"Had to post this after seeing the previous entry that speculated that most Dell customers are very satisfied. Not by the looks of their feedback here, and certainly not if their experience has been like mine. I bought a refurbished Inspiron from Dell a little over a year ago, paying extra for a three-year extended warranty. The base warranty is the same as a new laptop, so I figured I had nothing to lose. What I discovered is that having to send the laptop in time after time for repairs--even if you're not paying for it--makes the unit pretty worthless. Worse than that, Dell's service and standards of care have declined drastically in the year and a half I've been dealing with them. In the first few months the customer care reps were great--courteous and efficient--and I never waited on hold for very long. This has gradually changed to the point that for the past six months I regularly waited fifteen minutes and longer for a live voice, and then more often than not it was someone whose English was so poor that it was very difficult understanding them. The combination of poor English and computer terminology makes talking to technical support a real challenge! Worse than this, I've had terrible experience with Dell's repair service. The first time I sent in my laptop, for a screen problem, it was returned within forty-eight hours (door-to-door service from NYC to Tenn). I was stunned and delighted! That's the kind of service Dell apparently used to offer. The next time I had to return the computer they had it for two weeks, during which time I made numerous unsuccessful attempts to find out what was taking so long. When it finally came back it had had nothing done to it, with a note attached saying that they'd tried unsuccesfully to contact me about possible charges. I called immediately and they found the record of my calls to them, apologized, and had the computer picked up again. It finally came back ten or twelve days later, with repairs that weren't great but that at least got it running again. Having been without it for almost a month, I didn't complain. The most recent return has been "the straw that broke the camel's back." Given the many problems I have had with the computer, Dell tech support asked me to include a written description of my experience with it--which ended up requiring five or six typed pages. The most immediate problem, among others, was that the CDrw drive had stopped functioning. The computer came back in 48 hours, as before, but this time they'd ignored the CD problem and had repaired something else. I called to let them know that the computer was still unusable to me, and the first response I received from anyone at Dell was yesterday, almost two weeks later. I told the rep that not being able to wait for Dell to get its act together, I'd already bought another system. Rather than address their failure to keep the machine running in anything resembling a timely fashion, she said they'd offer me $150 off my next computer purchase from them. Personally, I would have preferred that they stand by the extended warranty I purchased. By the way, I don't believe my experience with Dell is primarily or even significantly about "refurbished" products. It's about their customer care and follow-up, which is dreadful, and their repair shop, which is a joke. Buyer beware! I bought my new system from Ibuypower, whose customer care and warranty service is a delight. Check out their ratings on this site, and think twice about Dell.

Postscript: in the interest of fairness, I'm posting the resolution of this issue with Dell. The telephone call I described receiving two weeks after the fact came from Dell's corporate headquarters in Texas. (I had sent them a copy of the six page letter describing the issue--only after searching the web for a corporate address, which customer support would not divulge). This call led to a "second tier" tech support person calling me, after which I was shipped a new CDrom drive, a new floppy drive, and a new hard drive. I installed them myself and reinstalled Windows XP and the laptop is now up and running again, almost a month after the problem began. Then a Dell customer service "team leader" called and was very patient listening to my experience. So... good and bad. As I told the team leader, while appreciating Dell's tardy response, I still wouldn't buy another computer from them."

"I have ordered a canon A70 on May 13th, 2003 along with a 256CF card. It looks like a good deal. Total $285. But Attention everyone. Dell will not give that camera to you. They just want to sell you that CF card Only. I received that CF card on 23th. But!!! On 30th May, when I checked the ordered status, I have found my order was cancelled. Then they charged me for that CF card. Without that camera that card is useless to me!!! Dell even did not email me about that cancellation. Also I wrote a message on their support forum about my order concerning my order on 29th., a guy named Chandler replied saying he would check it for me. But no followup. Buyer beware!

"

"I'm posting this because Dell has way too low of a rating from this site. We use Dell's here at work and they are great! We have several models of Latitude laptops and several models of Optiplex and Precision desktops and workstations. We also use their PowerEdge servers.

