday. One week of productivity gone. Did I mention I bought this for my business? I received a voice mail telling me the laptop arrived at the depot the following day. This is great! I’ll have the repaired system back on Wednesday or Thursday so I can reload the OS. Wrong again! I get a notice from DHL on Thursday telling me they tried to deliver the laptop but no one was available to sign for it. There was also a mystery package left by DHL. What’s this? A hard drive? Why would they send a hard drive when they just replaced the drive at the depot?

Having received no messages from Dell I could only assume some one had mad a mistake. Then on Friday I received the laptop. The box looked as if it had been used to beat some one over the head. It had a big hole that had been taped closed prior to shipping. It still had the brown sealing tape that Dell sends with it to the customer for return. Now I’m all for recycling, but this is ridiculous! It wasn’t even the same box I sent it out in. I know because that box looked like it had set in some water, the bottom corrugations were beginning to separate. I opened the box hoping for the best. I found a nice note from the REPAIR depot that the laptop needed the hard drive replaced (what a revelation!) and it was out of stock!

Now I know what the hard drive was for. I was happy to see the laptop seemed no worse from the trip, but they didn’t even put the laptop in the plastic bag Dell had included with the original box.


I replaced the drive and started loading the OS. Then I called Dell to find out what the deal was. I spoke with another nice young man that explained to me the first young man I spoke with nearly two weeks before was mistaken, that because I am a certified Dell repair Tech, they could have sent the hard drive in the first place!

I hope some one from Dell reads this. It should serve as notice that they still have a long way to go to get their customer service back to what I remember from years gone by. There is no excuse for a vendor to not have the proper information or parts available to them. I don’t care who signs their pay check. When I call the 800 number listed on Dells support site, I am talking to Dell. When I send my device to the depot using the shipping label provided by Dell, I’m sending it to Dell. The manner in which this was handled was very unprofessional. I think I can speak with authority, I have an award from Unisys on my shelf that reads “Unisys Global Network Services Exceptional Service Award, In Grateful Appreciation For Your Contribution And Support Of The Alliance With Dell Computer”

Rapcomp