Dell Caught Pushing Unnecessary Warranties on Customers

[mleejr]

[citation][nom]virtualhawk86[/nom]dead battery, and the laptop has a 3 year hardware warranty coverage. I called Dell for a replacement battery, they said that the battery isn't covered and that I would have to pay the 129.95 fee to get a replacement. I told them, the hell with that...[/citation]

OMG exact same thing! So shifty!

How is this NEWS?! Dell BLOWS! I used to LOVE Dell but now it is HORRIBLE! A bunch of ignorant Indians who's idea of tech support includes repeatedly just telling you to reboot and keeping you on the line long enough to where you get frustrated and hang up. They then don't have to worry about you and Dell saves money. Outsource? You get what you pay for. F Dell. F Dell to hell.

 

[mleejr]

[citation][nom]caedenv[/nom]Batteries are never covered under warranty for any manufacturer[/citation]

Not necessarily true. Standard battery DEGREDATION may not be covered, but the battery should.

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?cc=us&lc=en&docname=c00625471#N459

 

[sonofliberty08]

[citation][nom]AznCracker[/nom]Software warranty? wtf? Just google for a solution[/citation]
google are faster than stupid dell support

 

[TeraMedia]

@caedenv and mleejr: Sometimes the problem isn't the battery, but rather the charger. I have an old Inspiron 8100, and the internal charger in it went bad. So it doesn't matter if I get a new battery; it won't be charged, and the thing shuts down suddenly as soon as I pull the plug. Problem is, how do you convince the Tech Support guy that this is the cause of your dead battery?

 

[applefairyboy]

What a bunch of D-bags.

 

[johnsonma]

Dude your getting a Dell warranty, or else.

 

[scannall]

[citation][nom]caedenv[/nom]Batteries are never covered under warranty for any manufacturer (battery wear and tear has a lot to do with how you treat the battery so you may wan to look into that).However, that price is insane! You can likely find a larger aftermarket battery for $50 or less.[/citation]


Some companies do cover the battery.
http://www.apple.com/batteries/replacements.html

Also, these warranty prices are crazy. Squaretrade is about half of what Dell is asking.

 

[teh_chem]

What a shocker. A business trying to push customers to buy their huge-margin service.

The "misunderstandings" on the part of the tech are suspicious though... :hmm:

 

[house70]

[citation][nom]cbfelterbush[/nom]I run an IT company, and my experience with Dell Support is not as bad as all this warranty nonsense. I have had them dick me around juggling me on hold. Bouncing my phone call through every phone department they have. But when I get in touch of who I am supposed to be talking to they can get things done. It seems the trick is to tell the first deadbeat that answers that you are not going to waste your time with tier 1 support. They are a buffer and are useless order takers, and that they need to transfer you directly to tier 2 or 3. -CB[/citation]
Yeah, but you already know that when you call them; besides, there are different level of warranties offered to corporate customers, as opposed to regular people that purchased a PC from them. Corporate level support means US-based knowledgeable people, not some Asia-based dude that can only read a script.

 

[house70]

[citation][nom]scannall[/nom]Some companies do cover the battery.http://www.apple.com/batteries/replacements.htmlAlso, these warranty prices are crazy. Squaretrade is about half of what Dell is asking.[/citation]
Yep, but you already paid for that replacement battery, was included in the (inflated) purchase price. This way, whether you will use the warranty or not, they got the money, and a lot of people choose to replace the whole laptop, therefore Apple gets to keep the money.

 

[livebriand]

Just another reason for me to not buy Dell... (not that I didn't already have plenty of them...)

 

[Vladislaus]

[citation][nom]scannall[/nom]Some companies do cover the battery.http://www.apple.com/batteries/replacements.htmlAlso, these warranty prices are crazy. Squaretrade is about half of what Dell is asking.[/citation]
Usually companies only cover batteries under the obligatory warranty that's in effect in that country. In America batteries need to be covered by warranty for a full year after the purchase.

But it's funny that you mention Apple. Because in Europe if you buy an Apple product using their website you only get one year warranty instead of the obligatory two years of warranty.

 

[southernshark]

In fairness I have never considered buying a Dell, much less a Dell warranty, but I do believe that Dell customers deserve to be treated this way for being so damn dumb.

 

[Guest]

i worked for dell support before... dell really pushes hard for sales from their tech support reps. so im not really surprised. it does not matter if you're good with tech support. you loose your job if you can't sell anything.

 

[godfather666]

Yeah Dell has crappy customer service and sometimes I feel their products suffer from serius flaws.

Sadly, same thing with HP, Toshiba, Acer, Lenovo, and every other PC manufacturer I can think of.

This is what really draws people to Apple. It's a shame Microsoft doesn't have sme high-end and good quaity laptop/desktop flagships.

 

[eddieroolz]

The sad thing is that this is common among all electronics retailers. I once phoned HP to specifically ask for a replacement for my faulty AC adapter. The rep asked me to do a restore from restore DVD! After 10 minutes of insisting and probably a hundred "no"s, the guy finally relented.

