Dell Customer Support SUX! Beware Venting!!!

Horned Toad · Post by **Horned Toad** » March 14th, 2005, 8:40 am

I heard most of the companies have their tec support over there in reddot land, I can put in a plug for Alienware here it has been a good comp, but my old Gateway ran for 4.5 years before it got smoked by a virus

blueskiesalways · Post by **blueskiesalways** » March 14th, 2005, 9:13 am

And when you eventually get to talk to a dothead, try and understand what the hell they are saying, the accent is a killer!!!

AngryPistols · Post by **AngryPistols** » March 14th, 2005, 9:31 am

It's not just Dell either.

Several weeks ago, I called MS Tech Support and I got someone in New Delhi that was trying to get me to type 'REGEDIT' in the run box.

Rajib says 'Ok, in the the run box, type 'Rrrrr as in ORRRRANGE' and after several witty sarcasms(on my part), I finally found out what he was trying to say.

WTF, is this even the same language?

Vee · Post by **Vee** » March 14th, 2005, 9:37 am

Yours is not an isolated incident.

I've been waiting for the perfect time to post this

This is a dialogue that went on for three days between myself and Dell support. I would like to point out that this is also Dellâ€™s â€œPremiere GOLD Supportâ€

FireFinder · Post by **FireFinder** » March 14th, 2005, 9:42 am

They actually teach colloquial English, and make everyone use names like "Bill" and "Sue" instead of "Apu".

From a business (economic) perspective, offshoring is attractive because those fuckers in India, Bangladesh, and the Phillipines will work for $8 (US) a day, opposed to $10 an hour with benefits here.

From a consumers perspective, you better learn how to fix your own shit, cause waiting on hold to talk to some curry-eating push-start or pull-start will give you a fucking heart attack or a stroke.

I had to RMA a Netgear product, and couldn't conduct the transaction via email, I had to call their support line, and that was in India.

Dell does offer some level of support to their corporate customers that is US-based.

Spartan · Post by **Spartan** » March 14th, 2005, 9:43 am

Are those proprietary changes based at the OS or firmware levels? - in other words, if you started over with a clean OS install (not the DELL copy they provided you, but a clean MS one) would that clear the DELL proprietary changes off your system?

I know when they were having all the litigation over MS being a monopoly, this is one of the things DELL was fighting for before congress, that they had not ability due to tight contract restrictions to make changes to the OS settings that would beneficial to their brand and to their customers (based on customer feedback).

Vee · Post by **Vee** » March 14th, 2005, 10:00 am

Spartan wrote:Are those proprietary changes based at the OS or firmware levels? - in other words, if you started over with a clean OS install (not the DELL copy they provided you, but a clean MS one) would that clear the DELL proprietary changes off your system?

Yes.

Although it will NOT make any changes to the BIOS on your motherboard.

Slowpoke · Post by **Slowpoke** » March 14th, 2005, 10:14 am

About a year ago, I was having trouble getting my new Dell to run my old Verizon DSL modem. Between Dell and Verizon, I spent 24 hours on the phone in a two week period. Verizons support was great (American), but the problem was with Dells shit, but Dell kept sending me back to Verizon. I had big trouble with the Hindu support techs at Dell. I told one guy, "Look, I don't hear very well and with your accent and how fast you're talking, I can't understand you. You're going to have to slow down and talk more clearly." The guy keeps rattling on a mile a minute in his pseudo-english, so I said, "Look asshole.....hello....hello?" Finally a tech from Verizon told me how to fix Dells shit, but said he could get in trouble if anyone found out he did it. :?

McD · Post by **McD** » March 14th, 2005, 11:52 am

I always go to the dell support forum. Always some whiz kid there to help me out.

chkray · Post by **chkray** » March 14th, 2005, 12:35 pm

Because of my prior bad experiences with Dell, I had sworn to never buy from them again, so I purchased my last desktop from ABS Computers. From ABS, I was able to have a custom system built with EXACTLY what I wanted, and it arrived at my house (in Hawaii) in less than a week.

After about a year, one of my hard drives (set up on a RAID 0) crashed, and the system wouldn't boot. I placed a call to ABS - an AMERICAN tech answered almost immediately, asked me about 4 basic questions, determined that 1 of my HD's had crashed, but since it was RAID, couldn't determine which one, so he had 2 spanking new HD's mailed to me - which arrived at my house about 2 days after my first and only call. I installed the new HD's - dropped the old ones into the shipping box, and mailed them back to ABS, AT THEIR COST. Subsequently, my puter's been working like a champ ever since.

My recommendation: Put your Dell in a trash compactor, and buy from ABS. You'll get exactly what you want, cheaper, and with great support.