I'm buying a laptop for my college-bound daughter (who is pitching in some summer earnings, God bless her!). After I ordered the Dell Inspiron 1501, I discovered that it wasn't going to take the estimated 6 - 10 days to receive it, but 25 - 28 days. Perhaps the delay wouldn't be a problem for some customers, but it is for us, because 3 weeks from today my daughter will be hundreds of miles away at college. (Boo-hoo! But the subject of watching my precious daughter leave home deserves its own post.)
So I called Dell last night at 9:45 EDT to change the shipping destination and to change one feature. After waiting a lo-o-ong time, a helpful customer care representative chatted with me. She said she needed to transfer me to another department. After I expressed concern about being dropped into another queue, she promised she would transfer the call directly, and would stay on the line until someone picked up.
After listening to 15 minutes of hold music, I decided to hang up.
I called back in and wended the maze ("For technical support, dial 1. For sales, dial 2. To schedule a lobotomy to relieve your frustration, dial 3..."). When I got to the right place, the outgoing message said that they had been closed since 9:00pm EDT.
So I went to the Dell website for order inquiries and clicked on customer chat, but kept receiving the response that no one was available. They didn't even have a queue for those waiting to chat about pending orders.
So I sent an email via their web form. I got the automatic response, which said, "Our email agents normally respond to inquiries within 6 hours."
It has been 16 hours, and I still don't have a response. Where's the Dell Dude when you need him?
Have you had any problems like this with Dell? Leave a comment!