Obsidian Potency 3.0
What Happened to Service?
posted Wednesday, 12 October 2005
Okay, so Dell’s so-called “legendary customer service” sucks ass. I just got a new computer, as many of you know. I decided after placing the order that I should have the computer delivered to my work instead of my home; UPS blows if you’re using them for personal shipping.
Dell took half an hour by phone to accomplish this. I would have done it myself, but Dell doesn’t allow customers to go directly to UPS to change their shipping details. Okay, fine.
But the address was never changed. Once I contacted Dell for the shipping info, UPS told me they had tried to deliver but had no apartment number. So not only did Dell fail to change the shipping address, they also failed to put down my apartment number. Of course, Dell never contacted me to let me know the computer could not be delivered -- this in spite of the fact that they don’t allow customers to change shipping info themselves. UPS could not leave a slip for me, because they didn’t know which mailbox to stick the notice on. Or something.
On top of that, I decided that I didn’t want the 3-year warranty that was prepackaged in my deal. So I called Dell to cancel it before my computer was shipped. First, they tried to convince me that I wasn’t going to save ‘all that much money’, which is what all these asshole companies that make all their profits from selling worthless service plans try to do. But the worst was yet to come: Dell charges a $50 “termination fee” to customers who cancel their service plans, even if they haven’t received their order yet. Is this a service plan or a cellphone contract? Cellphone companies don’t charge you for canceling insurance, do they? No.
Dave helped me to realize that desktops really don’t need extended warranties. If something goes wrong with a desktop, it’s probably defective and the company will have to fix it anyway. After all, desktops are much easier to build, made from much more standard parts, are free from the need to compress everything, and are thus much less prone to breakage. All big electronicscompanies make most of their profit from these warranties, knowing that 999 times out of 1000, nothing will go wrong.
Even after the $50 fee, canceling the plan saved me about $88 – which, despite how much the computer cost, is not an insignificant amount of money. It’s just disgusting how reliant Dell seems to be on their service plans as a profit-generating item – and how stingy they are about customers who decide they don’t want their plan. Fuck ‘em.
[ADDENDUM: It looks like they took back the full $150 fee for their warranty, so I'm now a lot less mad about the whole warranty issue. I guess they recognized.]
Dell took half an hour by phone to accomplish this. I would have done it myself, but Dell doesn’t allow customers to go directly to UPS to change their shipping details. Okay, fine.
But the address was never changed. Once I contacted Dell for the shipping info, UPS told me they had tried to deliver but had no apartment number. So not only did Dell fail to change the shipping address, they also failed to put down my apartment number. Of course, Dell never contacted me to let me know the computer could not be delivered -- this in spite of the fact that they don’t allow customers to change shipping info themselves. UPS could not leave a slip for me, because they didn’t know which mailbox to stick the notice on. Or something.
On top of that, I decided that I didn’t want the 3-year warranty that was prepackaged in my deal. So I called Dell to cancel it before my computer was shipped. First, they tried to convince me that I wasn’t going to save ‘all that much money’, which is what all these asshole companies that make all their profits from selling worthless service plans try to do. But the worst was yet to come: Dell charges a $50 “termination fee” to customers who cancel their service plans, even if they haven’t received their order yet. Is this a service plan or a cellphone contract? Cellphone companies don’t charge you for canceling insurance, do they? No.
Dave helped me to realize that desktops really don’t need extended warranties. If something goes wrong with a desktop, it’s probably defective and the company will have to fix it anyway. After all, desktops are much easier to build, made from much more standard parts, are free from the need to compress everything, and are thus much less prone to breakage. All big electronicscompanies make most of their profit from these warranties, knowing that 999 times out of 1000, nothing will go wrong.
Even after the $50 fee, canceling the plan saved me about $88 – which, despite how much the computer cost, is not an insignificant amount of money. It’s just disgusting how reliant Dell seems to be on their service plans as a profit-generating item – and how stingy they are about customers who decide they don’t want their plan. Fuck ‘em.
[ADDENDUM: It looks like they took back the full $150 fee for their warranty, so I'm now a lot less mad about the whole warranty issue. I guess they recognized.]
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