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Dell Refunds Vista/Works With Two Emails

Posted by kdawson on from the try-this-at-home dept.

look@thealternative.ch writes "Although many people have asked for pre-installed Linux, and Dell seems to have listened, some still think that buying a naked PC won't be easy. But what about stripping it naked after you buy it? I managed to get Windows Vista (and a bit more) refunded from Dell Germany last week. The process was surprisingly simple: 1) After delivery, ask Dell Support for refund by email. 2) ??? 3) Refund!!! Read the full email conversation in the original German or my English translation. For the impatient reader: The refund is €77.54 for Windows Vista Home Basic plus Works 8.0 (that is 15% of the total amount I paid). The whole process took 2 emails, 2 more to say thank you, and less than 48 hours. The money is already in my account. Kudos to Dell Customer Care (esp. 'Veronika') for being efficient and customer-oriented!"

31 of 277 comments (clear)

  1. Ah, the hot/nice telephone operator by Saint+Stephen · · Score: 5, Funny

    Isn't it wonderful when the hot/nice telephone operator helps you out with your "problem" in an efficient manner. It's like this little relationship you're having you where she's completely at your service there making your life so so so wonderful.

    But then she goes and does it with the next guy too. Dirty girl.

    1. Re:Ah, the hot/nice telephone operator by Solder+Fumes · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Actually, I know someone who called ASUS technical support to unload on the poor phone-girl about the faulty motherboards (this was the plague of Bad Capacitors). She decided to unload right back. He was ashamed and ended up sending some flowers to the support office. One thing led to another, and now they're married.

    2. Re:Ah, the hot/nice telephone operator by CmdrGravy · · Score: 4, Funny

      If you're imagining, why would you imagine she isn't attractive? Bitter experience mainly.
  2. Great ! by BESTouff · · Score: 4, Insightful

    77 for Vista OEM is acceptable. Now, make that not an accident but a regular refund, and explain hos to do it elsewhere than in Germany, and I'm sold.

    1. Re:Great ! by Octorian · · Score: 4, Funny

      Somehow, I don't think the people of Deutchland will be too happy after you called their country Douche-land ;-)

    2. Re:Great ! by Chris+Mattern · · Score: 4, Funny

      103,262,207 US dollars? Wow, everything *is* more expensive in Europe!

      Chris Mattern

    3. Re:Great ! by CastrTroy · · Score: 3, Interesting

      According to wikipedia, the list of "dot countries" includes India, China, United States, Japan, Mexico, Pakistan, and many other very populous countries. Therefore I'm pretty sure more people use the dot. The list of "comma countries" seems to be quite a bit longer but contains a lot of lesser populated countries like Switzerland, Cuba, and Belgium, and most of the rest of Europe.

      --

      Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
  3. You must be mistaken... by bluemonq · · Score: 5, Funny

    We're talking about a 1-800 number, not a 1-900.

    1. Re:You must be mistaken... by Ooble · · Score: 4, Funny

      Ah, I see... I was wondering why everyone started talking German in England a couple weeks ago. Thanks for clarifying.

    2. Re:You must be mistaken... by teh+kurisu · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You mean slashdot.org.uk? Or slashdot.de? Funnily enough, it's not slashdot.us either...

    3. Re:You must be mistaken... by Oktober+Sunset · · Score: 5, Funny

      I don't see how anyone could think the Republic of Ireland, was part of the United Kingdom.

      --
      What if Tetris was invented by Nazis?
    4. Re:You must be mistaken... by johnw · · Score: 3, Informative

      I thought the UK consisted of Britain, Ireland, Wales, and Scotland. It sort of used to (assuming that when you said "Britain" there you meant "England").

      Great Britain is the island which contains three countries - England, Scotland and Wales. The full title of the UK is "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland". Go back 100 years or so and you could chop out the word "Northern".

      Incidentally, the "Great" in "Great Britain" has nothing to do with greatness - it merely serves to distinguish between Grande Bretagne and Petite Bretagne, which is on the other side of the English Channel.
  4. Spammer's Delight! by biocute · · Score: 5, Funny

    Dear Vista Hater,

    As you do not want the Windows Vista operating system, we will refund you the purchase price you paid for it (ca. 42.29 Euro gross). I would like to ask you to send me your bank details that I can mark the payment in our system. I need:
    your name:
    bank name:
    city (of bank):
    bank code:
    account no:
    The money should be paid back within one week.

    Yours Sinfully,
    Ajabaili Sakilikulu

    --
    Virtual Betting on Facebook for non-geeks.
  5. I hated dell... by catbutt · · Score: 3, Interesting

    back in the day, after buying two computers from them and having generally bad support experiences.

    This makes me want to give them another chance.

