Dell ordering nightmare - What prompted me to call a Dell salesman is still a little fuzzy. I think I wanted to see if he could give me a better price than I could get by ordering on the web. I should have known better. It should be a given that the web deal is better since the cost of a web service to Dell should be much less than having to pay a salesperson.

I tried to get a match of the order that I put together on the web, but I was concentrating on the price, and not the specifics of the order, and the salesman didn't review it with me, since he was trying real hard to beat the price I quoted from the web. When I reviewed the order online the next day, there were several errors. With a projected shipping date of Dec. 16, at least a week away, I figured I had plenty of time to modify the order. Not!

Although Dell has stated that they are moving their customer call center back to the U.S., it's obviously still located in India. The nice man and woman with Indian accents informed me that the order had left the factory, words I've learned to hate. The three boxes were now in transit and would be delivered, regardless of the fact that I didn't want the incorrect order.

It's interesting that we can track our packages as they make their way across the country, but we can't stop them. It shouldn't be that difficult to contact the carrier and have them return a package, which would be much cheaper than attempting to deliver it and then having to return it.

I learned another sad fact; that contacting someone in the returns or refusals department is impossible. Customer service people refuse to give out the phone number, and they will only wait on hold for a set amount of time, 5 minutes in one case, 2 in another. The shipment can't be sent back without a refusal or return number.

I think Dell just tries to wear you down enough that you give up, which I did a couple of times. I'd almost talked myself into accepting the incorrect order. One rep even said that I could replace the wrong CD drive myself, assuming they would send a replacement. It's probaly not a big deal to do, but that's not why I bought a new system. She also said I could upgrade the OS from XP Home to Pro. Just what I need, a new system that has gone through an upgrade, probably missing service packs, etc.

And the sales person and his supervisor are both out of the office until Saturday. How convenient.

The PIII mentioned below is also screwed up. The shop replaced the OS, but didn't install the right network components. Now I can't even create a dial-up connection, and I can't install the components because I've got an earlier version on CD. Time to take a deep breath and go for a long walk.
posted by Bruce Wright at 11:09 AM #