Worst tech support story of all time? You decide.

Wang Chung

http://renatawc.blogspot.com/2006/07/woe-betide-my-dell.html

Quote:

Woe betide my Dell
My six month old computer is totally fried and I couldn't be happier.

This may sound like an odd statement, until the whole story is related.

I've had my Dell XPS 400 computer since February 2006, replacing a tried and true Sony computer that finally just aged out and started getting progressively slower. Since its memory could not even be expanded over 1GB, I decided to invest in a new gaming computer. I have owned five other Dells other than the XPS 400 and have never had any serious problems with anyone. The one time I ever had to call Dell tech support was about three years ago, and the person I talked to was friendly, helpful, knowledgeable, and prompt.

(Let me recover a bit from laughter as I read that last sentence and try to imagine applying it to Dell technical support now.)

Anyway, the XPS 400 has not been terribly stable, right out of the box. It had occasional unexplained crashes, which started getting progressively worse. By two months ago, it was adding bluescreens to the mix, though no more than a couple times a week. By two weeks ago, it was crashing and bluescreening daily. By a few days ago, it had deteriorated to the point where, after bluescreening me six times in a row while trying to log on to get into a BRD run, I realized I had a dying machine on my hands.

I'll keep the summation brief. I spent ten hours with three different Dell tech support people, most of whom I had to keep asking to repeat themselves because I could hardly understand them. I used to have Indian co-workers when I worked at the dot-com and thought I could understand the accent well enough, but it was taking all my concentration to understand them.

Most of the time I spent with these three techs seemed to be centered on (a) proving that I was not an idiot and (b) trying to convince them that I was not solely responsible for breaking my computer. Every interaction and thing they tried seemed to be aimed at blaming me for the problems. One of the techs actively and aggressively lectured me like an errant child about viruses, spyware, bad software installs -- anything that didn't involve the fact that this was a computer with a serious hardware problem. He didn't actually listen to me about anything that was actually the problem, and he came up with all kinds of weird ideas about what was actually wrong with my computer.

An actual interaction, only slightly paraphrased:

Tech: When you go around the web -- yes? On your browser program. You can run into bad programs called viruses. And these viruses can cause all the problems you are talking about.
Me: I know what a virus is. I don't have a virus.
Tech: But viruses cause all your problems. You have a virus -- yes?
Me: I do not have a virus. I have a hardware firewall on the router. I have a software firewall on the computer. I have up to date commercial virus protection that updates its definitions on the fly and I have scheduled full system virus scans that run every night at 3 AM. I do not have a virus.
Tech: Well, you know, too much security can cause problems too.

Believe it or not, the conversation went downhill from there.

I finally convinced the third tech that it was NOT a broken mouse (the first tech believed this and actually mailed me a cheap replacement Dell mouse) and was NOT a bad software install (the second tech, he of the ridiculous "security problems" statement) and was, in fact, a hardware problem. He escalated it to a "technical expert" who had the authority to order a new motherboard and new hard drive, and dispatch a local-to-me, honest-to-goodness, real-life in-person technician to install the parts and reinstall Windows.

I have nothing but good to say about Deb, the technician who came to my house and spent the following two and a half hours trying to resurrect my dead computer. Replacing the motherboard and hard drive did not seem to help things completely, as it bluescreened while trying to do the initial Windows install. After spending a long time tinkering with various issues and studying the bluescreens, she came to the conclusion that one or more of the four memory modules had gone bad. However, she also couldn't get into the diagnostic functions on either of the two restore disks we had available so she couldn't figure out which one had problems. Still, we'd made progress, and she called the tech line at Dell Tech Support to order four new 512MB memory modules.

The first tech was adamant that the problem was not related to memory, and that there were only three causes for bluescreens: a bad motherboard, a bad hard drive, or software conflicts. She explained, again, that she had just replaced the motherboard and hard drive. "Must be software," the tech said. Exasperated now, Deb explained that she had just replaced the hard drive, so there was no software on the machine. He still insisted it was a software problem and refused to send memory.

In fact, he suggested something that I will be writing to Dell about. He actually suggested that she install only one of the four memory modules, close the box, determine quickly if that module was okay, and then leave, telling me to continue installing Windows and call tech support if I had any more problems! He actually suggested to her that she LEAVE OUT 1.5 GB of my memory, memory I paid for, presumably without telling me what had been done. She said, "I would do that, but I'm not that cruel" and promptly hung up on him.

The second tech actually listened to what she had to say and, after leaving her on hold for ten minutes or so, that he was going to send her four new memory modules and a new processor.

This is the extremely short version of everything that went on. It involved many, many frustrating hours of technical support that mostly produced nothing -- far from being constructive, much of it seemed actively obstructive and geared toward shifting the blame for my computer's multiple woes. I feel vindicated that Deb has had a lot of problems with trying to resurrect this computer and is convinced that, at the very least, bad memory modules might be to blame, though she also now suspects the video card may have an issue as well (the motherboard and hard drive were probably never to blame). Also, far from being helpful, the support line for the technicians seems just as bad as the regular customer support line and also geared toward deflecting blame from Dell for anything going wrong with their products.

