When we last heard about the Dell Saga I expected to have a credit from Dell a day or two after I made the post. As it turned out, it didn’t quite turn out that way.
Dell did indeed try to issue me a credit, but they screwed up and instead charged my account for the amount of the laptop a second time. Not surprisingly, when I called Dell customer service I got the same run-around and an assurance that no, indeed, a credit was issued, and to “call back in 48 hours since it can take that long.”
Since I finally wised up to the stalling tactic, I just called my credit card issuer and had them issue another chargeback.
Two months later, the issue is finally resolved and the chargebacks have cleared. What a freaking nightmare. Thanks, Dell!
Today Dell contacted me four times – twice by e-mail and twice by phone – to inform me that a credit has been issued by them for the laptop that was stolen in transit. It took 8 business days after they said they would issue a credit and 13 business days after the laptop was originally estimated to be delivered.
The saga isn’t over until the credit actually hits my credit card account, but in all likelihood that will be tomorrow morning.
A friend came across this blog entry on the Consumerist that details another saga of pain and suffering caused by the wonderful ability to Dell customer service to screw up. Given it’s another issue with the interaction between Dell and DHL it really makes you go “hmmm…”
It really sounds like someone high up in Dell needs to get out the clue bat and work on their customer service team and how they deal with DHL. I personally find DHL to be the worst of the big courier services to begin with, but Dell is the one causing most of the grief here.
I didn’t expect a clean resolution to my Dell issue, given it wasn’t done yet, but I had more of the same when I called DHL and Dell back on Tuesday.
DHL tells me no, there is no return tracking # because the package really was stolen. “You need to call Dell and have them open a claim with us.” Okay… since they’re being responsive today I can call Dell back and have them call DHL, right? Wrong… My call to Dell goes like all the others: “Sir, we have to wait 48 hours until the last scan on DHL’s web site before we can open a trace with DHL.” Uh, WTF people? How about actually trying to resolve my issue for me?
I politely told them I was done with them, and then I called up Citibank. Within 5 minutes I had a credit issued and a promise from Citibank that they would work with the merchant to resolve the issue.
Absolutely amazing.