They are great. We deploy and support hundreds of Dells from this location, and thousands world-wide from our other offices. I currently use two c610 laptops, one with Win2k and one with Mandrake 9.1 and they both rock.

I think what you have on this site is the few mad people making comments and the thousands of satisfied people never coming to a site like this to comment. My friend bought a Dell Axim PDA a few months ago and is very happy. I'm going to order one next week and plan of buying a laptop for personal use from Dell at the end of the month.

If you are going to buy, buy a Dell."

"I used to be a very loyal Dell customer, I bought a laptop and a desktop system from them before. I bought a PDA, the Axim, this time. The order arrived promptly, and I sent in the $50 rebate form within a few days of the purchase and it was within the deadline and all...like 2 months later i get a card that I did not send the rebate form in time and thus I wont get the rebate.
This is such a joke since I did send the rebate form with all required invoices etc. I emailed them 3 times and never got a reply. I did not even bother to cal them due to previous experiences where I was on hold forever.
I have to say that Dell has the worst customer service I have ever seen.
Price and product might be good, but the customer service is just so bad, its not worth it. I certainly will never buy from dell again."

"Dell... respected by the common people, hated by the computer enthusiasts. I, unfortunately, don't fall into either computer category. I know a lot about computers, but don't use them to the extent where most of the stuff matters. I definately could not tell between a good motherboard and power supply as compared to a bad one. I do like to game, but not so much that I need to have EVERY top of the line part, such as memory, brand-name mobo's and brand name power supplies. I recently ordered a Dell (2 days ago), at an OUTSTANDING price. I was all set to go with IBUYPOWER.com, and at the last minute checked all the major vendor's deals to make sure I wasn't missing anything. See, I got $700 for my graduation present from my grandparents to go towards a computer monitor. I had planned on buying the Dell 18" Ultrasharp, even if I went with ibuypower. Anyways, I checked the Dell site one last time, and damn, they had $320 off that monitor. I was like wait... the means I have $320 more to spend towards something else? (My parents were paying for the thing and were looking to spend about 13-1500 on the whole unit, plus the $700 for monitor. Anyways, I configured a whole 8300 series and found that with... 4x dvd-rw drive, radeon 9800 PRO!, Audigy 2 (w/ free mp3 player, also used for 64meg storage), 512mb ram, 18 inch flat screen, and 2.8 (HT, 800 fsb), ALL FOR $2250 BUCKS including shipping. Now, picture this. Subtract the $700 from the grandparents... =1550... Subtract another $200 mail-in-rebate offered at the time = 1350! ... 1350 for all that stuff above?? CRAZY... Even ibuypower.com was nowhere NEAR that mark, even adding the additional monitor costs on both systems. Anyways, I haven't recieved my system yet, and have to wait a supposed 3 extra days for the monitor to ship, but I'll update on the shipping time and quality of parts.

Ordered Monday (Memorial Day), recieved Monday, a week later. Excellent service time and all parts included in good shape."

"Bought a 21" monitor (Trinitron) for cheap money and with free-shipping. Ordered on Wednesday at noon and got it 2 days later."

"Ordered thru Dell Home & Home Office 2 units of Kingston 256MB compact flash units (each with $20 rebate). Website stated 5-7 days shipping.

To cut things short.......
Got message stating that item will arrive one month later, for reasons all you other disgruntled Dell consumers know.(Note this would have passed the 30 day rebate rules which would have disqualified my purchase for the $40 rebates).

I thought Dell was a reputable company(I failed to do my checks on ResellerRatings before purchase), but after reading so much dissatisfied customer comments on this site and others, I decided to cancel the order.

Continuing with the issue.......
Got a reply from "****@****" that order would be cancelled after 48hours.

Went to website to check status (nearing 48hrs dateline), it showed something like "Delayed, Currently attempting to complete order".
Emailed them again to not attempt to continue with the order as i had cancelled it already.