    1. Re:I hated dell... by Iron+Condor · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I don't mind outsourcing in theory, I can handle the language barrier difference, but it's the sheer incompetence that pisses me off! I thought most call centres back home in the UK used to be incompetent but you don't realise how good you have it until it's too late and those jobs have been shipped abroad.

      Outsourcing isn't monolithic - there's no such thing as "outsourcing in theory" that you can have (or not have) a problem with. Outsourcing a development lab is a completely different thing from outsourcing a call center. The latter is always, unmistakably, wrong. And here's why:

      If you force your engineers to staff the phone support, they have an incentive to minimize the number of support calls. They will thus pay close attention to the things people call about and will do their best to eliminate those problems in the next generation product.

      The moment you create a dedicated "call center", you're already going downhill: Now you have people who did not make the product trying to explain to people for whom it doesn't work, how to make it work. But the call-center staffers, at least, are employees and thus they're still motivated to pass on enough information to engineering to minimize future workload on them.

      But when you now ship you call-center to india, you have now created a corporate entity that has no interest in minimizing call volumne. To the contrary - they get paid by the number of calls or the number of minutes spent on calls and thus it is in their best interest to have as many calls as possible. The survival of the call-center rests on there being as many service calls as possible. Thus no information is ever passed on to engineering about the main faults people keep finding (how convenient that engineering is on a different continent now) and if the customer hangs up irately then that just means they'll be calling right back tomorrow after noodling around trying to fix their stuff for another 24hours themselves.

      I'm against outsourcing of call-centers even "in theory". And "in practice". And "in anything else I can think of". It's just a bad idea all around - the brand suffers, the customers suffer, the engineering suffers. All that happens is that a bunch of hobos in India get rich.

      --
      We're all born with nothing.
      If you die in debt, you're ahead.
    2. Re:I hated dell... by Eskarel · · Score: 3, Interesting
      Dell gets a lot of flack, but in my experience they're usually the best of a bad lot. If you are an average user and you want an affordable pre-built PC which you can get support for, it's about your best bet.

      The first dimensions sucked, but they've gotten better, and they even seem to have worked through the problems they were having with their business models(the Optiplex 270's and 280's were pretty shocking, the 260's were ok though and the 520's are reasonable). I'd personally never buy one, but that's because building the PC is half the fun of buying one for me.

      As for their support experience, yes you'll end up talking to someone from Southeast Asia(Dell left India some time ago) who barely speaks English, and yes they will be working really hard not to send the technician out to see you(assuming you have on-site support in the first place), but if you are sufficiently obnoxious and forceful(I hate doing it, but when I was working in support I just got tired of playing the game), they'll do what you want them to do and fix your problem. HP's support on any of their consumer grade products is much worse, at least it is over here.

      When people ask me what computer to buy, I generally recommend Dell simply because their products are as good as most, they're prices are reasonable, and they'll be around in 5 years. I don't build PC's for people because I don't support home PC's, so Dell is as good a solution as any.

  6. Automation by NekoXP · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I wonder if they could automate the process the same way you track the shipment of your PC.

    Enter your order ID. Enter your Vista key.. and then a refund is processed. The Vista key could be submitted to Microsoft such that it no longer authenticates copies of Vista on Dell PC's (XP/Vista activation and WGA knows the difference somehow, somewhere) and Dell can have the money sent to the user without tying up their customer support line.

    Microsoft might be concerned that they don't get their money for this, but then again it would be against the law for them to do anything like force Dell not to do it, or insist that users do not get a refund anyway (the EU would have a field day and think up some higher billion dollar amounts for fines).

    I bet it costs more to process it through 'Veronika' than clicking a website button would.

    The uptake on this? I dunno. Maybe a lot of people would use it.. but a far higher number would not give a crap and carry on running Vista. I think shipping a naked/bare PC is extremely user-unfriendly and it also gives Dell a burn-in-test nightmare (how do you burn in a laptop which is supposed to have never had an OS installed on it? Do you then perform a military-grade disk wipe after you put the burn-in software on there? I dunno..). Putting the most popular, most needed for most people OS on the system (Vista I guess) is an okay thing to do. But I do think if you don't actually want Vista, you should be able to go through and click the Refund button..

    1. Re:Automation by BruceCage · · Score: 3, Informative

      Microsoft might be concerned that they don't get their money for this, but then again it would be against the law for them to do anything like force Dell not to do it, or insist that users do not get a refund anyway (the EU would have a field day and think up some higher billion dollar amounts for fines).
      Actually the reason you're able to refund your copy of Microsoft Windows is because of Microsoft itself.

