How Could They Mess Up This Bad... Again - $1500 PC Secret Shopper 2 Part 1

[AldiPrayogi]

That rooster guy though lol

[Bombastinator]

3 hours ago, Egg-Roll said:

You said "America too usually" then proceeded with "Things get vague when they cross international boundaries though, and that was not a North American accent that woman had." which is what you said. Basically you said things get vague across international boarders which they don't, foreign support/sales are obligated in this case to uphold the laws they serve in, and when they don't companies are held accountable locally because they should have trained them better no differently than if the call center was in the country of sale. You then went on to say she didn't have a North American sounding accent which when combined implies you assumed they where not within any country in North America basing it on her voice alone and hence why she did what she did.

 

Now if you meant it that way or not idk. However I can't find anyway of rewording that entire sentence to not make it sound like you assumed she wasn't within any country in North America, and yes I have reread it several times to ensure I wasn't the one making an error.

 

Also the original person you quoted stated in Europe it would be illegal, typically when people say that they usually refer to the EU(and places like UK), so no EU country would permit knowingly what Dell did to Linus. I'm not trying to get you mad in any way, I just noticed this while double/triple checking I wasn't wrong.

Sure, but they’re basically impossible to prosecute unless the local government specifically decides to assist.   Hence vague. Against the law but unprosecutable is like an unfunded law.  It exists but it doesn’t. 

I did find it amusing how to make your point you had to cut my statement into prices and feed it out of order, but let’s ignore that.  The sentence shell game is a classic tactic and generally in indicator of BS incoming but they’re a pain to untangle and in this case doing so isn’t necessary.

 

So I’m responsible for your lack of understanding in your eyes, it seems because you are somehow offended.   OK.  I can work with that.  Let me be more clear:

The phone personnel from Dell displayed a primary interest in making some sort of bonus over actually delivering product.  Was this the fault of the salesperson or the training or the management?  It doesn’t matter.  ALL of that is more or less on the same level unless direction for such came from a higher level in which case it is the fault of the manager of that level.  That’s how business works.  That is how it always works and for a very very long time has worked.   That call cost Dell a TON of sales.  They are now in many eyes one of the worst groups in their field. 
 

How dare I assume that I make such an assumption based solely on the accent?  That’s easy:

 

 I didn’t.  

 

If the salesperson did an illegal thing someone is criminally liable.  Criminal prosecution isn’t funny in the US, though it’s generally quite difficult to make happen if a person has decent representation.  Decent representation is expensive though.  Out of range of a phone operator or even maybe 80% of the US population.  Does this mean rich people are basically above the law?  Yep.   They only have a problem IF they can be prosecuted sucessfully.  There are two ways someone who does a job ,no joke, all day every day would have no worry about lack of prosecution:

 

1: they didn’t know what they were doing is illegal.  This is unlikely in a job situation but not unheard of and usually requires collusion from management which makes them accessories in which case they also would have to not know it was illegal in this situation so you’ve got not only the I don’t know how many individual sales people, NONE of which checked, but also management types.  That’s conspiracy theory level unlikely.

 

2: they might or might not know but didn’t care because even if it was, THEY COULDN'T BE PROSECUTED.  
 

Now.  How many ways is that possible?  There is more than international boundaries.  It could be, for example, that whatever organization which I’m guessing is the FTC in this case has had the section of investigation or enforcement defunded and thus couldn’t persue cases in such instance effectively making such things legal even if they aren’t.  This isn’t unheard of.  It’s pretty unlikely though in this case because Dell is going to lose orders of magnitude more sales, and thus income, than they would have gained by not doing that.  It wouldn’t even have taken an expose like this.  Stuff gets around. Dell wouldn’t do this kind of thing on purpose unless they were unforgivably stupid. They could possibly bumble into it, or it could be a contractor situation.  A Contracting company is MUCH more likely.  Contractors are just as prosecutable as Dell itself though.  If they are in the US. Is it possible that this happened because of a fly-by-night contracting company hired a bunch of patsies, trained them to damage Dell, and then planned to use the gigantic amount of money the principals made to avoid prosecution for themselves alone?  Sure. Not super likely, but it could happen.  So three choices. The salesperson was:

 

A: a patsy for some crooked contracting company who could be prosecuted but was lied to. 

B: a person who knew what was going on but for some reason didn’t care because they knew they couldn’t be prosecuted. 

