In May 2008 we ordered a Dell Inspiron 1525 laptop as a high school graduation gift for our daughter who has since gone away to university. It finally arrived in July and although it was late, we did not complain. She called home absolutely frantic on September 26, 2008 because her laptop had stopped working - she is in the first year of a Bachelor of Commerce program and most of her course material is online and she is required to write weekly quizzes online as well. Obviously all her essays and case studies must be professionally presented and can not be hand written!
She MUST have access to a working computer at all times!
She called the Dell service number and after navigating the voice mail found someone in technical support that had her run hours of diagnostics - she had to stop to go to class and then had to start the entire process over again when she could get back to her room. Finally the Dell person agreed that it was in fact a hard drive failure and told her to remove the hard drive so she could tell him where the unit was made. She is a seventeen year old girl in a dorm room - she does not have access to tools!!!
At this point she called home again and we agreed to drive the two hundred miles (with gas prices over $1.00 per litre) to bring the laptop home so that I could deal with it.
I called Dell and went through the whole rigmarole again and because I had a screw driver I was able to remove the hard drive and report that it was made in Korea. This process took hours!
The technician said that he would send a replacement and I should have it in a few days. Several days later a new hard drive was delivered. I was stunned to see that is was made in the same place as the faulty one and even more stunned when I realized that the hard drive was completely empty and that I was going to have to spend hours re-installing all the software that we purchased (installed) with the laptop.
We then had to pay to have the laptop sent FedEx overnight as my daughter had already been without it for more than a week!
When she got it back she had to spend hours re-installing her own programs and files, re-registering her anti-virus, setting up her iTunes etc.
I had already decided that I would never buy anything from Dell again when she called yesterday (January 27, 2009) to say that once again her laptop would not start!
This time I left work immediately and drove the 200 miles (round trip) to her school to pick up the laptop. I called Dell as soon as I got home and spent two hours on the phone running repeated diagnostics until once again the technician conceded that it was in fact a hard drive failure!
He started to give me the spiel about sending a replacement hard drive and I demanded to speak to his supervisor. His supervisor tried to give me the same line and I told him that I wanted the laptop fixed properly and that I was not going to waste my time again.
Finally he admitted that there was a repair depot in Newmarket, Ontario (approximately 20 miles from our home) and my husband agreed to drive over to drop it off this morning. The round trip took over two hours as we are in the midst of severe winter snow storm.
Hopefully the repair depot will fix it properly and not just replace the hard drive again!
When we get it back we will once again have to send it back FedEx overnight and incur another $40.00 charge!!
Why should I have to incur cost because your product is defective?? When I asked the four different Dell employees that I have spoken to in the last 24 hours no one could give me an answer.
I called Dell customer service and spoke to one gentleman who said he could not help me and when I spoke to his supervisor and explained about the hours we have wasted and all the money we have spent because your product is defective he said “that’s too bad” and refused to reimburse us.
Do you actually consider that to be “Customer Service”???
I have never written a letter of complaint before but I have never experienced anything like this – trying to deal with Dell is frustrating beyond words!
I would like all costs we have incurred (approximately $250.00 Canadian to date) refunded. If we experience any more problems with this laptop I want the entire purchase price refunded and we will buy a laptop from someone other than Dell!!!
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