What Did We ACTUALLY Get? - $1500 PC Secret Shopper 2 Part 2

[shaz2sxy]

I wonder how many people tried the Fall guys key..... 

[Vishera]

We should organize a RAM tossing competition:

 

[dizmo]

2 hours ago, MrLemonus said:

You don't even have to go by the current pricing. Linus and Jake themselves were suprised by the fact this was added on the invoice in the first part but never followed up. Also to counter your argument about pricing, there is clearly a discount added at the bottom of the invoice so I think when they were buying the computer for similiar price.

 

I disagree. For example, look at everything else that's a line item.

• Highly doubt they charge you, let alone twice, for "Dell.com Order"
• Doubt you get charged for "McAfee 30day Trial"
• Doubt you get charged for "System Driver for Windows"

It's simply not as cut and dry as you'd like to think it is.

[terminalinfinity]

Watching the video now.  I will say I wish Linus would see the other side to the single channel ram stick.  MANY times when I used to get prebuilts I'd get so pissed because they'd come with like 2 512MB sticks for example to make up 1GB leaving no free slots and I would be like "Why TF could you not just use 1 1GB stick so I could just do a drop in upgrade without losing a stick"

 

I would have LOVED (when I bought pre-builts) for manufacturers to always provide their ram on one stick.

[Blademaster91]

1 hour ago, sub68 said:

older dells can be swapped for sleepers but not this one

(surprise on hp because its normally proprietary)

Yeah its too bad dell didn't go with an ATX case, or use an alienware design.

I was really surprised with the hp, all standard except for the hp motherboard, dust filter on the intake and a glass panel is nice too.

[Vishera]

19 minutes ago, dizmo said:

I disagree. For example, look at everything else that's a line item.

• Highly doubt they charge you, let alone twice, for "Dell.com Order"
• Doubt you get charged for "McAfee 30day Trial"
• Doubt you get charged for "System Driver for Windows"

It's simply not as cut and dry as you'd like to think it is.

It's very vague and not clear what you paid for and what you got for free.

[terminalinfinity]

30 minutes ago, dizmo said:

I disagree. For example, look at everything else that's a line item.

• Highly doubt they charge you, let alone twice, for "Dell.com Order"
• Doubt you get charged for "McAfee 30day Trial"
• Doubt you get charged for "System Driver for Windows"

It's simply not as cut and dry as you'd like to think it is.

The claim isn't without merit though.  I can simply look at the standard warranty and see its "1 year mail in service"

 

The 4 years premium support is a product you can choose for an additional cost.

Is it possible the rep included it for free or offset the cost with a discount?  Maybe  Is it more likely she just decided to add it in after trying to sell it like 5 times?  Im personally of the opinion that was the case.

[MrLemonus]

2 hours ago, dizmo said:

I disagree. For example, look at everything else that's a line item.

• Highly doubt they charge you, let alone twice, for "Dell.com Order"
• Doubt you get charged for "McAfee 30day Trial"
• Doubt you get charged for "System Driver for Windows"

It's simply not as cut and dry as you'd like to think it is.

Honestly, I wish you were right but unfortunately I don't think that is the case. You can check the configurator yourself. I agree with @terminalinfinity that after trying to sell the extra support like 5 times it is highly unlikely she would just add it at no extra cost, especially for a $150+ item. Could @jakkuh_t maybe shed some light on this?

 

You are correct that they do not charge you for everything on the invoice - McAfee being a good example which you can see right here in the configurator:

 

But in the same configurator you also find the two specific options we are talking about here as a paid extras:

 

 

Also apparently people were already talking about this after the first video and this seems to be outright illegal. Does someone with FP know if they adress it in the later parts?

[terminalinfinity]

1 hour ago, MrLemonus said:

Honestly, I wish you were right but unfortunately I don't think that is the case. You can check the configurator yourself. I agree with @terminalinfinity that after trying to sell the extra support like 5 times it is highly unlikely she would just add it at no extra cost, especially for a $150+ item. Could @jakkuh_t maybe shed some light on this?