 

in both instances indication of a heavy accent  implies, along with the behavior a possible problem.   A crooked contractor looking for people who didn’t know the law, or someone who felt they were protected.

 

I think Somebody gonna get fired.  Might be the operator, might be the manager of the operator, might be the contracting company.   They’re all single entities though, and none of them are DELL.  The person responsible for the hiring of whatever entity should imho also probably be fired as well, but that’s just me. 
 

You seem to be attempting to put the worlds in my mouth that I said something to the effect of “anyone with an accent on the phone is suspect”  I didn’t. I don’t think that. I do think that has become a somewhat common belief in the US., and it has happened because of that earlier described prosocutiorial vagueness combined with easy international calling, but it’s not automatically true.  Someone with an accent that sounds like a native North American speaker has possible prosecutorial immunity as well through unfunded investigation and prosecution. 

Edited November 9, 2020 by Bombastinator

[Fnige]

I kinda want this series to be yearly, but at a random time of the year so maybe itll keep them on their toes

[AllTheTechTips]

Wow.... Dell was just bad (and I'm pretty sure illegal). That guy at HP was awesome though! @jakkuh_t The next time you guys do this you should include Xidax. I know of a couple of people who have used them and like them. Has any one on here used them before? I'm just curious if they are actually good or as bad as Dell . 

[Stahlmann]

Wow, i don't think you can have a worse experience than the one with Dell. I'd rather not buy a system at all than talking to a wall that wants to sell me it's financing and warranty all the time. Like they didn't really talk about the computer at all and it's clear the rep has no idea about computers.

 

Imo even Corsair and NZXT did better by not selling anything compared to what happened with Dell.

 

The rooster guy was great though!

 

EDIT: @jakkuh_tFor the next time you should just go ahead and buy the first computer you can find on their online-store that matches your budget when you can't do it over phone. Even someone with no idea about computers can sort by price and order something online. I don't even know the last time i (or somebody i know) ordered anything by phone. The secret shopper series can still talk about the post-sales experence then.

[realpetertdm]

If I recall correctly, I didn't hear any financing upsells in secret shopper part one.

 

Has Dell gotten even worse at providing customers a decent experice, compared to last time?

[SAVE-12-HK]

did LTT really paid off those pc?

whos money was that?

like paid for scammers

[Stahlmann]

1 hour ago, SAVE-12-HK said:

did LTT really paid off those pc?

whos money was that?

like paid for scammers

They paid for all these systems. They have dBRAND as a sponsor for this series, so no one can say for sure how much of the money they spend on these PCs is theirs or their sponsor's.

 

Yeah the Dell experience was pretty much just a scam.

[Bramimond]

It's surprising that ordering things by phone is still a thing that works. I always assumed that it went the way of the dodo with the arrival of the Internet. When was the last time you ordered something with a phone call? When was the last time someone you know did? I never ordered anything with a phone call and the last time someone I know did it was about two decades ago. Next thing you tell me someone still prints and sells magazines. What a crazy world.

[Senzelian]

I wish Lenovo, Asus, MSI and Acer were included.

Especially MSI and Acer would probably s*ck hard. 

 

Maybe also do one with laptops. That could be interesting.

[Lamothe]

So just for fun I did the same configuration for the Dell PC, without warranty.

 

 

Then I added said warranty witch seems to be doubled charged in the video

 

 

 

And I dont even reach the price that they got. I need to add the Accidental Damage Service, 4 Years for CAD $89.00

 

My taxes fees are even higher since I'm from Quebec.

 

This sales rep should be fired.

 

[darknessblade]

I just checked on the DELL site {Canada}

 

https://www.dell.com/en-ca/shop/desktops/dell-g5-gaming-desktop/spd/g-series-5000-desktop#configurations_section

 

And they DID charge for warranty, antivirus and everything on the list.

 

Meaning DELL STILL charged for EVERYTHING That Sarah did not ask for.

 

[Velcade]

4 hours ago, SAVE-12-HK said:

did LTT really paid off those pc?

whos money was that?

like paid for scammers

That's the whole point of secret shopper.  Buy systems, test systems and see who gives the best overall experience for the money.

[Egg-Roll]

11 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

Sure, but they’re basically impossible to prosecute unless the local government specifically decides to assist.   Hence vague. Against the law but unprosecutable is like an unfunded law.  It exists but it doesn’t. 