      The background story. Back in 1999 some members from the SVLUG and also a Slashdot editor (Chris DiBona) organized Windows Refund Day, I found out about this while watching the documentary Revolution OS (there's footage of the event in there) so I thought I'd share it with you. From the Windows Refund day page:

      The windows EULA (End User License Agreement) clearly states that the agreement can be refused by the end user, and that windows can be returned to the manufacturer. In real life, however, manufacturers typically say that they can't refund the windows license and tell the user to contact microsoft directly.
      Turns out it's a whole lot easier nowadays to return your copy of Windows than it was back then and you can thank these guys for it.
      --
      Perfect is the enemy of done.
  7. Sounds good by cdrdude · · Score: 3, Insightful

    That sounds nice an all, but it's in Germany. How about other places? Is German Dell an anomaly here?

    --
    This sig is neither interesting, nor humorous. Including meta-humor.
  8. Finally Uh? by TheNetAvenger · · Score: 4, Interesting

    For almost 10 years, the lock on OSes to hardware with companies like Dell has not been mandated by MS, and finally we see one of these companies stepping up to the plate and doing the right things.

    The Windows and or OSes tied to hardware are for pure support cost reasons at this point with companies like Dell/HP/etc.

    Even prior to the dissolving of MS only contracts, any hardware company had the choice to not buy into an exclusive package from MS and pay the $5/10 bucks more per copy. And even though MS took the flack for this, it was not an uncommon model in the software/OEM industry and it was also something that the greed of OEMs were eager to take advantage of to the loss of their customers.

    I was part of a fairly large OEM company during this timeframe, and we chose not to save the $5 a copy on OEM Windows, and still maintained a great relationship with MS even still we sold naked and *nix preloaded on many systems.

    Sure we could have signed a bundling deal, just like we were offered by Corel and even IBM in the early years for OS/2, however saving a couple of $$ per Windows system was less important than providing our customers what they wanted.

    So Kudos to Dell for finally stepping up and taking responsibility for the product they are selling...

  9. The best part by wes33 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    So far as I can see, the guy could take the money and still be using vista. At least, I don't see anywhere any verification of the non-use was requested. so how does this work? what's to stop someone lying to Dell and getting 77 bucks

    1. Re:The best part by StormReaver · · Score: 5, Funny

      "what's to stop someone lying to Dell and getting 77 bucks"

      Dell: Hi, this is Dell technical support. How may I help you?"
      Customer: Uh, I want a refund for Vista since I'm not using it.
      Dell: Okay, I just need you to answer one randomly selected question. What does "ls -l" do?
      Customer: It displays a long directory listing.
      Dell: Your refund check is on the way.

  10. Style. by jez9999 · · Score: 3, Funny

    some still think that buying a naked PC won't be easy. But what about stripping it naked after you buy it?

    Doing things that way always gets me waaay more in the mood. Gotta do it slowly though.

    --
    == Jez ==
    Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
  11. Differences in your geography? by hugorxufl · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Since IANAL, do any of you know of differences in consumer laws/regulations that may have made it easier for the German or European customer? Previous slashdot stories suggested that a Windows refund have been a mess for US customers in the past.

  12. All of this is very nice, but I did spot one thing by jimicus · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Note the following line:

    Vista did not manage to recover from the aborted install process the previous day and got lost in an infinite loop of reboots. (I wonder what people do with a power outage during install as there was no such thing as a Vista-CD delivered...)

    And I've noticed that some OEMs aren't setting up a "recovery" partition (basically, a second partition which can be booted directly from the BIOS which reinstalls the OS) any more. Not good at all. Heck, I took delivery of a PC only last week where there was no hardware fault from the factory, but there was something wrong with the OEM Windows install and it was stuck in a reboot loop. Didn't bother me as we've got a Windows site license so I could rebuild from our own media anyway, but that's not really the point.

  13. Just to break that 77.54 down for you... by jpellino · · Score: 3, Funny

    That was EU77.00 for Vista and 00.54 for Works.

    Sounds about right.

    --
    "Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
  14. But how will DELL stop fraud? by mark99 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    So how do they know you really formatted it, and aren't using Vista Home.

  15. Re:Germany BY LAW by Alphager · · Score: 3, Informative

    You are allowed by law to buy a PC without an OS on it, and Dell are obligated to offer to sell you the PC without the OS on it.

    Don't expect it to be so easy anywhere else, Dell gets a lot of subsidy from Microsoft for the 'Linux' games it plays. Bullshit. There is no such law here in Germany.
    Everybody on the world has this right; just read the damn MS-EULA the next time you reinstall; it's in there.
  16. Re:Congradulations by keeboo · · Score: 4, Funny

    You took a perfectly good Windows computer(...)

    Is there such a thing?

  17. I don't know about the US ... by Ignatius · · Score: 4, Informative

    ... but here in Austria you can order Dell Workstations with Linux (RedHat) preinstalled. Also, about a year ago, I ordered a Dell Precision 380 workstation without a preinstalled OS (It came with a FreeDos partition containing drivers and docs IIRC). YMMV

  18. Re:TFA forgets step zero by kefler · · Score: 3, Funny

    Step 0: Buy a Dell in a box
    Step 1: Cut a hole in the box
    ....