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How the Dell Hell Story Ends - It's Incredible

Many times over the past 17 months, I've written about how a lemon Dell Dimension desktop computer put me in Dell Hell, where, sadly, many Dell customers remain. It was my fifth - and last - Dell.

Long story short: Dell has refunded by money for the lemon Dell Dimension I bought 17 months ago. And I bought a Mac. Here are the details:

When the power supply and mother board conked out (a known issue, according to the technician) and corrupted my operating system, Dell finally replaced all the internal parts in the computer. But it still wouldn't start unless it was in diagnostic mode, and my OS was corrupted by the constant power problems, freezes and random shutdowns, causing software to run badly.

Their customer service honcho for loud-mouth bloggers sent me a replacement computer. But it was re-furbished. And - get this - it didn't work. It seems there was a version of Windows already on it, besides the one I owned, and neither would run.

After wasting, literally, a week of my time, I demanded my money back. And - wonder of wonders - Dell agreed.

But we had to get my data off the computers. The drives refused to be reformatted. Who knows, or cares, why. And that proved to be another two-day hassle. Mr Customer Service Honcho sent me software to wipe the drives, but he didn't know how it worked. Finally, he figured it out and the data was covered with zeros, which isn't really a wipe out.

I had the box for the re-furbished computer, but Dell couldn't come up with the packaging for the Dell Dimension or the flat screen monitor. So I had to spend $50 on packaging materials (which they also re-funded) and then sent the boxes back via DHL.

Today I got email confirmation that my credit card has been credited, even though, sigh, I asked for a check.

Goodbye to Dell. Goodbye to Microsoft.

I'm loving my pretty Mac, not to mention the cute guys who teach how to use it.

Categories: Customer Service Issues

BL Ochman | Dec 22 06 12:26 | TrackBack (0)

Comments

Wow. Thank you for posting this heroic story. I, too, am in Dell hell and desparately trying to get my money back. I am also inspired by the fact that you are female (I'm guessing?), because I believed that Dell only listened to people with penises based on the differences in how Dell treated me versus how they treated my father.

Posted by: emily at January 11, 2007 1:57 PM

They listen to people with big audiences that include influential people. That's why they reached out to bloggers, including me. I don't think it's a gender thing. And, yes, I'm female.

Good luck. Keep demanding to be escalated. Use the Internet.

Posted by: B.L. Ochman at January 11, 2007 10:44 PM

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About BL Ochman

Blogger, social media strategy consultant to Fortune 500 companies, and sought-after corporate speaker B.L. Ochman heads the creative team of whatsnextonline.com. She also publishes the Ethics Crisis blog for SRF Global Translations

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