I did find it amusing how to make your point you had to cut my statement into prices and feed it out of order, but let’s ignore that.  The sentence shell game is a classic tactic and generally in indicator of BS incoming but they’re a pain to untangle and in this case doing so isn’t necessary.

That makes a little more sense, HOWEVER the local government does not need to assist in cases of misleading people to buy things esp in this case, because Dell assumes all responsibility for their contractors and staff. This means if a staff member over in the States, in India, or anywhere else does something illegal to a Canadian the Canadian government can in fact fine Dell Canada for it even tho the person who did said act is not in Canada, but because Dell is a company in Canada that has call centers out of country.

 

Equally that is not what you stated you stated this:

  

15 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

America too usually.  Things get vague when they cross international boundaries though, and that was not a North American accent that woman had.

You see that period you put there? That is the end of a sentence therefore an end of a statement. A continuation of a sentence should have been preceded by therefore or another word intended to continue on the sentence in a new sentence which you did not do, therefore you closed that sentence. Not like that would help your argument in anyway because even if you put a comma or therefore it would still be the same. That is you have assumed because the females accent not being from North America she can't be in said countries.

 

So yes you literally stated she couldn't be in a North American country because of her accent. Also the rest of your post went on about the EU therefore did no justice in attempting to rectify the wording in that sentence.

11 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

they didn’t know what they were doing is illegal.

That's BS, that's like a person who killed someone with their vehicle because they didn't know DUI was illegal or not knowing not yielding to those who have right of way is illegal. Ignorantia juris non excusat applies to this situation, while the person in the case of Dell may get away with it once or till caught, if the governments investigating find Dell to have failed to educate their workers or ensure overseas management do that legal term comes in to play because Dell as a company should have known better and should have fully did everything to the best of their ability, hence guilty or a reasonable case to pursue in court.

 

https://www.engadget.com/2009-09-15-dell-finally-fined-4-million-in-ny-fraud-case.html

 

In the end that's my point Dell didn't move their staff elsewhere to avoid laws, the moved staff to save money. All US EU and other laws still apply to Dell and their call centers no differently than if that employee was located in said country. Also governments while have no control over what happens overseas can start banning/taxing products from said company/country if it is found out they are violating basic human rights or using child labor to invoke change. Governments can still hold overseas employees accountable by fining the company located in their country into compliance, else Google wouldn't have to comply with the EU regulation (or anyone else for that matter) because they are an US company, but they do, because they serve the EU therefore have to comply with their laws.

 

I'm not going to reply to this topic anymore, more specifically about this, because I read what I read and what I read was profiling based on their accent. It doesn't matter if that was your intent or not.

[SAVE-12-HK]

1 hour ago, Velcade said:

Buy systems, test systems and see who gives the best overall experience for the money.

at the point of offer, its done

you dont need to complete the transaction

[sub68]

dell is that pestering kid asking for a snack from everyone

1 hour ago, Senzelian said:

I wish Lenovo, Asus, MSI and Acer were included.

Especially MSI and Acer would probably s*ck hard. 

from experience acer is bad (bad build, There old stuff is fine I am staring at a 10 year old acer monitor)

@Moonzy will agree

[Moonzy]

3 minutes ago, sub68 said:

dell is that pestering kid asking for a snack from everyone

from experience acer is bad (bad build, There old stuff is fine I am staring at a 10 year old acer monitor)

@Moonzy will agree

each company has good and bad products

 

it just so happens all my acer products thus far are crap, including my family's

and their customer support is horrible

 

i wish they did a series about customer support for warranty products

but since it differs from region to region, it's not very representative of global market

[sub68]

5 minutes ago, Moonzy said:

it just so happens all my acer products thus far are crap, including my family's

fair my acer laptop is garbage though

but my sister old acer laptop lasted awhile (ten years?)

my old acer monitor is still going strong

 

5 minutes ago, Moonzy said:

each company has good and bad products

true

Kingston ram is ok

there ssd are bad ( I use one for storage of anime not boot)

it has corrupted footage and photos of trips

[WkdPaul]

as per the replies from @Lamothe and @darknessblade, Dell did charge for all the stuff that was refused, and that is 100% illegal here in Canada, especially with the itemized quote without the price for every items.

