Pretty much all my life, I've purchased my PC's from local stores. The previous one, I went out on a limb and purchased it from a famous online store - refurbished at that.
No regrets! I saved almost $1000 at the time and it worked flawlessly (excluding Microsoft in this equation) all the time.
Having had such a great experience, I decided that I would try DELL for my next PC purchase.
What a total disaster that was. The PC itself was not really the problem (writing this post with it). It was the DELL service that was exceptionally bad. And on contrary to initial belief, neither was the deal.
Here was my DELL experience.
Shopping
When I started to navigate the DELL web site, I pretty much knew exactly what I wanted.
- Latest Intel i7 processor
- Minimum of 16 GB of RAM
- Minimum of 1 TB of HDD (at minimum of 7K RPM)
- A decent 'discrete' video card (no on-board stuff)
- An SSD drive of at least 128 GB (for my work)
- Preferably no Windows OS (at least not 8.x)
- No other gadgets or peripherals
Had I been provided with the option, I would have added another 8 GB of RAM.
I would have added another 128 GB SSD drive (a tiny one came with it but was reserved for Microsoft to boot from).
Why does DELL not allow to upgrade their PC's? I mean they had every other option, such as choosing a Microsoft OS or other software product. Choosing keyboards, mice, printers, screens and sorts of gadgets that I did not want.
But upgrading my RAM and adding an SSD drive was not possible - go figure!
Order
So when came time to place my order, I started to fill in all the required personal and financial information. To my surprise, DELL would not accept (as typed by me) the city where I live.
DELL decided that it would be a great idea to force a choice and not allow the client to provide their city. So having no choice in the matter, I simply chose the closest thing offered in the list of cities.
That was a BIG mistake in the making!
Purolator Delivery
DELL has chosen Purolator for my parts of the woods which is just outside of Montreal. There is a large Purolator facility about 30 minutes from my home so this was convenient for me to pick it up there.
When I received notification from Purolator that my order had been delivered and was ready for pickup, I missed a few hours of work to go and pick it up. What a waste of time that was.
Because Purolator has a policy that both the full name and address of the individual picking up a package must match the name and address of an ID card, well you can guess what happened due to the city mishap provoked by DELL's bad form entry.
That's right, Purolator refused to release the package to me. Even though my full name matched my ID, the street name and number, postal code ... essentially everything match except the city, I could not take my new PC with me.
I was told by Purolator that this was a DELL policy. And told by DELL that it was only Purolator that enforced it.
So I immediately attempted to call a DELL representative so that they could correct the mishap they created and allow Purolator to release my package. But that would have been too easy. It seems that once the city correctly entered into the DELL system, takes about a day to propagate itself to the Purolator database!
That mean, no PC for me on this day!
I had to wait two days before I could take some additional time off to go and get my PC.
Wrong PC
When I got home, the first thing I did was to unwrap my PC and physically inspect it for damage or issues. Once that was done, I plugged it and turned it on so that I could conduct an inventory of it's expected parts, brands and models.
[I will soon blog about the horrendous experience setting up my Microsoft Windows 8.1 PC!!]
After a full hour of setting up my computer, I was horrified at what I saw! The PC was exactly as ordered, except I had a quarter of the RAM. Only 4 GB instead of the expected 16 GB of RAM. WTF?
So I figured that I could quickly call them up and get the remaining RAM sent my way. Oh, that would have been way too much to expect.
Service
I first navigated the DELL web site for the "missing parts" recommended number.
When I placed that call, it was the beginning of an adventure...
At first, I was greeted by an individual that I'm guessing was working for the Customer Support. They confirmed my identity and product order, etc. I spoke with the individual from the "missing parts" department for approximately 3 minutes and it soon became apparent to me that he had no clue on how to resolve a "missing RAM in my new DELL PC" issue.
After another few minutes of useless discussion with the individual, his only solution was to propose that I be transferred to the Technical Support department. Realizing that this guy was not going to resolve anything for me, I accepted.
When I started talking to Technical Support, it was an experience that I never though was possible. I was asked questions like "Where did you purchase your PC from?". What? I called DELL's referred number from their web site and the first thing they ask is where did I buy my PC from?
I would respond "I bought it online, not from a store". They would respond with "from which company?". I would then tell them "from DELL, online". This lasted several minutes. They would ask for my order number, personal information. We were getting nowhere (again).
After half an hour, they proposed to transfer me (back) to Customer Support. This is when I became extremely angry with DELL and vowed never to purchase another DELL product. But I was stuck and had to resolve this one, so I accepted the transfer.
The call with the lady at the Customer Support was also going nowhere for the first half hour. At some point in time, she proposed to transfer me back to Technical Support ... and this is when I really lost it! I unleashed probably 60 seconds worth of accumulated frustration on her. I told her to instruct me on how I can send the PC back and get a refund.
The 'refund' aspect of our conversation seems to have triggered commotion cause shortly thereafter, she was able to verify that I was given the wrong PC and proposed to have the correct one sent to me free of charge.
Finally, some results! Too bad it was about 2 hours later after I first picked up the phone to call DELL.
I would have to wait another week or so to receive my new PC.
But get this. Before going to Purolator to pick up my second PC, I asked them what the city was on the package. Turns out DELL made the corrections 'somewhere' because it wasn't correct this time around (again). So I had to call DELL and fix the city information a second time.
By the time I had received the correct PC and was ready to use, I had wasted close to 10 hours; 3 hours to get it from Purolator the first time, 2 hours the second time. One hour to set up the wrong PC and another hour to setup the correct PC. Plus the 2 hours that was spent on the phone with DELL.
DELL Advantage
At the end of the day, I realized that not only had I wasted close to 10 hours of my time, but I also had not really gotten a great deal on the PC I ordered directly from DELL.
I paid a little over $1000 for my PC and I learned a few weeks later that a family member had purchased the (almost) exact same PC from Bureau en Gros (a store very similar to Staples or Office Depot).
The only difference in our PC's was that he had a slightly less powerful video card. Everything else was identical from processor, RAM, mother board, HDD, etc.
Except that he paid for his PC a little less than $200 from what I paid, but most importantly had it the very same day and did not waste his time with DELL's web site or customer service (or lack of).
I due regret ordering that PC from DELL, hoping that I was going to save a few dollars.
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