 

[blazorthon]

[citation][nom]godfather666[/nom]Yeah Dell has crappy customer service and sometimes I feel their products suffer from serius flaws.Sadly, same thing with HP, Toshiba, Acer, Lenovo, and every other PC manufacturer I can think of.This is what really draws people to Apple. It's a shame Microsoft doesn't have sme high-end and good quaity laptop/desktop flagships.[/citation]

Good Windows computers are generally better than Apple's computers. Very very cheapo Windows computers aren't always better than the several times more expensive Apple computers, but even then, some are better. I often feel that Apple's products suffer from serious flaws such as insufficient cooling on the graphics in some models, gluing/soldering the whole damn machine together with the current models, serious WiFi problems, and more. All computer companies have had bad models. Windows computers simply might seem worse overall because there are orders of magnitude more computer models that run Windows (which are also generally more upgradable and otherwise customizable)

 

[master_chen]

[citation][nom]sonofliberty08[/nom]Internet Explorer 5 is faster than the stupid dell support[/citation]

 

[nicodemus_mm]

[citation][nom]AznCracker[/nom]Software warranty? wtf? Just google for a solution[/citation]

You really must be new to this planet. Have you met some of Dell's customers? First you're going to have to explain what Google is, how to use it and why Google is now an action, not just a company name.

I can confirm that many of my customers have had this crap tried on them as well. I can also confirm that in EVERY case for my customers it's a consumer machine where the phone support is not in the US or Canada.

 

[beayn]

I worked at a call center years ago taking calls for Qwest. They are outsourced and it's usually the call center trying to increase their profits by encouraging questionable tactics to get extra sales. Qwest managers would visit and insist they were about customer service first, but the moment they left, the Call Center supervisors would say "Forget everything he just said. We ARE ABOUT SALES FIRST".

The main reason was their contracts. Qwest would insist they were about customer satisfaction first, but their contracts reflected sales numbers. If sales dropped, you could lose the contract to another competing call center company.

 

[Vorador2]

Wow. Just wow. Absolutely shameless.
[citation][nom]eddieroolz[/nom]The sad thing is that this is common among all electronics retailers. I once phoned HP to specifically ask for a replacement for my faulty AC adapter. The rep asked me to do a restore from restore DVD! After 10 minutes of insisting and probably a hundred "no"s, the guy finally relented.[/citation]

When i call support, if the rep is being hard-headed or just plain stupid, i usually hang and call again until i find someone with a brain, saves me wasted breath.

 

[assasin32]

This is what I wrote on my experience with dell in the past, still probably the nicest post on my experience with them. May look like a flame but this isn't it's actually what I put up with, put in a very nice way. My actual experience with them was a LOT worse.

"Some advice don't mess with it too much, as I dealt with dell tech support a LOT. Their the worst things known to man (Dell own alienware). Had to send in my laptop for hardware issues about 10times and they only fixed all the problems once. Sent it in for a busted dvd drive but they never fixed it except once, usually they sent it back to me without doing a single thing. So I had a faulty 2 dvd drive , and sent that in to be fixed probably around 7 times only fixed 1 time, as well as multiple faulty motherboard and power adapters from them, and 1 hard drive. Most times I had to send it in with multiple hardware problems as I gave up on the them fixing the dvd drive. And this was for a laptop that was babied and never suffered so much as a scratch on it.

Sorry for my little rant on them, which TBH is a very nice version of what I put up with them. But I wanted to give you an slight idea of what your dealing with if you every have to contact them for hardware issues."

 

[Dell-Jesse-L]

Hi, my name is Jesse and I work for Dell. We are committed to providing a best-in-class technical support experience for all of our valued customers.

Our support teams have been reminded of our stringent customer policies and any failure to follow company policies and procedures will not be tolerated.

Daily drawings are not a regular practice nor a tolerated tactic in technical support at Dell. We have reinforced this with our teams. Their one and only priority is to resolve the customer’s issue and that is what they are measured on.

For anyone experiencing any concerns, please feel to reach out to our social media team. We are available on Twitter (@dellcares), Facebook (message the official Dell page) or on our Dell Community Forum http://en.community.dell.com.

Thanks,
Dell-Jesse-L

 

[blazorthon]

[citation][nom]Dell-Jesse-L[/nom]Hi, my name is Jesse and I work for Dell. We are committed to providing a best-in-class technical support experience for all of our valued customers. Our support teams have been reminded of our stringent customer policies and any failure to follow company policies and procedures will not be tolerated.Daily drawings are not a regular practice nor a tolerated tactic in technical support at Dell. We have reinforced this with our teams. Their one and only priority is to resolve the customer’s issue and that is what they are measured on.For anyone experiencing any concerns, please feel to reach out to our social media team. We are available on Twitter (@dellcares), Facebook (message the official Dell page) or on our Dell Community Forum http://en.community.dell.com.Thanks,Dell-Jesse-L[/citation]

Does anyone having any problems with Dell computers want to try confirming this?

 

[d_kuhn]

Does anyone having any problems with Dell computers want to try confirming this?

I'd be interested to hear their feedback. As I said earlier, the support I've gotten from them has been good - but I'm a corporate customer. I certainly wouldn't lump them into the "poor support" category with nightmare companies like Iomega.