Consumer be aware! Letter I am sending to Forbes magazine:
Having Dell was always my dream..
And here my dream arrived. It was Inspiron 4000, Pentium III. It has a big screen, proudly displays the name DELL in silver on its cover, and blends well with my furniture colors.
Alas, soon I learnt that my coveted Dell has a character of its own.. Just after two weeks it developed a habit of becoming very hot and noisy. In addition, it began to take a nap any time without consulting me... In twenty minutes after opening, the computer used to fall into a coma revived only by my shutting it off and starting it again and then it fell into another coma after 15-20 minutes.
It is not the fault of our computer, claimed my complaint technician in rejection, it is the WEB. It is your connection. So I changed to cable instead of telephone but to no avail.
After my seventh call ( I guess it was the seventh because I stop counting my calls-- Dell changed the mother board on my computer. But as I said, even with the new mother board the computer has a character of its own. It just ignored the change and got slower.
Then I lost all my files,
Calling to the Dell technical support became a full time job.
The attitude of the technicians changed too: after 5-10minutes of trying to help they just hanged up the phone and I had to wait for another technician who in his turn after learning about the computers ills hanged up the phone again and so and so on. My pleas for a supervisor went unanswered for weeks and I found myself instead of working hanging on the phone for hours and hours.
In a perverse way, I could understand Dell technicians. The computer stubbornly refused to comply with all the manipulations I performed on it to follow their advice. As a matter of fact, it got worse.
In the ongoing battle between computer and technicians, the computer refused to get out of diagnostic mode.
Now, only now I was allowed to talk to the supervisor, and, as I was told, the most experienced technician came to revive the computer functions.
Now after six months of owning my Dell, its functions are probably restored... Or not restored? I still do not know because the computer is now stripped of more than half of the software it had before, I lost my cable connection and, probably, for a week I won't we able to go online. And who knows, after the revival it might do the same nasty things--get overheated, fall into naps and ...see above. But it still blends well with my furniture colors.
For months I was literally begging the Dell people to take the computer back...The address to their complaint bureau is well hidden and very possibly guarded with old fashioned dragons who spit out fire.
People, can somebody help me, I do not have the appropriate equipment to fight dragons. |
