"My laptop broke after only 6 months. I sent it to them for repair, and they sent it back to the wrong address (and state)! After I discovered this I had to sit on hold for hours, talk to half a dozen people over a span of a week, until finally it was determined that the laptop was gone for good, since someone signed for it. Dell did try to make good by sending me a new laptop, but I still lost all my data and I have been without a laptop for a month.

Their tech support is a joke, wait time of at least 15 minutes (up to an hour) and the people (tech supp dept is based out of India) barely spoke any english. I had to explain my situation many times and it was nearly impossible to summon a supervisor, or anyone speaking english."

"I've ordered from them many times also, and they used to be very good, but now i'm noticing their customer service is getting worse (presently Aug. 18, 2003) #1. My friend had a defective item sent to him (also a digital camera, by reading the other messages, something's up with ordering cameras with them), he had to wait on the phone for 3 hours to get his return settled. #2. My friend also had rebates for this item, they mailed him the wrong invoice (Date was WAYYYY off, and wrong name, address was close, but not the right address, the person who sent that invoice was probably intoxicated). #3, i've configured systems where it comes up to a certain price, but with all the discounts, i cannot continue, so i call to speak to the reps, they help me configure the same system, and Supposedly, configure the same discounts, but they give me their final figure, and they claim everything is there, just calculate everything carefully and detailly before ordering from them, they use numbers to confuse you to make you think you have a good deal, i think they go by commission also, whereas ordering through the web they get none. Dell.com used to have my highest praise, but now, they're losing it."

"I ordered a Cannon S400 digital camera from Dell.com. To my surprise, their website on delivery status is not as updated and I called in to speak to a customer service to see when my camera will get here since I was going away for vocation. I did overnite express paying them $10 and spoke to someone to changed to a different address on the same date i ordered but somehow the person who took my information never enter it into the system. Ok, that was fine, I called them that I will pick my package at the shipment center. When i got there, of course the address on the shipment was totally different than on Dell system, which means that i was not able to pick the package up when i was there. And my flight was going to leave in 5 hours. I spoke to at least 5 people in customer service dept, which most of them puts me on hold and then got disconnected. The fifth person i spoke to was a guy who spoke to the shipping company but of course they still can't release the package until Dell send them an email or fax them a letter to states it's ok to release to me. Took them like 2 hours to do so and i was standing there with my cell phone talking to Dell and to the pickup center person. They dont' even have a fax and for them to send an email how differcult was that? With all the frustration and stress, I don't think it's worth it. Price was ok but customer service, nah. With all the delays and confusion at their part, they have no idea what they were doing. How can you not get my right information when i double checked with them like three times? Two different address btw. the shipper and their memo. how could they messed it up? First time buying at this site and also will be the last time also. "

"I knew what I was getting into when I placed my order for a Canon Powershot A70. The website stated up front that there would be a delay of two weeks(which of course became a month) and having read the horrible reviews on this site I said a prayer and hit the submitt order button. The price was just too good and I was in no particular hurry to receive the camera.
That said it was a very harrowing experience with a total lack of decent customer support either by email or telephone (who do they employ? Well at least they all spoke clearly enough to understand). When you try to check your order status online you get worthless info and the only time you hear from Dell is when you get the dreaded email to notify you of yet another shipping delay. Then while reading the message boards at various digital photography sites I discovered that people who ordered their A70's long after me were already receiving them! That really ticked me off. They don't admitt it but they delay shipping orders to those who opt for free shipping.
Well the camera arrived after a month and thank goodness it was not defective because I really didn't want to deal with them again.
I will add however that when the price dropped not long after I ordered I called CS and they offered to credit my card $10.00. Also when I contacted them about returning the $8.00 case I ordered to go with the camera they didn't want me to bother sending it back and offered to overnight ship me a Veo web camera. I didn't really want it but that's okay it was a nice gesture.
All in all I would have to say I am satisfied with this transaction however the entire experience was nerve wracking. I consider myself lucky that everything worked out okay. However I will not tempt fate by ordering from them again."

"I ordered a Dell Inspiron 8500 notebook. Three days later I called a sales person to add a 3 year warrenty. For 6 days I monitored my order status on Dell's website. During those 6 days my order was cancelled 8 times (without my consent) and new order numbers were given. I ended up with 9 different order numbers for just one computer. During those 6 days I called Dell many times and ended up talking to 7 different people before I could get everything straightened out. It turns out a salesperson didn't update the new purchase amount with the new warrenty and the finacial dept. kept cancelling my order. This poor customer service made me almost pull my order. I ended up cancelling my order mostly because of a few reviews I read about the quality of this notebook. Many people reported that the keyboard is mushy, the touchpad not accurate, the monitor casing too flexible and Dell's tech support not good. So after some research I decided to order a Sager notebook instead."

"Ordered discontinued Canon s330, found on Dell's outlet site. Great price, got an extra battery with it... shipped for $241.

Dell sent notice to me that there was a delay in shipping till 8-1-03... well, ok

Dell sent notice later on that shipping was delayed till 8-13-03. This time, action was required by me. I had to write or call Dell and tell them to continue the order. I did so.

Two days later, while checking my order, I noticed it was not in my order status queue, and when searching for it on a linked page, it said, cancelled by ME. No such event occured. In fact, Dell notified me that my order was continued and logged as such when I sent them the email days before. Anyway, many many calls to Dell.. They told me that part of the order had shipped, all of it had shipped, none of it had shipped, and that I cancelled it.. depending on who I talked to. One friendly guy tried to sell me a Kodak camera on sale to replace my "cancelled" camera.

