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Recourse For Poor Customer Service?
eleventypie writes "I am in the Army and currently stationed in Afghanistan. Recently I found myself without a laptop so I decided to build a studio 17 from Dell. I designed/customized my laptop on 2008-09-17 and placed my order, which totaled approximately $1,700. The laptop was built and apparently shipped on 2008-09-28. Given my APO address, I know mail can sometimes take a little while to get here, though 7-10 days is normal. Dell said to give my laptop 6-8 business days and occasionally, it might take as much as 4-6 weeks. So on 2008-11-12 I sent another email to Dell informing them I still had not received my laptop. One person said to give it more time, while another person responded to my message telling me to send my address again and they would send me a replacement. So I sent my address immediately and never got a response. It is now the 30th of November and I still have no laptop and Dell seems to have quit responding to my emails. This is very frustrating being out $1,700 and not having a laptop to talk to my friends and family and do school work. Phone calls aren't easy so calling them is pretty much out of the question. Any advice on what I can or should do at this point to get the computer I ordered or get my money back?"
...and dispute the charge. No laptop = no payee.
and have them reverse the charges
It most likely got stolen by a corrupt employee on its way to you. Dell thinks you got it and won't send another one, so the place to take this is your credit card's fraud resolution process, who will most likely eat the loss.
Send in the Marines! Once Dell HQ is surrounded I'm sure they'll find your laptop.
Honestly e-mail CNN with a story about how hard it is to deal with issues like this when you are out of country in the service. You can even file an iReport. If they run with the story I think you'll find your laptop showing up in record time with a heartfelt apology from Dell.
Apparently you're at a computer with internet right now, you should try using SkypeOut or another free software VoIP service to call tech support and figure out what's going on.
Get your problem posted to the front page of slashdot?
There are members of the U.S. Armed Forces who attend college while enlisted and even while stationed overseas. Certainly you've heard of online degree programs offered by schools such as Argosy University or University of Phoenix?
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If I can not smoke in heaven, then I shall not go. -- Mark Twain
My son is an Army JAG Attorney. He was telling me that helping servicemen with such problems was part of the job that gave them much satisfaction. They can write some very good letters on your behalf. You probably have a few deployed with/near you.
meh, i would have had the laptop shipped to a relative and asked *them* to ship it in a plain box (not one marked DELL DELL DELL) with insurance, delivery confirmation or whatever option they could get from USPS or whoever.
as others mentioned, do a chargeback. :)
then buy a thinkpad
By and large, language is a tool for concealing the truth. -- George Carlin
1) Dispute charge with your credit card issuer (as others have recommended)
2) Check out the consumerist blog (consumerist.com) and use their guidelines to get consumer satisfaction.
Don't let them BS you - put the beef out in public and you're more likely to get results. Dell and other large companies don't care about you, an individual consumer - make it public and affect thousands of buying decisions and you'll likely fare better.
Note: If they resolve this to your satisfaction, also post/email/whatever a follow-up showing that they made good on a bad situation. If they do not, of course you should let everyone know that as well.
Good luck!
Looking at Reseller Ratings Dell has a really shitty customer service team.
I would suggest:
Good luck
Actually in the Army you can get a degree from most normal colleges while deployed as well. Theres a college exchange program where you can take classes at any approved college (including some classes taught by the army itself both online and offline) and receive your degree at the participating college of your choice (and they do have a good selection of participating colleges.)
Excuse me. No. We respect your service, and he has every right to ask for help from people he trusts. That apparently is us. They said they'd send a replacement.. but didn't. So now we are discussing resolutions. You had no right to make those assumptions.
...everyone else is just trying to get their shit back!
Brother someone stole your shipment without a doubt. I can't believe you would even order something like that while in country. When I was in Opsec, Afghanistan we had our mail stolen all the time. Mostly just cartons of smokes. You should have ordered it through AAFES if you couldn't wait to pick one up on your R&R.
We also had quite a few CONEX get broke into during shipping. They would simply take the hinges off, take what they wanted, and weld it back shut.
