Hi All,
It
seems ages since I first contacted you all with the trails and tribulations of
Dell India, alas it has only been a scant eighteen days since this saga with
Dell India has begun.
Only to
refresh your memories shall I briefly remind you that my first computer was
to be returned to Dell India after four or more grueling hours discussing
the problems, or should I say that there of course is no discussion as you never
speak to a person that you can understand, just to refresh your memory, as
I have indeed lived this entire nightmare I will as briefly as possible
retell this true story.
Before I go any further I must tell you
after hearing this story if you do ever buy a
Dell India computer, I shall personally testify as to your sanity! Or lack of
same!
As you all
recall in my last book, I described how you go about reaching what I still will
refer to laughingly as "Tech Support"
You are given a set of 100 numbers, which after numerous
other steps (wait, just for the fun of it I will take you on a typical call
to Dell India Tech Support,) first you dial in 1-800-901-3355, voice mail now
tells you to press 1 to enter ext. 66955, which takes you magically to
another voice mail, which now tells you that you will
hear two brief beeps and finally you will be transferred to the super-duper (oh
heavens, let us not forget pooper) Dell India Tech Support,
At this point you
are still hopeful, you fool you! As quickly as you hear the two brief beeps you
are now asked to enter on your phone keypad your 100 number "express service
code", if you do not do this rapidly enough to please Dell India, you will hear
what I originally described as the sound we all know that is going to connect us
to our party, except that after a moment or two an operator comes in and says
"if you wish to make a call" and you think "G-d almighty I've done it again! I
can not begin to tell you how many times I have slammed my phone down on my
desk (this was a trick I learned from a niece, who tells me that she
also always enjoyed her calls to Dell India Tech Support) soon we will not have
a working phone in our home and thus I have just purchased a cell
phone.
Getting back to today's story, if indeed you have been
lucky (in the allotted amount of time) to punch in your 100 number "express
service code",(lets just call that the ecs from now on, oh for G-d's sake I just
noticed that same thing on my keyboard, and it stands for escape, just
transpose those letters) in any event returning to my story, you are now
told, again by the voice mail that all of Dell India's Techs are busy helping
yet another fool, idiot, lamebrain, stoopid (this word is driving my
spell check wild), ignorant person who has purchased a Dell India product.
Did I make my self clear?
no you are not done as yet, when you finally get some
guy/gal from "tech" on the line you are now asked (each and every time) to give
your name, service tag number (yet another number) and of course your phone
number and e-mail address. This happens even if your are transferred
from one tech to another tech on the same call, my, my what a marvelous
system.
Just to briefly remind
you, with my first computer I got all the way to the desk top before finding
that I had a problem that could not be fixed ( I promise I will not go any
further with that story) except to say that Dell India tech support first said
it was the monitor, then at a later time said it could be the tower (computer)
as it contained some sort of chip which could make the monitor go askque,
thus they gave me a dispatch number and told me I would soon be a "happy camper"
my words, not theirs.
I was
given some instructions which even in my state of mind I felt I could
understand, Dell India would ship me a new (entire) computer package together
with packing labels for the return of the computer which I had just hooked up
that day, but gosh I had gotten as far as the desk top with my brand new
computer, now it had to be shipped back to Del India ( have you ever heard the
words inferior product?)
Now for those of you
who received my first book might remember I ended by saying you would just have
to wait for the second book to see what happened, well here goes.
On Friday October 15th, I
received my second computer, and remembering the instructions I had been
given as I unpacked each piece of the new computer I repacked the old computer
and placed it into the box. The new computer was sent on the dining room table,
where it stayed until Monday October 18th
when I felt I had gained enough strength to
install the new computer.
Before I go any further I
must remind you that I was to have received packing labels which I was to attach
to the three boxes in which the new computer had been shipped, and per
instructions Dick and I had done just that.
As I was unpacking the new
computer I had found only one packing label so on Sat. morning I started
with my calls to Dell India. They had sent me an a-mail to confirm all of this
and given me a site to which I could go to in case I
didn't get the packing labels (oh dear, if they did that
do you suppose it was because that very thing happened often???) what super
service as they also gave me an 800 phone number I could call just in case I
couldn't get to the site...WHAT??? would they send me a site that did not work?
Damn Right, and they also sent me a phone number to Customer Service which was
not a working number. Now that is what I call GREAT Dell India Support, makes me
think possibly the Customer Service has taken lessons from the Tech Support or
visa-versa.
The remainder
of Sat. October 16th was spent calling the Tech Support, maybe altogether I
called 6/7/8/ or more "Techs"
even I can just take just so much on any given day,
so not being able to resolve the "packing label issue"( I must add that on
another day I was told that all the computer information from that Sat. was
lost, so I could no prove I had called) I decided to just leave anything to
do with a computer till another day.
On Monday
I set up my new computer and could hardly believe my ears when I
booted up the computer, it sounded like
I was running a meat grinder, I went and asked Dick did
he could hear that noise (you do start to question yourself) he did and I
thought to myself don't tell me that again I have received an inferior product
from Dell India.
