Thursday 26 August 2010

Dell customer service: Horror story is not finished yet

It has now been almost a month since the first time I tried to place the order , but the saga continues.
In fact , it has now gotten even worse.

--This is where we had last left off:
The last customer service representative I had talked to on the phone has promised (after I insisted) that a supervisor/manager would contact me and "address the issue".

In the mean time I had posted the link to this blog on various Dell Forums and their facebook page.

I received a message on facebook from one of the social media outreach/resolver named 'John At Dell' who offered his apology , asked me my phone number and advised me that they were looking into the matter.
I also got a separate email from J. Vijay Prakash , another social media outreach resolver who had a similar message to convey.

Well lets give them a few points for at least trying to get back to the troubled customer. Little did I know that this was only a semblance and outward appearance of concerned customer service from them.

I then received at least 2-3 calls over a period of the last 2 weeks from various "managers" from multiple departments (one of them being the "verification department").

They told me the issues in their system with my account were now resolved and that they could place the order for me now, but the price of the TV had now gone up. The fantastic customer care managers that they are, they told me for all the inconvenience(harassment I guess will be the right term) I got subjected to , they would "compensate" me by placing the order for me at the original price.

I told them this wasn't compensation enough for all the hours and days I had spent with them over the phone, email, chat and public forums.
I was then advised to wait for another supervisor's call .

So I get a call from Vijay (social media outreach/resolver who had emailed me previously) today and he repeated the same message i.e. Dell would "compensate" me by selling my the TV for the original price!!

This is travesty . They are no making a mockery of the issue and trying to be apologetic at the same time.
So I said "No Thank you, I DON’T want to place an order for the TV. I Don't want to BUY it" . A harassed customer deserves a bigger compensation.

But the worst wasn't behind me. I get a call from a freight company today that a TV has been shipped to my house. I quickly login to my American express account and I see what I expected.
THEY PLACED THE FREAKING ORDER , WITHOUT MY APPROVAL AND AUTHORIZATION.

This is now much more serious than a case of poor customer service. This now involves unauthorized use of customer's credit card information.
I will have to take a legal route now.



7 comments:

  1. The same thing happened to me as well when I ordered my laptop. Two days after placing the order, when I checked the status of the laptop, I found that the order is canceled automatically and there was no mail for that. When ordering second time, it happened again. Later I was fed up so much with time that I decided to buy it from costco.

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  2. Hello Vipin,

    My name is Jeff Bertolucci and I'm a contributing writer for PCWorld.com. I'm working on an upcoming article on tech companies using social networks to support their customers. Would you be interested in a quick phone interview about your Dell experience? You can reach me at bertolucci @ sbcglobal.net (without the spaces).

    Here's a link to my recent PCWorld articles: http://www.pcworld.com/author/Jeff%20Bertolucci

    Thanks for your time.

    Best,
    Jeff

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  3. I know this was written 4 years ago. But I am going through a nightmare of my own with DELL. I am preparing a blog too. I will share the link when I finish it. I can feel your pain. I really do.

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  4. https://bellthedell.blogspot.com/2010/08/dell-customer-service-horror-story-is.html?showComment=1583721793975#c3135835900039782592

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