DELL RIP OFF CANCER PATIENT

I have a story that I would love to see you share in the interest of saving other people the sheer frustration of buying an over priced piece of junk.  The amount of stress and frustration that Dell has caused me is affecting my health as I have cancer and a heart condition and I'm getting worse now thanks to Dell.  Here's my experience:

Last March my Acer laptop of 4 years finally packed it in and it ran almost 24/7 during that time without a hick up.  I chose to buy a Dell XPS L702X, the one they lists as retail $1806.99 on their website, as I had heard all these wonderful things through word of mouth about Dell products being top quality.  In May I found I have breast cancer and because I believe in alternative healing verses chemo I opted to have treatments done in Tijuana Mexico.  During the month of June my computer dies and Dell had a technician from Kamloops Computer Centre come out to my house with a new hard drive.  This is where it starts to get interesting.

I was promised a fully loaded hard drive but that was not the case and the technician said they never do that when I asked him about it, so why was I promised that? While the technician is installing the hard drive we talked about my needing a good reliable computer and I expressed my concern that in  just 3 months the hard drive dies on this Dell?  Fluke?  Maybe.  Once the hard drive was installed, he inserted the first disk to load up windows and then told me how to finish job, left my house and closed off the call.  The second disk that I was to install on my own was faulty and there I was stuck battling it out for the rest of the day with no assistance from them "because their call was closed off" even though it wasn't completed!  I have 3 days before I take off to Tijuana, I really needed that extra stress and loss of time.  That's like a mechanic installing a new distributor for you and then tossing you the timing light to finish the job yourself.  Does that seem professional to you?

The following week, 3 days after my return from Tijuana and more cancer treatments, the said Dell laptop flat out dies again. When I called to report it, I got an automated call the next day (cause God forbid they'd actually TALK to their customers even though I bought the most expensive fully loaded warrantee package)  which would have been on Wednesday July 11th but that did not happen, and when I called on Thursday I was given excuses as to why he couldn't be bothered to call and even tell me he wasn't going to call so I'm not stuck waiting around all day, and that he would call later that day and that also did not happen. Just where does this expensive warrantee package come in here?!?

Come Friday the 13th I've had enough of sitting around waiting for two days with not a word or even the decency to tell me they won't be calling.  All I want now at this point is my money back so that I can go out and buy a good, reliable computer before my next cancer treatment coming up so that I can stay in touch with my family and friends and they refuse to do it for at least 15 - 30 days.  Do you know of any other company that does that?  If you buy something from Costco, Walmart or any other large corporation and want a refund, they do not make you wait 15 - 30 days, do they?  So where does Dell get off treating people like this? That does not help me as I will not be here, I'll be out of country with no way of staying in touch with my friend and family because they have my money tied up in their huge corporation that I need for a new laptop.  Nice.  How to stick it to the little people.

I explained to a wide variety of workers at Dell my situation, all of them are at the call center in India by the way, and I can  not get in touch with anyone in charge of this "policy" who could actually help me and I am appalled that Dell would leave a cancer patient hung out to dry like this.  I paid with my credit card, they can put the money back on my card but they won't.  Does this seem right to you?  Is the kind of company you want to support?

The situation is still unresolved, I am involving the media and today I will be contacting the BBB and the Ombudsman.  I am writing this blog to not only warn you but to let Dell know that if they really wanna screw me over for less than $2,000, I am quite happy to return the favor by turning away potential customers  not only to protect the consumer but to cost them as much as I can in lost revenue.  Maybe then they'll start rethinking their unmovable Dell policy.  Please help me by sharing this story, we the "little people" deserve to be treated better than this.


Thanks for taking the time to read this,
Dannie Cade