Within about a half hour
it had now gone from a meat grinder to a loud HUM, I thought could it be one of
the fans. But I did not have the amount of energy I knew would be needed to
again call Dell India Tech Support to report this problem, that call would have
to wait, I still had to find someone (anyone) who would send me those labels
that I needed to return the old computer.
I even
called DHL which Dell India has a
contract to pick up inferior merchandise and the lady to
whom I spoke and was full of sympathy told me I would still either need
three labels or I could pay for the shipping
charges myself on two of the boxes.
Knowing this I now returned to "tech support" and finally reached Jay (Joaquin)
who was in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Jay understood completely what my problem
was and would personally see to it that two more shipping labels were sent to
me, he could not understand why the site I had been given was not a working site
nor why the phone number was not a working number.
By
this time my computer, which I had left turned on was as silent as a church
mouse.
So I went ahead with getting connected to the WWW through
my ISP and started to download some programs like my antivirus program, when I
had gotten this much done
I shut done my computer for the evening. This was
probably late Tuesday, but I really couldn't swear to it, as the days were now
running together (yet another side effect of
my wonderful experience with Dell India.)
The following
day or night (at this point I really can't remember I again called "tech
support" and talked to Darren, then to Harry who was I guess Darren's
supervisor.
as the computer was again making the same noise as it had
before, now the problem was that by the time you get to "tech support"
the computer (or Tower) which had been grinding away was
now again as quite as a church mouse .
As a result there were no tests that could be done, I just tried to tell
the techs how the machine sounded, Darren told me as long as I had a service
contract with home service that he would send out a man with both a hard drive
and a CPU fan which he felt would be the problem and they would replace either
one or both parts. I told him that this was a brand new computer and I was
not about to start having parts replaced before the computer was even a week
old, thus I was transferred to Harry the supervisor. We agreed that I would wait
for the noise to start again and then would call back (what a stoopid thing to
agree to, but I was exhausted and couldn't discuss this or any other problem
with them at that time)
On Friday night I talked to another of our niece's and after that conversation
decided to get on my computer and download my mail. Needless to say as soon as I
got my computer turned on, it again started to make the grinding noise so I
quickly got off line and called Dell India, only to have to wait again until the
computer was like the above mentioned "church mouse" finally my call was
answered by Vincent who was taking my call in India (no, I was no longer
interested in what their "real" names were,
I explained my problem to Vincent and of course there
were no tests we could do because the computer was not making any unusual sound.
Vincent gave me the same suggestion as I had gotten before that he would have
parts sent out and put in. It was then that the Proverbial "shit" hit the fan, I
told Vincent
this was a brand new computer and I would again want a
replacement of the entire unit. And it was then that Vincent told me I
had no contract on this unit this was because it (the
contract) could not be transferred to this unit until Dell India received
the old unit back and then and then only would I have a service contract, on
this unit.
I then asked to speak to his supervisor, (who he had talked to many times during
this call,) as you may recall it their custom to ask if you mind being put on
hold for up to five minutes while they go and check with their supervisor's as
to what the next step should be. All of a sudden that supervisor was not
available, so I waited for approximately one hour chatting with Vincent until
"Carol" the supervisor saw that I was not about to give up, and finally took my
call. I then told Carol as calmly as I could the entire rotten story and she
told me she could understand why I was so upset ( and that is putting it mildly)
Can you just imagine I have no service on this unit and the reason for that is
because Dell India has not sent me any labels to return the old computer, now I
guess if you are Dell India those rules would make perfectly good sense, to
anyone else it is a great big pile of crap, and there are many other words I
could use in place of crap.
At the present
time I am supposed to get a call from either Carol or more likely Vincent on
Monday afternoon, I was given just a case number and Carol said she personally
would be making arrangements for the old unit to be picked up by DHL on Monday,
then when I get the call back from Vincent on Monday afternoon they will have
transferred my service contract to this unit, I must tell you as I complete the
story that as I turned on my computer this morning not only did I have the meat
grinder running but my monitor is about ten to eleven inches wide, and this is a
seventeen inch monitor, Vincent also mentioned that the service contract will
run from the original date of purchase, that being October 6th. That of course
means that if I were to allow them to send me a new computer and found it (like
the first two) to be of inferior quality I would not have a grace period of 21
days in which to return the unit.
I
really don't care at this stage of the game as I have never paid one cent for
this computer (they had a deal running at the time of purchase on my first
computer, that gave you six months to pay for the computer, instead of taking
monies from our savings account I chose to use this plan) so it is
my intention to send this letter in response to a service call letter I
received and let them know I DO NOT WANT A DELL INDIA COMPUTER. If they will
send me prepaid shipping labels I will pack up this unit, in the boxes my first
unit came in and return it to them,
I no longer want a Dell India computer
PERIOD
If they
chose not to do this I suppose after a period of six months I will be getting
letters from Dell India's lawyers telling me I am being sued. So be it! If
any trial were to be held I cannot believe that I would not come out as the
winner, so one of you hold on to this story as proof. ( I am
joking!)
It is my sincere wish that if you own a Dell India Product you will never have
half of the problems I have had with two brand new computers, and I am sure now
they will try to talk me into
trying a third, which I will be happy to do as long as it
carries the twenty-one day replacement. Heaven knows I am learning to put
computers together quickly.
