Dell complaints

[TBruceG]

I bought a Dell laptop for my son in the Spring of 2006. I bought it through Dell's no financing until January 2007 promotion. I set up an account on their auto-pay system to pay $300 until the computer was paid for. With the Sept. 2006 payment the balance due went below $300. In October their system deducted a payment of $3.00, which it has been doing every month since. In November Dell Financial (really it's CheckFree calling itself Dell Financial) started charging a monthly late fee of $29 and interest back to the purchase date.

When we recognized the problem we paid the amount due on the purchase price of the computer. I've told them numerous times I will not pay the late fees and interest resulting from their system screw-up.

Now I get calls almost daily from their collection minions in India trying to collect the "balance due". I've tried talking to Dell customer service, CheckFree, even the Indian lackies on the phone but nobody will do anything but tell me how I must have done something to change the amount being paid, so it's my fault, and I need to pay what they say I owe. THAT WILL NEVER HAPPEN.

I bought my other son a Compaq laptop, not because it was less expensive or better, but because I refuse to do business with Dell. I have told everybody I know not to buy from them too.

[Rocke_T_Sinetist]

Overcharging, undercharging then adding fees, even billing for things you didn't buy are frequent common complaints with Dell Financial. It's almost (?) like they do it on purpose, it happens so often.

For example, if you have auto-pay, how can there possibly be a late fee unless it's deliberate? And as you found, once there's a problem, there it is and there is nothing you can do about it even if you reach someone who speaks English.

Never use Dell Financial!
_________________
Rocke T Sinetist
as in, 'it doesn't take a...'

[DellrhymeswithHell]

My Dell financial nightmare is now in month number 8. Unfortunately,
the Dells we have are for business, leased by someone before I got to
this job. If this were a personal issue, I would have ditched the entire system, eaten the loss and bought something else. To my everlasting
misery, that isn't an option. I can only be grateful that the equipment runs. That's apparently more than most Dell purchasers can say.

It all started when I got a call from those wonderful outsourcing people who deal with past due bills. Using a fake English name, Dell's rep proceeded to tell me our invoice was past due. I pulled the invoice,
pulled the check, pulled the bank statement showing the check had
cleared and tried to figure out how a bill that was paid in full can be past due. Dell's rep acknowledged the invoice amount, acknowledged the receipt of our check and still insisted the bill was past due. How can
that be? No explanation was forthcoming (the script doesn't deal with
how to answer questions or solve customer issues). I told the rep "Until you can explain to me how a bill that is paid in full is past due, this conversation is over. Good bye." Silly, silly me. I assumed this would
cause Dell's rep to think, hmm, that's a good question, maybe we should
look into that. Not a chance in Dell!

Over the course of the next 4 days, I got 7 additional calls about our
"past due" bill. Same conversation, no explanation as to how the past
due status was arrived at, same end. Call me when you have information
that makes some sense. (Obviously the outsourcing people don't get
paid squat, if they can afford to make that many phone calls for a bill
that isn't past due). The whole issue was about $ 125.00 and they had
now wasted at least that much of my time trying to resolve DELL'S problem.

Call number 8 did me in. I took 1 entire day of my time, pulled everything we had paid Dell in the past 3 years and did my own audit.
It turns out Dell had posted our payment incorrectly. They paid one lease
with money from another one. No one noticed that the payment was more
than the usual monthly billing. They just reduced the invoice for the next
month by the amount of the "overpayment". Now the invoice didn't show
the usual monthly amount less the overpayment credit, which would have
triggered someone in our office to look at it more closely. (Never mind
that this is just poor accounting on Dell's part). We have so many invoices that if the lease number matches a current lease, we simply
process the bill Dell presents. Our error and one we have not made again.

When Dell's rep placed call number 9, I persisted until I finally got someone in the United States. I was done talking to foreigners. It took
almost an hour and more transfers that I can remember but I finally
got to someone in the US. (I know that because the voice had a regional
dialect indigenous only to the US).

I proceeded to detail my unhappiness with Dell's total ineptitude, how
much of my time had been wasted on Dell's error (which I had to show
them how to correct), how much I detest the foreign outsourcing and
their total inability to think or reason outside the script. I concluded
with the number of the check I was sending to correct THEIR problem and
told them not to call again. I also promised that this was now a personal issue for me and no Dell bill would ever again get paid without my personal review and approval. After this much of my time, I owned this issue and would watch them like a hawk. I was promised the account would be noted and no other calls would be received for 10 days and then only if our payment had not arrived and been posted. I also insisted they note the error was DELL's, not ours and I had to be the one to figure out what was wrong with their accounting. One issue finally resolved, oh happy day!

And then, just when you thought it was safe to answer the phone, I got
call #10. Literally less than 2 minutes after hanging up with the US rep.
Less than 2 hours since the ordeal with caller #9 had started. So we were now on the call every 2 hour plan? God help me!

I let caller #10 have it. I was not nice. The whole situation was just too
stupid for words. I asked him "Are there notes on this account?", "Can
you read or understand them?", "What do the notes say- read them back to me", "Does it say that this was Dell's mistake", and finally " Why are
you calling me?". Then I hung up. Enough is enough is way, way to
stinking much. I so very, very much hate DELL!

Future volumes:
2) So you want to pay off your lease? Finance charges on what?
3) Online bill pay (when pigs fly)
_________________
May they all rot in Dell !

[poormanq45]

optiplex and latitudes get only US support.

Tell your company to stop being cheap and get rid of those dimensions/inspirons. It's like a $1 more per system to lease them


Editor's note to this post: The previous frame was about finance, not tech support.

[Painfully_Optimistic]

I wouldn't kid yourself when it comes to Opti's and Lat's being north american support. I do believe that has gone overseas or is going shortly.

[FallenAngel]