Got same robotic/impersonal reply stating order would be cancelled within another 48hrs.

Check the website status after 96hours. Still my order wasn't cancelled.

I decided to email Michael. A couple of hours later web status showed CANCELLED! I hope i get back my money soon though. (I don't agree with Dell debiting credit card accounts BEFORE the items are shipped. Amazon doesn't do this and neither do small reputable online vendors)

Here's Michael's email: ****@****

There are lot's of people out on the streets without jobs at the moment. Maybe it's time for Michael to kick out the whole bunch of slackers in his Customer Service Department and hire more deserving folks who can take ownership of giving top quality customer service!

I also attempted to order a CANON A70 from Dell Small Business Website. They were selling this at about 259 USD after 20% discount. I got concerned when one customer representative ask me for my credit card number. I told him i entered my c/card number thru the website. But he said he couldn't get access to it. I remember reading a dissatisfied customer encoutering the same issue with obtaining his card number. I decided not to proceed with the CANNON purchase. I'm glad to have read the other post (thanks to whoever wrote it). BTW, I got this same item from a small online vendor for 7 bucks more within a short time of 5 biz days (no tax, free ship).

For all you DELL customers who are still having problems, you might want to bring this matter to Michael (****@****). He might not reply but, i'm sure he'll get things sorted quick.
Don't forget to include in the email, the employees whom you've been dealing with.

Good Luck.


"

"i ordered an inspiron 2600 from dell on 9/10/02 by sending a pre-paid check to them. okay the order gets here within 1 to 2 weeks. i set up my computer and its slower than ever, so obviously i'm not to happy with it. i decide to return it to them so i call them up, obtain a RA# and ship it back to them. okay now the nightmare starts and man was it an extremely long one. i call dell up and they tell me that they have received the laptop and that i will be getting my money back in 30 days because that's company policy - THE BIGGEST LIE I HAVE EVER HEARD!!! 30 days went by and it was early november so i call them up wanting an explanation and they tell me that i will be getting my money back sometime in december, in the form that i paid for my item which in my case was a prepaid check. so december comes around and i still have not received my money from dell. i spent christmas out of the US so i'm thinking that by the time i get back i will find a check from dell. guess what i was wrong and EXTREMELY UPSET. i called them up in january '03 and they told me that their records were showing that i had received my money. i told them that they must have sent the check to a wrong address, so they voided the check that was supposedly sent to me and issued a new one. February came around and still no check. i called them up and they told me to check with my bank because they were certain that they had returned my money - this was stupid because the only way the money would be returned through the my bank would be if i had purchased the laptop with a credit card. i checked with my bank anyway and they were showing no credits on my my account from Dell. so once again i call them up and a friend of mine who was helping me get my money back not only spent an eternity on the phone but was forwarded to countless depts, SOME DEPTS THAT WERE NOT EVEN AFFILIATED WITH DELL before he actually spoke to a supervisor who told him that she would personally see to it that my money would get back to me - THAT'S THE ONE AND ONLY TRUE THING that i heard from anyone associated with dell in the period that i was trying to get my money back. the check arrived in late March '03 after an eternity. i promised to myself that i would never again do business with dell. they put me through 6 MONTHS OF HELL literally speaking, not to mention having to deal with high phone bills, and an extremely unhelpful customer service division that claims to be the opposite. I WOULD NEVER EVER DO BUSINESS WITH THEM AGAIN IF THEY WERE THE ONLY COMPUTER COMPANY ON EARTH!!! "

"Ordered on the 8th, like 10pm. The 9th came and the order had been shipped. Granted it was only a monitor but that was a lot quicker then I expected. The monitor arrived (ups screwed up and it took an extra day) in perfect shape and looks great. Got the DP2070SB-SK for $599.80 shipped to my door no tax. That was by far the best price you by over $80 to the nearest competitor.

Will be doing buisiness again with Dell."

