My wife's Inspiron 300m, which I bought a little over three years ago, was nearing the end of its warranty. My wife was experiencing some problems with the laptop, so about three weeks prior to the expiration of the warranty we logged a support call. They said they would schedule a visit and contact us.
Unannounced, the repairman showed up about a week later. The ham-handed repairman cheerfully explained how he hadn't had any experience on that model, but that he had badly screwed up a repair on a similarly-equipped X300 the week before. He put the laptop back together without making an important connection, so he had to take it apart again. In the meantime I had to take an important call, so I wasn't able to take a look at the machine before he slipped out the door.
Well, it turned out that not only had he not installed the proper drivers and maybe connections (it was a motherboard replacement) which caused some issues with power management, etc., but the keyboard was put in incorrectly. My wife called Dell, and they said they'd schedule another visit to correct the problems.
To make a long story short, the warranty elapsed with no visit. My wife called and asked what was happening, and was told that the laptop was now out of warranty and Dell would not repair it.
I'm very angry, but we've decided to let it go because it's not worth our time to fight with them any further. Over the years I've purchased many laptops, workstations and servers from Dell, but never again. I have successfully warned off two of my wife's family members from a Dell purchase in the last couple of weeks.
I knew Dell's support was bad, but not outright criminal.
Unannounced, the repairman showed up about a week later. The ham-handed repairman cheerfully explained how he hadn't had any experience on that model, but that he had badly screwed up a repair on a similarly-equipped X300 the week before. He put the laptop back together without making an important connection, so he had to take it apart again. In the meantime I had to take an important call, so I wasn't able to take a look at the machine before he slipped out the door.
Well, it turned out that not only had he not installed the proper drivers and maybe connections (it was a motherboard replacement) which caused some issues with power management, etc., but the keyboard was put in incorrectly. My wife called Dell, and they said they'd schedule another visit to correct the problems.
To make a long story short, the warranty elapsed with no visit. My wife called and asked what was happening, and was told that the laptop was now out of warranty and Dell would not repair it.
I'm very angry, but we've decided to let it go because it's not worth our time to fight with them any further. Over the years I've purchased many laptops, workstations and servers from Dell, but never again. I have successfully warned off two of my wife's family members from a Dell purchase in the last couple of weeks.
I knew Dell's support was bad, but not outright criminal.