I bought a M1530 laptop with great specs at the time. 3GB RAM, 1.75 GHZ Duo Core, 120GB hdd and a nice ATI graphics card (Can't remember which now). The computer ran well and was superb value for money while it lasted.
Unfortunately, like the other Dell products I have owned, (See my review on the XPS M1730) it suffered some weird electrical damage which caused my computer to switch off permanently, never to be seen alive again!
I had an international, next business day, on-site warranty. So, I called them up (I purchased this computer in Hong Kong on holiday) and asked to speak to someone regarding this computer. It took them 3 months, 50 calls, repeated emails to the customer service department and 1 final email to the USA customer services department for them to fix it.
That's 96 days Dell left me without a computer. And I had paid for a next business day warranty. Oh - Did I also mention I got hung up on by their customer services department around 10 times after waiting in their phone queue? Or that I got passed from department to department, time and time again, with wait times each between the transferring? And it's an 0845 number because you're calling Indian call centres, with staff who are reluctant to help (even the managers!). The staff also decided to repeatedly ask me to send them an email when they clearly knew I had no computer. Aggravating is an understatement. Eventually, after this finally became a 'resolved issue' , I then had to wait 3 more weeks for them to 'build' my new computer, which had several 'out of stock' parts. So, in total, I was using my 6 year old vaio in replacement for this machine for 117 days.
You may think this is a rare case of a Dell breakdown - please google 'Dell customer service'. You will see that all their money for customer services and professionally reliable computers is spent on pay per click advertising, flyer swamping and banners. Ie, online & offline marketing to sell more people this junk. And people keep buying it!
My replacement laptop, the M1730, has now broken 6 times in the last 8 months.
For the sake of your sanity, don't buy a Dell unless you're ready for hell!
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
Shame you had a bad experince with Dell. I bought a few things from them and never had a problem with their customer service (I called them a few times for help). Good review but it would be more balanced and helpful if you had described other aspects of the company or some positive things about them. There must be some, since you decided to buy from them.
LawrenceP 19.08.2009 14:23
Dell are well known for their diabolical customer care. I'm still surprised anyone buys their computers.
Advantages: Lots of choice to customise systems.Good website. Disadvantages: Extremley bad customer service.Poor support.Nightmare company to deal with.
Dragon17 30.09.2002 ·
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Dell
Aug 19th, 2009
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