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Alienware Refusing Customers As Thieves
ChrisPaget writes "Thinking about buying Alienware (now owned by Dell)? Think again. After buying an almost-new Alienware laptop on eBay, I've spent the last week trying to get hold of a Smart Bay caddy to connect a second hard drive (about $150 for $5 of bent metal). Four different Alienware teams have refused to even give me a price on this accessory, instead accusing me of stealing the machine since I didn't buy it directly from their eBay store. They want me to persuade the eBay seller I did buy it from to add me as an authorized user of his Alienware account — they have no concept of 'ownership transfer' and instead assume that if you're not in their system, you must be a thief."
*shrug*
I've been building PCs for decades.
Meanwhile, my wife and I each have an Alienware desktop PC.
Why? Well, first, we each needed a new computer. The motherboard was dead on her venerable Dell desktop, and Dell's case was sufficiently strange to preclude replacing that component by itself. Later, I wanted a box to play games on, without disturbing my Linux desktop machine.
Second: The price was right. Before we bought these computers, I did the usual sanity check against Newegg. After buying putting a whole PC worth of good components of similar specification into my cart, the price difference was about $100.
Yeah - $100.
For that hundred bucks, one gets a very fancy ATX case which is easy to work on. Working audio ports on the front which interface properly with the sound card (instead of stupid rear-panel pass-through crap), such that the sound card can detect when headphones are plugged in and reconfigure itself automatically. An in-home service agreement. A PC which doesn't need assembled, but just unpacked and plugged in.
And unlike most prebuilt machines, when they're first turned on, they just boot Windows. I don't have to spend a couple of hours removing extraneous crap software. It comes up and behaves about the same way a new PC would if I'd have taken the time to build it myself and install Windows with a base load of drivers, except I didn't have to do it myself.
Meanwhile, they use about the same parts I'd have chosen myself if I were building a new PC. Good DVD-R, XFX video, fancy-pants motherboard with lots of expansion. The power supply is nameless, but is every bit as heavy as a good power supply ought to be. It included the same Logitech mouse I'd have bought myself. So on, so forth.
And it's pretty.
I don't think Alienware's pricing is out-of-line at all.
YMMV.
Kid-proof tablet..
I bought two Alienware computers. One for my wife and one for me. Both being avid gamers, we loved them. I managed to spill water in mine though, and severely damanged it. Of course, this was completely my fault and no reflection of their system.
However, their handling of the replacement is. I shipped the laptop and called a few days later to ensure that they had received it, to which they claimed they had. Two weeks from the time I sent it in I had still heard nothing, so I called them, at which point they claimed to have never received it. I managed to misplace the shipping paperwork I had because I believed the laptop had showed up, etc...
They accused me of lying and having never sent in the laptop until I was able to get replacement paperwork, etc. from the post office. The reality was that they had misplaced it in their shipping warehouse. So after the two week delay I then had to wait 6 more weeks for the out of stock part to come in so that they could replace it.
And so, with prompt service, and considerate customer service like that, who needs anyone else.
The monster cable of pre-built PCs
Couldn't agree more with this assessment. Alienware is hideously overpriced and their systems aren't really that good. I have an Alienware D900T that a friend of mine owns sitting in my closet. The video card stopped working and it's going to cost $500 for the replacement for a wimpy GeForce 6800. He doesn't want to spend the money so I've disassembled it for the good parts and junked the rest. In disassembling the machine, it's obvious that Alienware doesn't back up their bloated prices with anything resembling quality, too.
Nobody in their right mind should be buying Alienware. There's nothing about their machines that you can't get from regular branded PCs and custom built PCs, except for a huge price hike on the Alienware.
In the case of Alienware, if they sent a random customer who asked for a part a note saying "Sorry, but your PC is reported stolen, please bring it to the cops,"
That's not what happened. They said to send a warranty number that would prove he bought it from them. Alienware hasn't said that the laptop was reported stolen.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
RTFA. He never wrote that Alienware directly accused him of a crime, or of being a thief. He is complaining that he is being treated like a thief. There is a significant difference between the two statements.
John