 

That rep wasn't helpful, ended up with an illegal quote, and is it just me or did she mentioned Alienware R11 and R10 at the beginning of the call, but didn't sell them an Alienware PC ???

[Intergalacticbits]

This was funny to watch.  

I couldn't believe how buyer beware it was.

 

It would be nice later in the year when everything is back to normal.

To see a similar video on what you get from ordering from each companies website at a certain dollar amount.

Just to see how they would compare in hardware you actually get and performance in testing of each brand.

 

I had heard the NZXT was great performance for the money but I've never ordered a desktop from them before so I'm curious about them in particular.

 

These companies messed up. 

What I got from this video was to never call in an order ever. 

[Bombastinator]

1 hour ago, Egg-Roll said:

That makes a little more sense, HOWEVER the local government does not need to assist in cases of misleading people to buy things esp in this case, because Dell assumes all responsibility for their contractors and staff. This means if a staff member over in the States, in India, or anywhere else does something illegal to a Canadian the Canadian government can in fact fine Dell Canada for it even tho the person who did said act is not in Canada, but because Dell is a company in Canada that has call centers out of country.

 

Equally that is not what you stated you stated this:

  

You see that period you put there? That is the end of a sentence therefore an end of a statement. A continuation of a sentence should have been preceded by therefore or another word intended to continue on the sentence in a new sentence which you did not do, therefore you closed that sentence. Not like that would help your argument in anyway because even if you put a comma or therefore it would still be the same. That is you have assumed because the females accent not being from North America she can't be in said countries.

 

So yes you literally stated she couldn't be in a North American country because of her accent. Also the rest of your post went on about the EU therefore did no justice in attempting to rectify the wording in that sentence.

That's BS, that's like a person who killed someone with their vehicle because they didn't know DUI was illegal or not knowing not yielding to those who have right of way is illegal. Ignorantia juris non excusat applies to this situation, while the person in the case of Dell may get away with it once or till caught, if the governments investigating find Dell to have failed to educate their workers or ensure overseas management do that legal term comes in to play because Dell as a company should have known better and should have fully did everything to the best of their ability, hence guilty or a reasonable case to pursue in court.

 

https://www.engadget.com/2009-09-15-dell-finally-fined-4-million-in-ny-fraud-case.html

 

In the end that's my point Dell didn't move their staff elsewhere to avoid laws, the moved staff to save money. All US EU and other laws still apply to Dell and their call centers no differently than if that employee was located in said country. Also governments while have no control over what happens overseas can start banning/taxing products from said company/country if it is found out they are violating basic human rights or using child labor to invoke change. Governments can still hold overseas employees accountable by fining the company located in their country into compliance, else Google wouldn't have to comply with the EU regulation (or anyone else for that matter) because they are an US company, but they do, because they serve the EU therefore have to comply with their laws.

 

I'm not going to reply to this topic anymore, more specifically about this, because I read what I read and what I read was profiling based on their accent. It doesn't matter if that was your intent or not.

Re: Canadian fine

the question was about the US, not Canada, but that may also apply if there isn’t a way Dell can duck that via contract clauses. 
 

re: the period.  
is this an attack on bad grammar?  Not sure what point you’re making there.  There could be one, I just can’t tell what it is. 
 

re: word twisting

you tell me what I stated as a could or couldn’t.  I take it you took it that way.

I did not so state though, and it was not my intention to so state. 

 I did intend to imply  it was not impossible that the operator wasn’t. There are two (not one) reasons to think he/she might not be, but that is not a guarantee.  
 

re: refusal to reply

Of course you won’t. You’re argument doesn’t work.  It’s based on a bunch of assumptions made entirely by yourself that are false.  Would it work even if those assumptions were true?  Perhaps. Only perhaps though.   The profiling thing wasn’t even your original argument, though it seems to clearly be what set you off.  You seem to want to attempt to make a bunch of assumptions about me based on a statement I made based on assumptions about metadata from those statements. Metadata which I might point out are probably not true.  Did I take the fact that there was a non North American accent involved into account?  Sure, but only after the abuse attempts were made, and as a attempt to figure out why such things might even be considered possible.  I did the metadata too thing a bit.  My assumption is that it is extremely unlikely for a person who does such a thing as a job every day, to not know such behavior was abusive.