My suggestion to you is to make sure you report it. Maybe one good thing out of it is one of those USSR employees will get fired.
Good luck Sir
I want to be retired when I grow up.
Purchasing your Dell computer through AAFES (Army Air Force Exchange Services), online or off, has 2 benefits:
1) Tax-free.
2) Your Dell helpline service tickets will be assigned to the Small Business department, instead of Joe Public.
PS: You can also buy your Harley-Davidson motorcycle through AAFES while you're deployed.
Recourse For Poor Customer Service?
Homeland Security. I've had the impression long before 9/11 that Al-Qaeda has infiltrated Dell customer service.
And, given that he is risking his life in Afghanistan, why the hell shouldn't he get preferential treatment?
Because, as a non-american, I don't support the war, and i don't support his actions.
Why should he get preferential treatmetn for living in a country that sends him to war for no reason? Why should he get preferential treatment because he was idiotic enough to sign up for the military in the USA?
Another thing to ask is if they ever shipped it and if they did what the tracking number is. At least this way you can try to work out whether the blame is with Dell or the internal courier service used by the military to get it there (I imagine this how it works). Once you can work out where the computer should be you will know who you be dealing with.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
He doesn't have the laptop so he can't submit the story. Dell knows this so they aren't worried.
Run and catch, run and catch, the lamb is caught in the blackberry patch.
You can be a non supporter of the war *and* support service personnel, who are doing a job that I know I couldn't do. The two don't have to be mutually exclusive, and you certainly don't have to be an ass about it.
I'd agree that you should know your card company's chargeback procedure, and understand how to do this. But don't start with the chargeback.
Disputing the charges is "the nuclear option" in terms of working with a customer service department. It will generally make all future conversations adversarial. It will rarely help you get your order fulfilled--at best, the company might grudgingly agree to cancel your order. It can also in some circumstances result in getting a collection agency placed on you (and the resultant damage to your credit rating).
Keep this in your back pocket, but if you have other options (see other suggestions about trying to escalate to someone senior in the customer service department), try them first. If you still want your Dell, you need Dell to be willing to work with you. Don't burn any bridges until you're convinced the transaction is beyond saving.
I was also in the service and know how bad the mail system is. The mail is handled by regular people like you, me and the guy or gal reading this post. Integrity is not a requirement to join the rate that handles mail, and I recall several incidents every deployment where PS's were actually stealing electronics from the mail. There's no way to prove they were actually received, except for documentation kept by the PS's, who if stealing your electronics would not be quick to document it.
I used to work for Dell in a call center doing technical support for business and the Army was one segment that I supported quite often. I dealt with many calls from overseas Army bases and it was always a headache. It's called OCONUS or Outside the CONtinental United States and it is a completely different process to send something OCONUS than it is to ship normally. The reason for this is because of export restrictions and other trade regulations. If Dell screws up and sends something where they aren't suppoesto they could loose their ability to ship anything outside the US so they take it very seriously. There is a special department in Round Rock TX that deals with this, all of my shipments went through them. I had to set it up a certain way, or it wouldn't work, nothing would be shipped and I wouldn't know it wasn't shipped unless I remembered to check back a couple of days later and see the status of the shipment. So, the end result is that because most agents don't get many OCONUS calls, possibly 1 or 2 a year, they either don't know that it has to be done a certain way, or they can't remember how to do it the right way so it fails to ship and the agent who set it up is NOT notified unless they take the time to check a few days later on the status which they usually don't have time and would not think to do anyway as 99% of the time it is unnecessary. Now bear in mind, this is in hardware warranty support, not sales and it has been about a year since I last worked for Dell so things could have changed but, I kind of doubt it. This was an ongoing issue for me as I worked the night shift so I got at least 3 or 4 OCONUS calls in a week which is much, much more than the average agent. I became the go to guy for OCONUS (in my department) calls because I did so many of them. Another issue is the APO address. We were told NEVER to ship to an APO if there was any other address available because it could often take 3 to 4 MONTHS, not weeks to get there if it ever did. I ALWAYS had issues shipping to APO's. So that could be the issue as well. You need to realize that the agent could be trying to