Dell has the absolute worst customer service i have ever seen.

dell sucks

So, I ordered a new Alienware Mx17r3 on the 4th of January. It’s a new product from Dell which offers the new Sandy Bridge Intel chipset and 3D capable screen with NVidia 460 mobile graphics card. Pretty nice setup. I was excited to get it. The processors are fantastic and it was bound to be better and cooling running than the HP Envy 17 3D which I purchased in late December, only to return to Fry’s two weeks later due to its horrible heat problems. The thing was literally on fire every time I touched it.

Intel announced a little more than a week or so ago that the Sandy Bridge chipset was flawed and all motherboards featuring the new chipset would need to be replaced. So, after nearly three weeks of waiting for my new laptop (that’s right, you heard me…three weeks of waiting) I called to see if my order was canceled or postponed due to the faulty chipset.

Did I mention that several people who ordered the defective Mx17r3 received their laptops a full week before I ended canceling mine? I called Dell two weeks ago to complain about the delay and ask why others were receiving the exact same laptop I ordered (down to the very last component) only to receive the answer of “Your order isn’t ready yet” reply.

So, I finally decided to cancel my order after several attempts to get some solid information from Dell regarding my order. When I finally determined they could not answer me and had no idea themselves what was going on with those people who ordered the new laptop I decided to cancel and purchase a refurbished Mx17r2 laptop from the Dell Outlet.

I spent a day in looking at the refurb offerings on the outlet store and decided on one to purchase. I ordered it online on Wednesday, February 2nd for next day delivery. Thursday came and went. Friday came and went without so much as a word from Dell (or email) regarding the status of my laptop. Friday afternoon I ended up calling Dell again (making it the 7th time I contacted the horrendous Dell tech support for information). I was finally told the laptop shipped and I would get it on Monday. NICE! I ordered a laptop to be delivered next day air on a Wednesday and it will arrive 5 days later. Thanks Dell!!!

Monday I finally received the laptop. It was nice. Very clean and no noticeable cosmetic or functional issues at all. It looked brand new. I hooked the laptop up to the supplied power adapter and turned on the laptop. I was met with loud beeps from the machine and an error message telling me that the power adapter was not the correct power adapter for the laptop.

After several hours of research I finally confirmed that the power adapter I was sent was actually the wrong power adapter for the laptop. I was shipped a 210 watt power adapter. I needed a 240 watt power adapter. So, not being able to really test or use the laptop I set it aside and the next day I called Dell tech support again. After 45 minutes I finally was able to begin the process of getting a new power adapter sent to me. However, Dell requires that they have the serial number from the wrong power adapter before being able to ship the correct one to me. Seeing as how I was at work i was unable to supply this to them.

So, I had to call again the next day. That was this past tuesday. I called and after an hour (yes, another hour) I finally was able to give the rep (after being transferred to 4 different Indian based reps) with the power adapter serial number and get a replacement sent out to me. So, after 40 days after I initially ordered a laptop from Dell and after a total of nearly 8 hours of phone conversations with Dell regarding my orders I will hopefully have the new and correct power adapter tomorrow or Friday.

In all honesty, what i’ve written is really only the tip of the iceberg to what was the nightmare experience I went through with Dell. I will never again be buying anything from Dell and will forever strongly recommend to everyone that they never ever buy from Dell also. I know the Intel Sandy Bridge issue was not their fault, however how they handled the issue and the subsequent cancellations for all orders placed was blatant incompetence.

The people Dell employs to handle the bulk of their customer service needs are rude, arrogant and impossible to understand. I’ve just never had such an overall bad experience ordering anything from any other retailer…ever.