I am an EX employee because Dell closed the Call center I worked at.
Sorry about the wall of text.
I did try to put in breaks, I hit return after every few sentences but it obviously didn't work.
If I ever reply to another story I'll try to do better with the formatting.
I might even try proofreading.
And in this post I hit return twice after every sentence.
I'm obviously doing something wrong.
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.
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I am an EX employee because Dell closed the Call center I worked at. Sorry about the wall of text. I did try to put in breaks, I hit return after every few sentences but it obviously didn't work. If I ever reply to another story I'll try to do better with the formatting. I might even try proofreading. And in this post I hit return twice after every sentence. I'm obviously doing something wrong.
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.