 

You are correct that they do not charge you for everything on the invoice - McAfee being a good example which you can see right here in the configurator:

 

But in the same configurator you also find the two specific options we are talking about here as a paid extras:

 

 

Also apparently people were already talking about this after the first video and this seems to be outright illegal. Does someone with FP know if they adress it in the later parts?

Revisiting the invoice, the puzzle gets even deeper.

It seems they were TRIPLE charged for warranty and service.

At the VERY least that should not be a 1 and 3 year on site service.  It should be a single 4 year on site service.

You also shouldn't need "premium support" if you're paying for a package that includes remote diagnosis and sending a tech to your house if needed if a problem ever comes up.

So

1 Year Onsite service $39CAD

4 years premium support $198CAD

3 years onsite service $108CAD

$345CAD

 

 

[MrLemonus]

17 minutes ago, terminalinfinity said:

Revisiting the invoice, the puzzle gets even deeper.

It seems they were TRIPLE charged for warranty and service.

At the VERY least that should not be a 1 and 3 year on site service.  It should be a single 4 year on site service.

You also shouldn't need "premium support" if you're paying for a package that includes remote diagnosis and sending a tech to your house if needed if a problem ever comes up.

So

1 Year Onsite service $39CAD

4 years premium support $198CAD

3 years onsite service $108CAD

$345CAD

 

 

 

5 hours ago, MrLemonus said:

The crazy part is Dell added two extra warranties you can't even spec yourself at the same time. I believe this is the exact config and if you try to add the Premium support for 4 years and the extra 3 years for Hardware service with onsite diagnosis it won't let you since those two things seem to cover the same stuff. Sorry for harping on this but it just blows my mind how scammy this is.

You are correct, I came to a similiar conlusion couple of posts before.

[dizmo]

 

2 hours ago, MrLemonus said:

Honestly, I wish you were right but unfortunately I don't think that is the case. You can check the configurator yourself. I agree with @terminalinfinity that after trying to sell the extra support like 5 times it is highly unlikely she would just add it at no extra cost, especially for a $150+ item. Could @jakkuh_t maybe shed some light on this?

 

You are correct that they do not charge you for everything on the invoice - McAfee being a good example which you can see right here in the configurator:

 

But in the same configurator you also find the two specific options we are talking about here as a paid extras:

 

Yes, there is, however see my reply below.

27 minutes ago, terminalinfinity said:

Revisiting the invoice, the puzzle gets even deeper.

It seems they were TRIPLE charged for warranty and service.

At the VERY least that should not be a 1 and 3 year on site service.  It should be a single 4 year on site service.

You also shouldn't need "premium support" if you're paying for a package that includes remote diagnosis and sending a tech to your house if needed if a problem ever comes up.

So

1 Year Onsite service $39CAD

4 years premium support $198CAD

3 years onsite service $108CAD

$345CAD

It's odd how you went that far, however didn't bother actually trying to use the configuration.

If you had, you'd realize that you cannot have multiple support warranties.

Also, if you configure the PC the way they have it, and include the Premium Support 4 years, it comes out to $1,877.

It just shows that you can't go by current pricing; just like I said in the first place.

 

[terminalinfinity]

2 minutes ago, dizmo said:

 

Yes, there is, however see my reply below.

It's odd how you went that far, however didn't bother actually trying to use the configuration.

If you had, you'd realize that you cannot have multiple support warranties.

Also, if you configure the PC the way they have it, and include the Premium Support 4 years, it comes out to $1,877.

It just shows that you can't go by current pricing; just like I said in the first place.

 

The fact that the rep overrode the regular warranty configurations to include two things that don't normally and shouldn't go together because they overlap gives more credence to the ripped off theory, not less.

