Dell Tech Support Nightmare

[BradyC]

I have a nightmare situation that I have blogged about recently on my personal blog, while I don't want to break any rules and advertise that blog here I do want to give you guys a quick TLDR and ask where you think it would be appropriate to post it so that it will help others who are looking at a Dell purely for their support.

 

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I purchased a top of the line Alienware 17 R1 and thought I would invest in a 5-year warranty including accidental damage from dell at the time of purchase. (Yes I also purchased a warranty on my new car, no I would not recommend anyone do the same in the future) I used this warranty in Sep of 2016 because of a failing GPU, and after the laptop was returned to me covered in scratches and missing it's SSD Dell agreed to replace the laptop with a refurbished Alienware 17 R3. I then opened a ticket with Dell Tech Support a couple of years later due to an issue with the 'Q' key on my Alienware's keyboard going out only to find that my laptop had been flagged in Dell's financial system as stolen. This ticket was originally opened on Nov 22, 2018, and in January of the next year I ended up purchasing a replacement keyboard myself off of eBay ($78) and installing it. I then reopened a ticket after the Alienware started to randomly power off in July of 2019 and am only now  (Oct 23rd, 2019) getting a technician sent to me to replace the motherboard.

Any thoughts or advice would be appreciated, the full post has my interactions with dell and more details around what my experience with their tech support was like.

 

<content removed>

Edited October 24, 2019 by LogicalDrm
*sight*

[Enderman]

Well the first mistake was buying an alienware laptop.

[Flying Sausages]

6 minutes ago, Enderman said:

Well the first mistake was buying an alienware laptop.

Alienware laptop is not bad though. It is not as shit as Razer gaming laptop.

[BradyC]

This isn't really about the laptop it's about their support. I am not trying to make anyone's decision on laptops there is a lot that goes into that. But I do want them to know what to expect if they ever have an issue with their laptop.

[Stormseeker9]

Shit customer service. You bought additional warranty, should get new. And stolen? Lmao some warehouse guy must of fucked up haha

[Flying Sausages]

3 minutes ago, Stormseeker9 said:

Shit customer service. You bought additional warranty, should get new. And stolen? Lmao some warehouse guy must of fucked up haha

Time to call fed boys to bust the laptop stolen thief.

[dizmo]

So...what exactly is the question? Or is there no question, and you're just airing your grievances?

Firstly, if it was flagged as stolen...why didn't you just provide your purchase information? Surely that would have avoided the whole issue.

I can only imagine that's partly why they took so long to send out a technician as well.

Yes, they're at fault for flagging it as stolen, but you do shoulder some of the blame if you weren't able to provide proof of purchase.

 

My friend has had nothing but excellent experiences with Dell warranty, aside from their PCs being horribly overpriced.

 

7 minutes ago, Stormseeker9 said:

Shit customer service. You bought additional warranty, should get new. And stolen? Lmao some warehouse guy must of fucked up haha

You're only getting one side of the story. If he couldn't provide proof of purchase, it is partly on him.

[spartaman64]

1 minute ago, dizmo said:

So...what exactly is the question? Or is there no question, and you're just airing your grievances?

Firstly, if it was flagged as stolen...why didn't you just provide your purchase information? Surely that would have avoided the whole issue.

I can only imagine that's partly why they took so long to send out a technician as well.

Yes, they're at fault for flagging it as stolen, but you do shoulder some of the blame if you weren't able to provide proof of purchase.

 

My friend has had nothing but excellent experiences with Dell warranty, aside from their PCs being horribly overpriced.

 

You're only getting one side of the story. If he couldn't provide proof of purchase, it is partly on him.

i understand as i never keep receipts especially receipts from 3 years ago so i dont think that is necessarily his fault

[BradyC]

39 minutes ago, dizmo said:

So...what exactly is the question? Or is there no question, and you're just airing your grievances?

The question was where can I post my experience to help others avoid the same situation with Dell.

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Firstly, if it was flagged as stolen...why didn't you just provide your purchase information? Surely that would have avoided the whole issue.

I can only imagine that's partly why they took so long to send out a technician as well.

Yes, they're at fault for flagging it as stolen, but you do shoulder some of the blame if you weren't able to provide proof of purchase.

 

My friend has had nothing but excellent experiences with Dell warranty, aside from their PCs being horribly overpriced.

 

You're only getting one side of the story. If he couldn't provide proof of purchase, it is partly on him.

I do have proof I have a full thread with the entire conversation with Dell. I had prove through email and service orders that they send me that laptop as a replacement. But Tech support couldn't fix it and didn't know how/want to  deal with the Dell Financial department. Ultimately I had to work with Dell financial directly and it still took more than a month to remove the hold on the system.