do their best to give you good service (which may or may not be the case) but they are very limited on what they can do and more likely, do not know all the options they have available to them. As this is a rare case - shipping OCONUS to an APO, most agents would not have ever done this and not know how do do it correctly. I would follow the advice of some other posters and call and talk to a live person, during business hours in EST which probably means you need to call at 2 or 3 am your time. Be prepared with all the information you can possibly get and be ready to spend quite some time on the phone as it is better if you can stay on the phone while the agent goes and talks to someone who knows what to do or looks for someone who knows what to do. Shipping overseas is a pain and is always a hassle. also it's not Dell making the hassle it's the US trade regulations so blaming the Dell agent won't accomplish anything, even though it might be their fault for not sending it correctly in the first ( and second and third...) place. Asking for a supervisor won't work as there are no supervisors for you to talk to. there are managers who do not talk to customers, the best you can do is get another agent but then you will be starting back at square 1 and have to explain everything all over again. Another person posted offering to follow up with Dell for you, this won't work as they are not the person how placed the order or the cardholder so Dell probably will not talk to them, this is the normal customer confidentially policy Dell has. the easiest thing to do would be to have a family member buy a computer for you and then send it to you the way you normally receive mail from family and friends. Any other company (like HP or Apple) will have the same difficulties shipping to you as Dell but they might have better trained agents, or not. I'm not trying to defend Dell here just tell you the realities of shipping from Dell to your APO.
When our son, deployed in Afghanistan, ordered his laptop, we had it delivered to our house, then repacked it in a plain brown box, before shipping it out to him insured. Sure, people can still look at the customs form and see it's a laptop, but that's better than shipping a box with "Dell" in large letters on the side that you can read at twenty paces.
You're a special kind of asshole, you know that?
He needs a laptop so he can stay in contact with loved ones and to be able to STUDY, you know, better himself as a human being while doing this horrible thing that the rest of us don't want to do.
...
Sounds to me like an open-and-shut case of breach of contract. They took your money. They failed to fulfill their side of the bargain. Unless they refund your money (perhaps with interest, perhaps not) or give you the laptop you paid for, they're guilty as hell. Maybe I'm naive, but I'd bet a lot of judges, juries and predatory, razor-toothed lawyers would take a pretty dim view of a corporation ripping off somebody risking his life in service of his country.
I imagine a letter from the aforementioned predator (maybe accompanied by a warning that the media would be involved soon) would generate some kind of response.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
or pretend to be one and ask them if there is some problem shipping laptops to asscrackistan
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I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
I say if you can't resolve your customer service issue in the first call, ask for the supervisor, or the next level of service. In my experience, it usually gets you connected with somebody with a) knowledge and b) ability to make decisions on behalf of the company, much faster. In some cases that may get you speaking with a native english speaking person for the first time.
I wouldn't. Insurance by the postal service is worth almost as much as no insurance at all. It takes literally years of fighting past insane bureaucracy to get reimbursed, and even then they will try to weasel out of every single penny they can.
Dell would probably treat you better than the USPS.
actually now that you mention it, youre right. i once bought postal insurance and they refused to pay, because i couldnt produce receipts for the items, and the one i *did* produce a reciept for they bitched about.
but still, i had delivery confirmation and the *box* got to me, at least, so there!
By and large, language is a tool for concealing the truth. -- George Carlin
I had an APO address for three years at Ramstein AB (ie, the place that *all* APO mail headed to Europe and SWA goes first). The OP's representation of the amount of time it takes to receive mail from the US is misleading at best. It takes 7-10 days to receive letters from the US. I have received packages in that little time, but the average was perhaps 4 weeks, and 8 weeks was not unusual. A few times it took up to 10 weeks. The package is being sent to a *war zone*, have a little patience.
It's always a long day... 86400 doesn't fit into a short.
Unless of course, you're a REM who's several hundred clicks from any forward operating post, and have ready access to 24x7 electricity with no spikes, aircon and constant net access. Apologies if I've called that one wrong, but you're not exactly giving the impression of being at the sharp end of business out there.