[dizmo]

Just now, terminalinfinity said:

The fact that the rep overrode the regular warranty configurations to include two things that don't normally and shouldn't go together because they overlap gives more credence to the ripped off theory, not less.

No, you're assuming you can include both, which you clearly can't. It goes to show that while their list is confusing it's likely not malicious. 

[terminalinfinity]

11 minutes ago, dizmo said:

No, you're assuming you can include both, which you clearly can't. It goes to show that while their list is confusing it's likely not malicious. 

And you're assuming the reps are limited to the same configuration limitations that you and I are on the website. 
Which is ironic because the entire argument "maybe this wasn't malicious, maybe they gave it to them for free" rests on the axiom of the rep having more abilities to control configurations/pricing than the website.

[tim0901]

50 minutes ago, terminalinfinity said:

And you're assuming the reps are limited to the same configuration limitations that you and I are on the website. 
Which is ironic because the entire argument "maybe this wasn't malicious, maybe they gave it to them for free" rests on the axiom of the rep having more abilities to control configurations/pricing than the website.

And we know that reps at other companies are able to override the system should they want - they got a $50 discount from the HP rep after all.

 

Personally I wonder if the Dell rep gets some kind of bonus for selling certain packages, hence they were trying so hard to cram them down their throat. And chances are that, if they ignore the customer and put the package in anyway, the bonus isn't taken back if the customer complains that they didn't want it and gets a refund on that part of the order. But of course that's all speculation that we've no proof for. (Does that make me a tech leaker now guys?)

[terminalinfinity]

2 hours ago, tim0901 said:

And we know that reps at other companies are able to override the system should they want - they got a $50 discount from the HP rep after all.

 

Personally I wonder if the Dell rep gets some kind of bonus for selling certain packages, hence they were trying so hard to cram them down their throat. And chances are that, if they ignore the customer and put the package in anyway, the bonus isn't taken back if the customer complains that they didn't want it and gets a refund on that part of the order. But of course that's all speculation that we've no proof for. (Does that make me a tech leaker now guys?)

Personally I think its quota related.  I remember my first job at a department store that shall go unnamed there were two things I was judged on 1)How many people I got to sign up for the department store credit card and 2) how many extended service plans I sold. 

Regardless of if the incentive is perverse (do it or your fired) or positive (bonus) I highly doubt a few hundred dollars in support services and warranty was included for free.  I MIGHT could believe it if it was the 2 year.  But its literally the most expensive service plan they offer.

And it also raises the question, if the 4 year service plan, the highest and most expensive one was included with the purchase, what exactly were they trying to sell her?  Either this is the dumbest upselling idea ever (convince them to pay for something we include free), or they scammed LTT.  I don't think there's any other options

[GDRRiley]

dell really needs to change it to a line by line price

[xnamkcor]

All this concern over what is front panel and what is back panel, and I'm over here in 2021 just turning my case backwards so all my I/O is facing me.

[Letgomyleghoe]

8 hours ago, terminalinfinity said:

ANY times when I used to get prebuilts I'd get so pissed because they'd come with like 2 512MB

ddr2 prebuilts? lmfao

[terminalinfinity]

17 minutes ago, Letgomyleghoe said:

ddr2 prebuilts? lmfao

Yup.  Last prebuilt I got that wasn't a laptop was 06?  I think?  HP Core 2 duo and I played FEAR on it

[terminalinfinity]

48 minutes ago, xnamkcor said:

All this concern over what is front panel and what is back panel, and I'm over here in 2021 just turning my case backwards so all my I/O is facing me.

LOL I remember having to do that on the first PC I ever built because I used a POS deep cool case and the audio port died in like a week.

[Drenlin]

Gaming Performance Predictions:

Ibuypower has the best GPU by a hair, Cyberpower has the best CPU by a similar margin. They'll probably trade blows in games as long as the newest drivers are used on the 5700XT. I'd say it's a ~65% chance Cyberpower wins overall, because of the AIO-cooled 10700K and close-third-place GPU. (maybe even 2nd place GPU depending on how bad HP's cooling is)

HP will be a close #3 overall and in most games, due to the blower card, weaker CPU and single-channel RAM, might overtake Cyberpower if the game used runs badly on AMD (Metro is a good example of that), or possibly fall to #4 or 5 in a CPU-heavy task.