 

[BradyC]

33 minutes ago, Genwyn said:

For future reference I don’t think anyone is gonna be upset if you link to your blog as long as the full content is also posted here with it.

 

As long as it’s not strictly for profit, I don’t think things like patreon links are allowed but if we’re talking a tumblr page or Facebook group or whatever then nobody is gonna mind.

I updated the original post with the link I hope that helps

[Syaoran]

11 minutes ago, BradyC said:

I don't know why people have to troll as I'm trying to help others.

He's not trolling, I also couldn't understand what you where trying to say. Probably because there was missing information or words.

[Kilrah]

49 minutes ago, dizmo said:

why didn't you just provide your purchase information?

 

49 minutes ago, dizmo said:

If he couldn't provide proof of purchase, it is partly on him.

 

What he received as a replacement for his original issue will obviously not match the original purchase since it's a completely different machine altogether. That's the whole problem.

 

What he needs is whatever paperwork came with the replacement, supposing there was any and he still has it, most people trash those piles of paper.

[BradyC]

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What he needs is whatever paperwork came with the replacement, supposing there was any and he still has it, most people trash those piles of paper.

I did have this and supplied it on the first day that I opened the ticket with Dell Support. I also had to provide it two additional times as part of phone conversations. Those conversations are harder to quote as they rely on my less than perfect memory. But the documents were provided multiple times.

 

All my documentation is in Gmail or Google Drive for this reason.

[BradyC]

10 minutes ago, Syaoran said:

He's not trolling, I also couldn't understand what you where trying to say. Probably because there was missing information or words.

you are right and I am sorry, I have removed the comment.

[dizmo]

1 hour ago, spartaman64 said:

i understand as i never keep receipts especially receipts from 3 years ago so i dont think that is necessarily his fault

You should. Just because you do it as well doesn't mean he'd have been in the right at all. Be responsible. Keep your receipts. It's not up to them.

48 minutes ago, Kilrah said:

What he received as a replacement for his original issue will obviously not match the original purchase since it's a completely different machine altogether. That's the whole problem.

 

What he needs is whatever paperwork came with the replacement, supposing there was any and he still has it, most people trash those piles of paper.

There would be a paperwork trail that he should (and did) keep track of.

Just because most trash those, doesn't make it right.

[dizmo]

2 hours ago, BradyC said:

The question was where can I post my experience to help others avoid the same situation with Dell.

 

I do have proof I have a full thread with the entire conversation with Dell. I had prove through email and service orders that they send me that laptop as a replacement. But Tech support couldn't fix it and didn't know how/want to  deal with the Dell Financial department. Ultimately I had to work with Dell financial directly and it still took more than a month to remove the hold on the system.

Have you posted it on Reddit? It might just get buried, but it's a larger community.

 

[Euchre]

Dell doesn't actually operate the 'extended warranty' you purchase from them, that's 3rd party, and it had to be that way by law. It may have been an Assurion product, which wasn't famous for doing the best job at customer satisfaction. They love to provide the cheapest solution possible, and it is often worse the more expensive the product is. This means a lot of refurbs are offered in place of refunds or identical, new product, even when possible. They do tend to be a bit of a cluster. Oh, and they do 'outsource' most of their 'agents'.

 

Everyone talking about Dell's warranty service being great are probably talking about their internal support for their included warranty. You pretty certainly wouldn't run into the trainwreck that we're hearing about here,

 

The best you'd probably get from Dell would be a decent discount on a new laptop, which would be great. Assurion, on the other hand, will probably do nothing but drop you like a searing hot rock.

[BradyC]

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Have you posted it on Reddit? It might just get buried, but it's a larger community.

I had not but I took your suggestion, converted my wordpress to markdown and posted here https://www.reddit.com/r/Dell/comments/dmaupm/do_not_buy_the_dell_extended_warranty_and_should/

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Dell doesn't actually operate the 'extended warranty' you purchase from them, that's 3rd party, and it had to be that way by law.

I did not know this, I guess the lesson here is do not purchase and extended warranty. Safe money and frustration by keeping the included and putting any money you may have used on an extended warranty in the bank.

[RasmusDC]

10 hours ago, OlympicAssEater said:

Alienware laptop is not bad though. It is not as shit as Razer gaming laptop.

ahh... had fun times with danish support, bought a R4 1070 oc with the 6 core and 1tb ssd / 1440p 120hz screen and so on.. came to me with a defect on speaker ratteling, the Dell hotline asked me to take it apart myself to try and do a fix, and they would take responsibility, had to have the full motherboard out, and the rubber suspension of the speaker were not mounted correctly.. so fixed it and it now works perfectly..