You start by outlining what soldiers on the front lines have done in past wars, then chastise him for not acting like a front line soldier when he's obviously not? Do you think guys processing paperwork in the finance office in London or Saigon were writing home about the horrors of war?
And it's "REMF", not "REM".
i'd suggest Steve Coll's "Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan and Bin Laden"... and... "Afghanistan: A Military History From Alexander The Great To The Fall Of The Taliban" by Stephen Tanner.
Pffff. Maybe if you want to read hundreds of boring pages about the Washington bureaucracy and the ineptitude of the CIA and the State Department, and then a copy-paste of 20 other history books with a hysterical screed against Bush at the end.
So really, I'm not sure what it is you think he needs to be educated about. You start with the observation that he's not as concerned with the "awful conditions" at the front as you think he ought to be, and then suggest he read a bunch of political nonsense by a Washington Post inside-the-beltway gasbag?
At any rate, chastising him for pursuing an education instead of learning to hate Chimpy BusHitler or whatever is pretty lame.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
Make sure you talk about this with your CO. Don't go to the media or any place that make make this and your name / rank location public without prior approval. afaik you need to have prior approval before even making so much as a message board post.
I'm poor. Please donate. http://albanypcs.com
First, since you, being overseas, will have limited ability to call Dell, give the relevant information to a family member that you can trust. Basically send them an e-mail telling them what has occurred. Remember, be as detailed as possible (dates, people talked to, etc.) Then, have them make the long grueling call to Dell. In the interim, contact Dell with your account information regarding your purchase and let met know that you are letting so-and-so friend/family member handle the account on your behalf as you are deployed overseas. Put together a nice business letter. Have someone in your unit give you some advice when you compose this letter (preferrably a SNCO or officer with some brains). Keep the letter simple and to the point. Let them know that you have not received the laptop as of current date. You have been charged for this. You will have your credit reverse the charges. In order to rectify the situation and to prevent any thefts, unless Dell can prove that it has been received by you, then they will need to send a unit to the following address . After that, the family member can then send it to you - definitely not wrapped in a laptop box. Just remember, depending on your deployment area,a laptop my be "inspected" or "held" to insure that it does not contain "contraband", even if new. You can also contact your local military PO folks and ask them how to proceed on that side. Also, if you do find yourself wanting to make a phone call, get someone from Dell on the phone. If they start giving you crap, go with asking for the supervisor. I say this because Dell started moving their call centers back to the US a couple of years ago. When you got through to them, you would deal with a level 1 who would bust their ass to try and help. It may have been tedious, but they could be bypassed by being firm and asking for a manager and they will pass you on to someone who can actually do something. If you wind up with someone with a difficult accent to understand, ask to be transferred to either someone else or another call center.
"Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet." General James Mattis
Call in an air strike on Dell!
Do it!
Please?
He needs a laptop so he can stay in contact with loved ones and to be able to STUDY, you know, better himself as a human being while doing this horrible thing that the rest of us don't want to do.
... and which some of us don't want him doing.
If you can get ahold of Dell customer support by the phone ( or maybe even chat?) ask to be transferred to the 'reparations department'. The one goal of this group is 'customer satisfaction' and the can give you just about anything u want as a 'please forgive us' gesture. I found out my freshmen year as a poor college student about them and ended up with a gratis $200 Linksys wifi router, and that was just b.c. of a comparatively minor laptop repair shipping issue! At least you can get a little extra since you have waited so long - good luck!
The customer accepts a low standard because it's prevalent everywhere. People who get hired to do $8-$12 an hour jobs tend to have IQs under 115 and thus be basically glorified bonobos. (There are a few -- a very few -- exceptions.)
I realize that's offensive, but it's also more realistic than what else is said here.
Customer service is expensive. Doing it right is even more expensive. If your competitors don't do it right, your customers are not going to pick you just because of your good customer service -- they're going to go with the cheaper option.
Your problem, in a nutshell, is uninformed, lazy customers, and a lack of intelligent, dedicated people to hire for really cheap.
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