"After I ordered the NEC 1560v 15" lcd monitor on the last day of one of Dell's specials for $242.74 after tax with free shipping, I remembered to check this site for feedback. I was a bit concerned to read all the negative comments, especially after I checked the status of the item and Dell's website said it was temporarily out of stock and the ESTIMATED shipping date was 5 days after I placed my order. This is in spite of Dell saying that the monitor "usually ships same day" when I ordered it. I was thinking that I was another person that was going to get the runaround. Thus I was pleasantly surprised to see the monitor on my porch two days after ordering. Dell did ship the same day as stated. Two thumbs up."

"
I think Dell is suffering from a classic case of being too large and inflexible to make customer satisfaction a top priority combined with the attitude of "who else are you going to order from". Dell cannot seem to keep track of their inventory, they promise to ship 1-2 days then say one week then 2 weeks and just when the date comesthey decide next week still again. When there are problems with an order they transfer you around to a zillion departments and if you are lucky they give you the option of cancelling or returning an item instead of just trying to fix the inconvenience they have caused.

I see by the other ratings I am not alone in noticing that Dell has taken their eye off the ball when it comes to customer satisfaction."

"Words simply cannot describe the horrendeous run- around experience I've had while for 2 months waiting and hoping for my order to be shipped from Dell. (And, not unexpectedly, they failed to deliver in the end).

I will NEVER, EVER try to order anything from Dell again. They suck!!



"

"I knew it was too good to be true. Ordered a Canon Powershot S400 camera on 4/17/03, for $399 free shipping. Sound good? Well the only thing is that the estimated ship date is 5/9/03. Fine, I said, giving up the opportunity to take this fine camera with me to a trip to Europe in the meantime. Now May 9th has come and gone, and when I checked my account, lo and behold, the shipping date has now switched to June 27, 2003. Are you kidding. Their inventory control is horrible, and customer service slower than molasses. Better spend the extra money to get the goods in your hands rather than wait with Dell. Bestbuy.com and other well known online retailers can get this to me much faster, albeit for more $, which at this point I am willing to pay in order to avoid the Dell headache. Sorry Dell, this is my first and last attempt at buying anything from you."

"Well, I will not ever do business with them as I have learned that a small issue such as what happened with me is often a foreshadowing of what could happen should you put any real trust in a company.

I ordered on May 2 for a 200GB hard drive (WD,8MB) with a $100 rebate. Total was around $243, so it was going to be a good deal after rebate (I RARELY go for rebates as I have had them come back denied for no good reason). When I ordered, the status was "usually ships 1-2 business days". When I received my confirmation, it said an approx shipping date of May 19th. Went back online, and the shipping status of the item was then 1-2 weeks. I stuck it out for a couple days, but then decided to cancel. I was on hold for over half an hour! before I hung up. I emailed them a request to cancel (the phone hold voice said it would be quicker anyway!). Well, I cancelled on the 6th, received a reply on the 7th stating it would take a couple days to process! I mean, come on. The order was "In Production", aka no signs of the item in stock yet, nonetheless being readied for shipping. But anyway, I check my status that evening, still not cancelled. I checked the next day, still not cancelled, then again that same afternoon. It was then cancelled. The next day I received an email stating an apology for receiving a late email notifying me of my cancellation.

I give them a 1.5/5, as I'm not out any money, so that's a plus. But they really need to get organized over there."

"I will never deal with Dell again. This has to be the worst online shopping experience I have ever had. I tried to get in on the 2350 w/ 18.1 LCD deal. First they screwed up my billing (they repeatedly mistyped the numbers). Took 4 days for them to figure out that the problem was them and not me or my CC. I wasted over an hour checking with my CC Co and going back and forth. Because of this my order was delayed. My April 29th ship date turned into May 22. They cancelled my order to screw me out of Ebates. Couldn't get through to a helpfull live person on the phone. Email replies were slow as molasses. Ship date for the Zire got pushed back to June 12th. Emails were very unprofessional, looked like a child did the typing. The only thing Dell did right was when I had them cancel my order. The savings over competitors is not worth the hoops one has to jump through. Who knows when I ever would have gotten my system. "