 

I’ll even throw another iron in the fire on this one.  I think it’s possible you’ve got some sort of axe to grind here.  I don’t know what it is, but I think it may be there.  There have been a bunch of conceptual reaches and assumptions by you about what i said that are sufficiently bizarre as to imply an agenda of some sort.

 

 

[samcool55]

2 hours ago, wkdpaul said:

as per the replies from @Lamothe and @darknessblade, Dell did charge for all the stuff that was refused, and that is 100% illegal here in Canada, especially with the itemized quote without the price for every items.

 

That rep wasn't helpful, ended up with an illegal quote, and is it just me or did she mentioned Alienware R11 and R10 at the beginning of the call, but didn't sell them an Alienware PC ???

Well as far as I understood the rep asked if Sarah wanted an alienware R10 or R11, but because Sarah doesn't know what those are, I guess the rep thought Sarah was a clueless idiot and basically scammed her. My guess is that going with an alienware would get her a better system, but would not allow the rep to sell her all the warranties and anti-virus stuff. Haven't checked the actual pricing options so don't quote me on that.

[WkdPaul]

3 minutes ago, samcool55 said:

*snip*

That was my whole point, most people that are going to call aren't going to be knowledgeable, so this was 100% predatory, and IMO, illegal !!

[Egg-Roll]

2 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

 I did intend to imply  it was not impossible that the operator wasn’t. There are two (not one) reasons to think he/she might not be, but that is not a guarantee.  

However that is not what you said. Intended and what was stated are 2 completely different things, and the original post about all this didn't even go in that direction in any form whatsoever. Instead it went directly to the EU, if it went to Canada or Mexico then I could understand where you where coming from but it didn't.

 

2 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

the question was about the US, not Canada, but that may also apply if there isn’t a way Dell can duck that via contract clauses. 

Right, I was using Canada as an example because we too have consumer rights laws, different in many ways but what Dell did in the video is very likely illegal here as well, plus also wrong contracting out doesn't absolve them of their legal responsibilities towards their clients and regulations surrounding them. Plus the link I gave clearly shows they got fined in New York and not Canada, unfortunately trying to find further information about it including possibly where call centers during that time where is going to be too much hassle due to the accounting scandal they did not too long ago.

 

2 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

Of course you won’t. You’re argument doesn’t work.  It’s based on a bunch of assumptions made entirely by yourself that are false

Argument does work, you are just denying it for self protection, and what assumptions? Assumption I know how to read and understand English? Because that isn't an assumption, it is a fact. You said what you said and how you said it was profiling based on how one sounded and made the assumption they didn't reside within a body of land because of it, would you have stated that the same way if it was a native English speaking person? Probably not, in fact I wager you wouldn't have, that is where you went wrong in that sentence, you can not transfer that sentence to place said person into North America and can only place them out of it. You breakdown your own sentence for me if you think I'm wrong then, to prove me wrong. Maybe then you'll see what I mean.

 

Also profiling is still part of my original argument of "You don't need to have a accent from a country to be in said country." I decided to use the word to make my life easier.

 

So simply put Dell can have their call centers on Mars paying their workers 1 cent a day, but regardless of contracts or who they hire they are still obligated to uphold their obligations in the countries they serve. Failing to do that can result in fines, and have resulted in fines in the past, esp in the USA. That is because the normal consumer sees a number on Dells local site and gets transferred to Mars, but they wouldn't know it unless disclosed and can easily assume they are in the same country, however even if it was disclosed the Martian would still have to uphold the laws of the land the caller is in because they are being paid by a company within that land to do a job for them, and that includes not breaking any local laws that could get them fined.

 

Now don't bother quoting or replying back to me unless you have tangible evidence I have done/said something wrong, because I would love that if that was the case, but I can't see that actually happening. Because all you have given is anecdotal evidence of things you should have said originally or trying to twist my words while claiming I twisted yours in claiming I have done things wrong, either that you don't even bother reading my replies, in which case ^{what's the answer to life the universe and everything}

 

 

Side note: I don't think you can use conceptual and assumption in the same sentence describing a person or actions of, if you can you are the first.

[samcool55]

3 minutes ago, wkdpaul said:

That was my whole point, most people that are going to call aren't going to be knowledgeable, so this was 100% predatory, and IMO, illegal !!

And to top it off they went 200 dollar over budget. The final price was 2,199.39 CAD.