 

Dell and Maingear might trade blows, but Maingear will probably take the lead overall. Dell will probably jump up the ladder a bit in CPU-heavy tasks.

 

RIP Origin

 

Synthetic benchmarks, obviously Cyberpower and Dell will be #1 and #2 in CPU-only tasks while Ibuypower and HP will do the same in GPU unless it's one of the weird ones like Firestrike where AMD overperforms. Will be interesting to see the rest of the CPU lineup duke it out since it's basically just core count vs single core performance.

[MrLemonus]

14 hours ago, dizmo said:

Yes, there is, however see my reply below.

It's odd how you went that far, however didn't bother actually trying to use the configuration.

If you had, you'd realize that you cannot have multiple support warranties.

Also, if you configure the PC the way they have it, and include the Premium Support 4 years, it comes out to $1,877.

It just shows that you can't go by current pricing; just like I said in the first place.

Well I'm sorry but you are incorrect. There is nothing odd since I did actually try the configurator hence this post from yesterday:

 

20 hours ago, MrLemonus said:

The crazy part is Dell added two extra warranties you can't even spec yourself at the same time. I believe this is the exact config and if you try to add the Premium support for 4 years and the extra 3 years for Hardware service with onsite diagnosis it won't let you since those two things seem to cover the same stuff. Sorry for harping on this but it just blows my mind how scammy this is.

I also agree with @terminalinfinity that "The fact that the rep overrode the regular warranty configurations to include two things that don't normally and shouldn't go together because they overlap gives more credence to the ripped off theory, not less."

 

To your second point, If you configure the PC the way they have it, which I had already posted btw (you can check the whole config in the first part - 10700kf, 1660ti, 16gb ram, 512gb ssd + 1tb hdd, 500w psu with lighting, Killer wifi) it comes out to $1,929.99 CAD without any warranty, so I don't get where you got your number from. One more thing to counter your argument about current pricing is the fact that in the first part they talk about getting a 600$ discount.

 

And lastly I am going to repeat what I had already said, I am not going by pricing alone. Linus and Jake themselves were suprised by this. The fact that there are two extra warranties on the invoice is enough to be suspicious. If you believe that it is more likely that after the rep tried to upsell her 9 times overall and 3 times on warranty that the rep just added two extra warranties in for free than what @terminalinfinity said about quotas then I don't think there is much to argue about. 

 

11 hours ago, terminalinfinity said:

Personally I think its quota related.  I remember my first job at a department store that shall go unnamed there were two things I was judged on 1)How many people I got to sign up for the department store credit card and 2) how many extended service plans I sold. 

Regardless of if the incentive is perverse (do it or your fired) or positive (bonus) I highly doubt a few hundred dollars in support services and warranty was included for free.  I MIGHT could believe it if it was the 2 year.  But its literally the most expensive service plan they offer.

And it also raises the question, if the 4 year service plan, the highest and most expensive one was included with the purchase, what exactly were they trying to sell her?  Either this is the dumbest upselling idea ever (convince them to pay for something we include free), or they scammed LTT.  I don't think there's any other options

 

I of course agree that these are only speculations which is also why I wrote about it here ín the first place. Because if they turn out to be true I think it should be adressed. If you have a good shopping experince with Dell then good for you. In my eyes this shows that they don't shy away from preying on people who don't know much about computers which in the end is not good for anyone. That is all, I rest my case.

[Grabhanem]

The sad thing about the whole fiasco is that Dell has a very compelling Alienware system for 1900 CAD with a 5700XT and 3700X, so they could have been a close contender if they had just recommended a "gaming" pc for gaming...