I suppose, in today's age of outsourcing, that nobody's computer support is that good anymore. But the experience with Dell's customer support has left me with such a bad impression that I would be very surprised if I ever bought one of their machines again. Advice ranged from actively fraudulant (suggesting leaving out 3 out of 4 of my memory chips to avoid having to pay for more memory) to irritating (how many times do I have to prove I am not a computer moron?) to simply useless (no, my entire system does not keep crashing because I have a broken mouse).

Supposedly, my new memory and processor are being overnighted and will arrive tomorrow, day after tomorrow at the latest. In the meantime, I am gaming on the old, tired Sony and dealing with serious local lag, but at least it's not crashing.

So why am I happy that my computer is fried? I'm not happy that it's fried, but I'm happy that it really IS fried and it's not my fault that it's fried. I hate to say it, Dell -- but I told you so.

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is now -=|CT|=- Frothy Mixture

GotMilk? · Posted: Thu Jul 20, 2006 11:39 am Post subject:

Lmao, so true. Dell ftl.

Bunny · Posted: Thu Jul 20, 2006 11:41 am Post subject:

Great....

I just got a XPs 400 for college
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Raed · Posted: Thu Jul 20, 2006 1:00 pm Post subject:

If he is THAT knowledgable, why didn't he just assemble his own ? When I'm old enough, I am never going to buy a perbuilt. Mad

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-=|CT|=- Raed

Kordoba · Posted: Thu Jul 20, 2006 1:08 pm Post subject:

My father works for Dell. :]

He tests cool machines that are WIPs. Very Happy

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Raed · Posted: Thu Jul 20, 2006 1:28 pm Post subject:

Kordoba wrote:

My father works for Dell. :]

He tests cool machines that are WIPs. Very Happy

liar xD
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-=|CT|=- Raed

ChrisT · Posted: Thu Jul 20, 2006 2:20 pm Post subject:

BOOM wrote:

If he is THAT knowledgable, why didn't he just assemble his own ? When I'm old enough, I am never going to buy a perbuilt. Mad

True, but building has it's down falls also, it's nice to have a single warranty on the computer in whole,and not worry about which parts warranties expire when and what you have to ship the parts back in etc, etc.

I had this exact same problem with my compaq, and I took it into comp USA and they finally decided it was either the processor, teh memory, or the motherboard, and they got all the parts from compaq put it back together and sent it to me. What a shitty thing though, not knowing which of the 3 of the most expensive parts in a comp is fried.
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Submit to Milky Way

Stealth · Posted: Thu Jul 20, 2006 11:31 pm Post subject:

What I don't understand is if he went through all of that... why didn't they just take his computer and just give him a new one, then work on that one that's so fucked up?

That would seem logical :/
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Motherfucking Triangles! Being all three sided n' shit, who do they think they are?!

C y a n o s i s · Posted: Fri Jul 21, 2006 1:08 am Post subject:

Dell Logical?

Laughing

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Retired CT Member

Phantom_Shadow · Posted: Sun Jul 23, 2006 12:06 am Post subject:

C y a n o s i s wrote:

Dell Logical?

Laughing

a friend of mine bought a new processor that dell recommended for his computer.

he had it shipped to him, and it wasnt compadible with his dell computer.

he went back to the website to check, and found that he had gotten the one recommended.

now he has a processor that the makers wont take back cause its out of the box.
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Back again to send pirates to teh grave

C y a n o s i s · Posted: Sun Jul 23, 2006 12:20 pm Post subject:

Hahahahahah, that's why you don't get a dell.
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Retired CT Member

nav · Posted: Sun Jul 23, 2006 1:27 pm Post subject:

Duuude.

Bunny, I hope this kind of thing doesn't happen to you with your new Dell...

When I worked at a company's help desk last summer, we had an HP technician out working on the same laptop about 3 times before he finally got it working correctly (I could've gotten it a lot quicker, but I was not going to screw up the warrenty). Still, that was nothing compared to this story...
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(insert something witty here)

Sea Wolf · Posted: Mon Jul 24, 2006 9:18 am Post subject:

I love the satisfaction of taking a sludge hammer to a Dell PC.
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Raed · Posted: Mon Jul 24, 2006 11:05 am Post subject:

The only reason I can see to buy a Dell is if you want to buy a dirt cheap system, you could buy all of the same parts at the same price but Dell has Windows XP hax - its cheaper for them since they buy it in bulk -.
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-=|CT|=- Raed

Wang Chung · Posted: Mon Jul 24, 2006 11:15 am Post subject:

The best idea for an uber shit cheap PC is to get a totally shitted-down dell, and when you load up the comp you refuse to acknoledge the EULA of windows and you can return that copy to them for $$$
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is now -=|CT|=- Frothy Mixture