Alas, it seems Dell cant get that camera from Canon to fulfill the order, but they damn well should have known it when they took the order.. Their customer service was pitiful.. terrible. I did contact a lady I know there who rectified nothing but did tell me the truth and credited my credit card for the shipping of the camera battery .. which I didnt need WITHOUT THE CAMERA.

Anyway, Dell has been pretty good prior.. but now I know its a friggin crapshoot ordering with them. This time, I lost...

Dependable, honest, competent... Nah"

"I bought my dell a while ago and am now parting it out. I was very satisfied with dell and would do business with them again when I'm older and have a bit of money since they are sorta pricey, but there warranty is great with the on-site service. One thing I do not like is the foreigner tech support that you barely can understand which nothing against them but they should talk to people from their country. It is very difficult to understand them usually. Overall I would buy from Dell if I wasn't going to build my computer myself."

"I purchased a refurbished P4 4550 , 2.8GHZ from Dell online in February,13,2003. The computer is fantastic. I have encountered no glitches, however, I am having extreme diddiculty receiveing my $50.00 mail in rebate. I have contacted Dell (3) times now, after the expected rebate date. They have confirmed my rebate each but all I have received is promises that it would be sent soon. After the third contact, I am assured that my credit card would be credited $50.00 within the next (2) billing cycles. We will see. For a top computer seller such as Dell, you would think they would have all phases of their business in order. I would reccommend Dell as farn as a good machine, but don't expect your rebate anytime soon. With other Computer companies competing at a lower market share, I would probably go with one of them for my next order, based on this sites ratings. "

"I ordered 2 low-end dell servers, which were priced attractively on their web site. I configured the systems as "bare bones" because Dell's pricing on drives and peripherals was out of line with the market. They accepted my order and all is fine until the next week they sent me an email saying they wouldn't honor the configuration because they were unable to test the components as configured. (i ordered a raid controller with it, but only one drive, since the dell drive pricing was ridiculous-- they wanted $89 for a 40GB drive when compusa advertised a 160GB drive for 99 on sale the same day). They basically told me that I had to add additional drives to the order (I had already bought them elsewhere at a reasonable price, 3x the capacity for the same money..) or cancel it. Since this was for a client I had no choice but to buy extra drives that I didn't need to get them to ship the order. If their web site allows a configuration, and accepts payment, they should be able to ship it as such. I feel swindled, and this isn't the first time dell has done this. Fool me once, shame on dell, fool me twice, shame on me. (that is my customer # not order #)"

"I ordered from Dell on July 3, 2003. What did I order?
Dell Dimensions 8300 (Shipped 7/8/2003)
Processor: Intel P4 2.6C GHz,
Memory: 512 MB DDR SDRAM
Optical Drives: 16X DVD, DVD-RW (free upgrade)
Monitor: 15" LCD (free upgrade)
HD: 80GB
GFX: NVIDIA GeForce 4 MX
Keyboard & Mouse
TOTAL: $1,159

Dell Inspiron 5150 (Shipped 7/24/03)
Processor: Intel P4 3.06GHz
Memory: 512MB DDR SDRAM
Optical Drive: DVD/CD-RW Combo
HD: 30GB
GFX: ATI Radeon Mobility 9000 64 MB
TOTAL: $1,453

Network Hub (Shipped 7/24/03)
Model: NetGear DS108
TOTAL: $55.76

I'm happy with the computers, although the HD for the laptop could be a bit better, and the graphics cards for both computers could be better.
As for the network hub, there were too many delays!
I think that the only problem with Dell is it's peripheral sales. Most of the bad reviews here are pertaining to cameras, extra HD sold at Dell's peripheral store, etc.
I think the computers are fine.

Bottom line: Dell's computers are fine, but their service for peripheral sales could get a major fixup."

"Item (camera) listed as in stock. I needed the camera 9 days later. 4 days later they claim it will be shipped one month later. Forcing me basically to buy at a higher price for local stores as I did not have enough time to have it shipped from anywhere else. Customer service reps were rude and basically told me to cancel if I didnt like it."

"Purchased a 200GB hard drive, it is a defective item. Got replacement in 3 days, now the nightmare began in order to return the original one. Called 3 times to schedule a pickup, Airborne guy never showed, cause they never got the information. Seems none of the Dell CS knows how to do that, looks like their computer system just doesn't work, they have to call Airborne themselves to set it up, too bad, none of the CS knows that.

By the way, you can never ever cancel an order on Dell. I had two orders before which were terribly delayed, though they sent you email says "The order will by automatically cancelled if we do not recieve your confirmation", even I called explicitly to cancel it, it never happened. Finally the package arrives, now, pickup the phone, wait for the CS and schedule a pickup. Good luck."

"Ordering was a normal experience. Once the product arrived, the ordeal began. The LCD they sent me had a dead pixel in the center of the monitor. After approximately 6 calls, they finally agreed to do a return. The return was set up incorrectly. Another few calls about a week later had them set up a new return. The new return was sloppy, but it's not worth mentioning here. The replacement monitor arrived about 2 weeks later (they didn't send it overnight mail as they should) and was visibly repackaged. Bags were all ripped and the monitor has scratches on it. There is a dead pixel in the top right quadrant of the monitor. There are visible horizontal scanlines over the entire monitor. The VGA port is faulty and causes some minor interference at all times (some image ghosting occurs). Dell is a horrible reseller and I would never buy from them again."

"Item shipped was not as described on their web site and Dell is stating that I got what I ordered."

"I have bought many items from Dell and they have always been very good and their return policy is one of the best in the business."