 

wrote them back, got the fun answer of.. "we actually do not take the responsibility for your laptop now that you have taken it apart.. " had however screenshots of ALL chat logs..

 

and it WAS a brand new laptop, should just have returned it. 

 

i also hate our Dell internal company laptops, i really miss Thinkpads. 5530 precision my dell, is a nice laptop, but we have bundles of them breaking, because it jumps out of sleep, and heats itself in the laptop bags, and then it dies..

 

so IT hates them, and turning off a Dell laptop like this is just not a normal task anymore, even when doing SHUT DOWN, you have to really listen if you have slow fan spin, before putting it in a bag.. never really thought of anything with my Thinkpad, just used it. feeling like my office pc is a fragile piece of glass with this machine... a thinking of getting a surface instead. 

[LogicalDrm]

10 hours ago, Genwyn said:

For future reference I don’t think anyone is gonna be upset if you link to your blog as long as the full content is also posted here with it.

10 hours ago, BradyC said:

I updated the original post with the link I hope that helps

 

How about you ask from staff before deciding how CS is interpret? We don't allow any links to personal websites on open forums. The rules are bit hazy about status updates and profile info:

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• No advertising of any non LTT/LMG material.
  • eBay/trading sites, personal websites or businesses except where appropriate. (e.g. "Who can do data recovery in Vancouver?", "Anyone know where I can get this part?").
  • No affiliate links unless created by Linus Media Group. Note that the LMG affiliate code will be automatically added to Amazon links.
  • Twitch/Youtube links are only allowed in your own status updates; posting them on other users' profiles or updates is not allowed.

 

 

[spartaman64]

12 hours ago, dizmo said:

You should. Just because you do it as well doesn't mean he'd have been in the right at all. Be responsible. Keep your receipts. It's not up to them.

There would be a paperwork trail that he should (and did) keep track of.

Just because most trash those, doesn't make it right.

Then my house would be just filled to the brim with receipts if I kept every receipt for 5 years. It's just not practical. If a company is offering warranty then they should be the ones keeping records I work for a company selling sinks and when a customer emails us about damage covered by our warranty we don't ask them for a receipt we look in our QuickBooks

[dizmo]

2 hours ago, spartaman64 said:

Then my house would be just filled to the brim with receipts if I kept every receipt for 5 years. It's just not practical. If a company is offering warranty then they should be the ones keeping records I work for a company selling sinks and when a customer emails us about damage covered by our warranty we don't ask them for a receipt we look in our QuickBooks

Riiiiight, so you're comparing your company that sells sinks to a company that does billions a year in sales. Makes total sense.

And no, your house wouldn't be that bad. At most you'd have a folder folio of them. Oh no. Being responsible takes up so much space

[Touch My Hamm]

Strange...I had a good friend a few years back purchase a alienware laptop for like $5000 and got the full warranty. He put all receipts and such in the box and made sure they sent him an email copy. Whenever he had issues they were nothing but supportive trying to make sure he had as much time with his laptop as possible. His SLI started having issues and he sent it away and Dell paid for express delivery back with a mousepad and cover saying they hope the repair was fast enough. Even after it was out of the timeframe of warranty they were happy to repair (for money but at a discounted rate) for HDD that where is raid 0 to be replaced and windows to be reinstalled. Sucks that you didnt have a great experience, did you talk to someone over the phone or did you open a email ticket/chat ticket?

[spartaman64]

2 hours ago, dizmo said:

Riiiiight, so you're comparing your company that sells sinks to a company that does billions a year in sales. Makes total sense.

And no, your house wouldn't be that bad. At most you'd have a folder folio of them. Oh no. Being responsible takes up so much space

Except text files don't take up much space even if they do trillions in sales it probably wouldn't even take up 1 terabyte. https://www.dell.com/learn/us/en/uscorp1/policies-privacy#point_1 if they have space on their servers to store all this info on you they have space to store a serial number or two. https://www.asus.com/support/article/590/ notice how nowhere here does asus say you need to provide a receipt

[dizmo]

6 minutes ago, spartaman64 said:

Except text files don't take up much space even if they do trillions in sales it probably wouldn't even take up 1 terabyte. https://www.dell.com/learn/us/en/uscorp1/policies-privacy#point_1 if they have space on their servers to store all this info on you they have space to store a serial number or two. https://www.asus.com/support/article/590/ notice how nowhere here does asus say you need to provide a receipt

It's also not an extended warranty, now is it?