"I ordered a Canon SD800IS camera on 4/27. When I ordered my estimated ship date was 5/1 - only 4 days so not bad. Well I just checked my order status and now the ship date is 5/23 - nearly a month after my order! I had the same problem on a previous order with Dell. I just called an canceled my order and Dell preferred account. Not surprising, even that was a PITA. Never again Dell, never again!"

"We bought (2) 27" monitors with "free shipping" and Dell charged our credit card and shipped the monitors, only to do a "delivery intercept" when the monitors were out for delivery (i.e. UPS was getting ready to deliver the monitors and Dell intervened.)

We had to call UPS, Visa and Dell finally culminating in a 3 way conference call. Both UPS and Visa said Dell was at fault. Dell still hasn't been able to successfully ship the monitors!

Newegg, Amazon and many other companies routinely (and quickly) ship products to us but Dell is simply incompetent.

Likewise, my friend bought (2) 30" monitors from Dell, when they were scheduled to ship, they charged his credit card and then "forgot" to ship the monitors. It took my friend three weeks to get the monitors!

I am very dissatisfied with Dell."

"Placed an order for a 2407FPW over the phone. Right from the start I knew I had made a mistake. Monitor arrived and had banding issues, horrible color reproduction and input lag.
Called Dell to attempt a return. Was put on hold for hours on end and disconnected more times than I can recall. After 8 days I finally was lucky enough to get an english speaking rep and process my return.

I will NEVER do business with Dell again. Dont care if they send me a 100% off coupon....never again."

"Placed an order for a lens with a 20% coupon. After the order confirmation I was notified that shipping would be delayed three weeks. Received another email three days later stating the lens shipped. Received the lens, but was missing the instruction manual, lens case and item seemed like it was returned although it was in good condition. After some difficulty, was able to have Dell perform an exchange. Much to my surprise the lens arrived two days later in excellent and apparently new condition. I have upgraded my rating."

"I actually never recieved anything from Dell, but this is due to an order cancel, which is where my problem stems from. On April 15th, I placed an $1100 order for a new laptop with Dell, as their hardware specs looked the best. On April 16th, I find a load of reviews about this particular laptop having heat issues, which, coupled with my own research, caused me to cancel the order.

So I check my credit, only to find the hold still there. Calling the bank, I discover that only Dell can do anything about it--the bank refuses to.

OK, fine. I call Dell, they say it'll be gone in 24-48 hours. 2 days pass, and it's still there. I call and email them repeatedly until today (the 23rd), always being told it'll take 24-48 hours, or that nothing can be done from their end.

Their online chat staff are just as worthless. I got told it'd take 3 business days by one of them, 24 hours by another, and that they submitted a "request" to have it looked at by yet another. Which one was it? Obviously, my money's still not released.

This is greatly vexing, considering the fact I cannot use my credit card until that hold is gone. I'll never be dealing with Dell again, because a week passing and STILL not having access to my money is ridiculous."

"Good price, email updates and free 2 day delivery all add up to a satisfied customer."

"This was my very first time to buy direct from Dell. I used their website and found the website and the company to be great. I bought a 30" LCD Monitor and love it. The order was processed easily, it shipped the next day, and it arrived very fast. I was updated regularly about my order's status, and was given the abiliity to track the shipment of my order as well. When the item arrived, it was packaged very well. Also, the LCD monitor has no bad or stuck pixels and looks absolutely beautiful. This was a very good first impression, and I'll definately buy from Dell again."

"Dell has serious issues with customer service and it doesn't seem like they want to get this corrected. Years after years, I have been spending thousands of dollars for them but remained unhappy with them. Don't get me wrong. They do have fine products and sometimes affordable desktops and laptops and I am happy with with their products. One major issue that I have with them is the tax exempt for more than a year. I followed instructions but they never took tax out of my orders of my nonprofit company. I talked to them a countless number of times. On top off all, it takes so much time just to talk to any of their reps. Once you get to talk to them, they transferred and kicked you around like a ball among in a soccer match. It's just so frustrating to see a world-class company with elementary customer service."

"I ordered a Dell desktop with XP Pro. I was told to call tech support when it arrived to get help with partitioning.

I called tech support only to be told that they don't help with partitioning of drives because of their "PC Restore" feature. After an hour arguing with them the supervisor made an exception. The tech was helping me but after 4 hours of troubleshooting he figured that I bad CD ROM so they reshipped.

The reship came 10 days later. It had Vista instead of XP Pro.

I called Dell to get help with the partitioning and to have my XP Pro OS installed (Dell told me to keep my disks from the original shipment). Again they refused to help me. After 90 minutes I was left with "I'll try and send a message to the tech from last week".

I called the next day. This time the person was helpful and didn't understand why they wouldn't help me the day before. He managed to get XP Pro on the system but ran into problems with the partitioning.

I quickly discovered that Dell forgot to help me install the drivers!

I called Dell customer support to tell them to just send me out a new system with XP Pro on it like I ordered. I asked to speak to a supervisor. The girl refused to put me through to one and kept telling me that I'll never get another computer shipped to me from Dell with XP Pro on it. I tried to explain to her that it was what I ordered and what I originally got, but she wouldn't hear me. She quickly put me on hold without giving me a chance to say anything and never came back. I hung up after about 15 minutes and called back.

The next guy I spoke with "slow". He refused to put me through to a supervisor until I told him what this was about. I was really upset by this time and I'm sure I was yelling by now. He went to make his notes and came back and again asked me to go through it again because he missed some of it. I was livid!!! I told him that I was tired of being screwed around by Dell and he replied "Let's keep this civil!" He put me on hold to finish his notes and came back and said "Can you tell me what it is that you are upset about?" !!!

I finally got put through to a supervisor who said that they don't ship with XP Pro anymore and that they only have Vista as of January 31st. It didn't seem to matter to them that I ordered my system in January with XP Pro and that was what I got initially and the reorder was done on January 30th. According to her their policy is that effective January 31st no computers are being shipped from Dell with anything but Vista with NO exceptions even if my system was ordered previously! It also didn't seem to matter that some of the software that came with the computer wouldn't even run with Vista and gave "driver incompatibility" errors.

I was so sick of hearing about policy and procedures that I was ready to scream!

I got put through to tech support again!

This tech guy took time to read through everything and he couldn't believe all that I've been put through and he said he would help me with the drivers and if I wanted he could also help me with the partitioning of the drive.

I agreed to let him. 1 hour later I had a partitioned drive with XP Pro. I spent the next 7 or 8 hours installing software stuff and then I powered down my system at 2:50am on Saturday only to find that when I turned it back on the computer screen was black.

Another call to Dell and and a trial of a different monitor and I am told my graphic card is gone and needs to be replaced. He suggested a new CPU be sent. I told him to forget it and that I wasn't going to go through all of that "we don't support partitioning" etc etc etc etc again.

He put me on hold and came back and told me that he will have a new graphic card dispatched to me and either they can help me install it or have someone come in and do it. I told him that I'm sick of paying for do it yourself tech support and that someone can come in and fix it. He then tells me that I'm running a pirated version of my OS!!!! and that my warranty is void because of it and anyone at Dell who helps me will be breaking the law and will hang up on me as soon as they hear that I have XP on a system that was shipped with Vista.

I asked him if that was the case how was he going to have someone come out and install a graphic card for me? He said "What OS? I know from your symptoms that it's the graphic card and I didn't have to go into your system so I don't know what OS you are running."

I have the system that I ordered with the OS I wanted and I'm being called a thief!!! All Dell had to do was transfer over the License for XP Pro to me which they apparently refused to do, so now according to Dell I'm a thief even though they told me to keep the disks and 11 people at Dell never once said anything about this license stuff to me despite my having gone on and on about XP Pro, and Dell even helped me put the OS on the computer!

That was the real straw that broke the camel's back. I'm returning the whole thing to Dell for a refund and bought something locally."

"UPDATED: APRIL 20, 2007
I ordered the Dell XPS 410 on April 15, 2007 and received it by FEDEX on April 19, 2007. I equipped it with their premium Core 2 Duo processor,1 TB hard drive,Windows Vista Ultimate OS,4 GB of memory,dual drives and a 13 in 1 Media Card Reader and 3.5 in floppy drive. I saved money by electing to use my own 30" monitor and keyboard and mouse and adding myself a physics accelerator and super powerful graphics card and using my own Logitech Z-5450 speakers. It turned out that I did NOT need a sound card as this Dell's integrated sound could be laser linked to my speaker system and give me better sound than I could get with a sound card added.I got this XPS 410 from Dell built just as I wanted in only 4 days which was phenomenal. Best of all this system cost me only $1812 so I was extremely pleased. I paid $1812,added components that cost me $610 and ended up creating a computer that would cost $3,438 new equipped the way I made mine in the end. So I saved over $1000 doing it the way that I did.Dell has made one awsome computer in the XPS 410 and if you configure it the way you want and add your own preselected components like I did this computer can be a bargain and a powerhouse. I was really pleased with Dell and I believe they are actually getting better in making quality computer systems at reasonable prices.This Dell XPS 410 is a powerhouse computer and the quality has been great. No problems at all with my Vista Ultimate and I love this operating system as it actually thinks ahead for me.
MY PREVIOUS REVIEW:
I have ordered online from Dell for past two years. I found their shipping to be fast and priced very reasonably. Often shipping is even free for customers if Dell is running a special. I have ordered a complete desktop computer system and received it in 3 days from Dell which I felt was exceptional. I have always liked the quality of Dell's products and their 30" ultrasharp flatscreen monitor was absolutely superb. I only returned one item I ordered from Dell out of more than 30 Orders I placed in past two years.My return was for a graphics card that I never opened or used because I saw on the carton label that it was not compatible with my PC. I sent it back for free with Dell and it was credited to my account although it did take 6 weeks to be credited. Other than that one minor hassle with the time to receive a credit I have truly found Dell to be very good overall and also reasonably priced."

"I don't want to be emotional on the reviews, so peacefully speaking, Dell's service sucks. I Ordered a digital camera on March 17th. The confirmation email gave an estimated shipping date of March 20th. I was sort of anxious to get the camera, so I check the order again on March 21st. Guess what? The estimated shipping date has been changed to April 10th, and Dell doesn't even have the courtesy to send me an email about it! One thing I don't understand about Dell is, why do them confirm an order if they don't have the product in stock? Anyway, I canceled the order. I don't mind to practice my patience but I don't like to do business with people who are rude and do not keep their promises. I have shopped at Dell for a few times and this time is the worst. I'm considering to make it the last.

Advice to first-time shoppers on Dell: If you just want to get good deals and don't care about shopping experience, Dell is a good place to come over once a while. But if you do care about shopping experience, I sincerely suggest you to read the frustrating stories posted here and think about it twice. Don't get your mood ruined by potentially bad service. There are better options.
"

"I have ordered systems and accessories from Dell many times. It has always been a good experience. They ship and deliver very quickly - this last order actually arrived the day before it was originally scheduled to ship. Although, I wasn't able to get the exceptional deals I have in the past, the customer support still seems to be fairly good."

"I ordered a refurbished XPS M1210 from Dell. The price was great, about $500 less than retail. The shipping was free 3-5 day UPS ground, I got it in 3 days. When I opened the box, there was 2 AC adapters inside, a 65 watt and a 90 watt. After trying dell support... which was taking too long, I figured out that one of them was incorrect. If I hadn't taken the time myself, I might have accidentally ruined my new laptop. I'm happy overall, but Dell still has some work to do."

"Had some of the best experiences working with Dell... refunds are issued promptly if there's a problem and as a bonus they pay for the shipping back! Even more, UPS will come and PICK UP the package! very convenient merchant. I have a very positive attitude for this company. I don't like how people say they have problems with customer service with phone calls... there's always email support and chat support and they work perfectly fine."

"This is the first computer I ever owned. They sure don't make it easy. First, they sent a catalog with the shipment. It had a rebate offer for signing on with certain ISP's. It gave no instructions on how to go about doing it. Not being on line there was nobody to contact (phone number) listed. The only information I got was to sign on, go on line and download the form. The form information stated that I was not elligible for the rebate. In short the ad was so vague that a first time user is almost insured to make a mistake. Second, this machine was supposed to be capable of burning both CD's and DVD's. In novenber 2006 (I bought the machine by opening a Dell preferred account in August, 2006) I discovered that the DVD capacity didn't exsist at all. It took weeks of arguing and threatening to get the matter resolved. They sent me a drive for ME, not THEM, to install. It was defective. Did they work to resolve the problem? NO.I had to go to Sony to get it fixed. Third, Imagine the surprise I felt when my software started holding my computer for ransom. The packing list gave no coherant information of what software was permanetn, trial version, or temporary. There was no indication of expiration times. The security software was set to expire one week before I was ready to pay. I used my Dell account to purchase replacement software supposed to contain "everything" my system came with. Two important features are missing. Dell will do nothing at all to fill the gaps. Fourth, and worst, is their finance department. Every time I try to make a payment it's a new surprise. I have yet to successfuly make an online payment. There is always a problem with their system. On february 2007 I tried to go online again ON THE DUE DATE. They changed my password and I could not access my account. Their password retreval process didn't work. I called them and asked them to accept the payment and wave the phone-pay fee. They stubbornly refuse. They also informed me that online payments take 3 to 5 days to post and I would be assessed a late fee. These people seem to love their unearned income. One way or another they are bound and determined to charge an extra fee even if they have to manufacture a late payment to do it. I told them that this is nothing short of extortion and that I am suspending all payments pending a federal investigation. This aparently has no inpact on their obviusly low ethics. I have gotten calls from their collections department allready. These people have no trouble indulging in false advertising, bait-and-switch, and extortion. These people have no business being out on the street unsupervised, let alone, running a corporation. They need to be shut down by federal mandate. I hope to hear news of a class action suit!"