Morons at Dell (Dell Dimension 8100)

Member Name: poodlepie

Product:	Dell Dimension 8100
Date:	03/02/03 (986 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Cheaper than most, Quick delivery, Nice black cosmetics

Disadvantages: Inferior technical support, DIY Warranty, Costly if faulty

A client of mine who had bought to 2 Dell Computers phoned Dell support to ask why he couldn't copy a file on a floppy from one Dell PC to another. He quickly surmised that the Dell with win Xp on had a faulty floppy drive.
The person he spoke to at Dell advised him to make a boot disk on the win98 Dell PC and boot from it in the xp PC and 'his problem would be solved'. He called Dell again to ask what to do next. The other person on the help line told him to format the XP PC and re-install XP.
Unsure about this, not only because he had critical data on the HArd Drive, he rang around various computer suppliers to get a second opinion and quickly arrived at the conclusion he had a faulty floppy drive. On challenging the support team at Dell he was then told that there were critical floppy drive settings that could be the cause. This, he later found out, was a load of complete rubbish.
Frustrated and angry he demanded Dell come and replace the faulty floppy drive. Oh no, it's not that simple. 'We will send you a floppy drive by courier and you must remove the faulty drive yourself and give it to the courier when he arrives'. He thought that DELL offered 'on-site' warranty. and now understands that 'on-site' means sending him the replacement part to his site. He has had to do the rest. Diagnose the fault, remove the faulty part, fit the replacement part himself. In other words Dell back up and support means that end-users, when they get a computer problem, have to get a diagnosis based on local expertise, inform Dell to replace the faulty part following the diagnosis, and then use local expertise to properly fit the new component after it has been delivered by a courier from Dell. All in all the cost of getting a floppy drive replaced cost him nearly £100. The actual value of a floppy drive totals no more than £10.

Summary: