Stop buying from Dell Home. You're encouraging them. Really, just cut it out.

(really hoping this wasn't a Dell Business purchase)

Noxious?

it made him noxious?

"physically harmful or destructive to living beings"

I've never had a problem with them:
1xWFP-2407
1xWFP-2408

However back in my college years I was sick and lost my job... long story short my laptop payments fell behind. So they called me and told me I should setup a direct withdrawl, they didn't seem to understand that I didn't have any money. When I told them I'd send a check they told me that it could take up to 18 days to cash a check...

I asked why it takes that long and they said it was because of their computer systems. I lol'ed. I was like maybe you guys should think about upgrading your computer systems then I'm sure you could find someone to sell you new computers. It was a call center in India so I have a feeling they didn't know who Dell was or it was a pre-programmed response.

Good Luck OP.

@Ozyman666: Dell customer service will do that to you.

This is why I just can't bring myself to buy large ticket items online. You may pay $30-$50 more at a brick and mortar store but instant, full refunds or exchanges beat the hell out of RMA #'s and hours on the phone begging for your money back.

@bdgbill: I know you may be speaking in general, but for the sake of this topic I have to say... Dell products purchased through brick & mortars are Dell Home products, and service. Beware.

I am having trouble with Dell as well. I bought a laptop from them and found that the adapter is very, very loose (the connector falls right out of the laptop randomly). The tech support rep feels that it may be an issue with the motherboard and wants me to send the laptop back for a replacement under the warranty. I would happily do that, except tech support can arrange for returns - you need to talk to a CSR. Fine. I have wasted over 100 cell phone minutes trying to get in touch with a CSR. Every time I call, I explain the problem to someone after holding for 5-10 minutes, and just as they are transferring me to the correct department, they hang up on me. EVERY time.

Chargeback.

@undefined: @bdgbill: I have had excellent luck with newegg.com, better than any brick and mortar, actually.

Dell Home is nei-impossible for me to deal with. Their business division on the other hand has always made things easy and has bent over backwards to get us the support we need (Shout out to my Gold Team Peeps, you know who you are).

Dell really needs to bridge the gap (GAPING CHASM) between their home and business divisions. NOTE: This means fix the home suck, not make business suck.

I had to read that to make sure the OP didn't actually die while waiting for a refund. That would be sad.

"Quality has dropped considerably"? Dell as been making cheap shit since day one. That's why they've done so well.

@chatterboxwriting: So you didn't get the onsite service option? I know it cost more but that's the key with Dell in my experience.

I'm curious - how do you know the difference in Dell Home and Business?

Would you by stuff from that Shamwow/Slapchop guy? Why not? Is it because he is sketchy? Now why are you buying from Dell?!!!!!

I was asking because I've never had a problem and just bought my 4th Dell laptop today. I work for myself and I've always bought fairly high end sturdy laptops from the Business side.

I didn't know if business meant you had a rep who did the purchasing for your or was just certain product lines.

@Charlotte Rae's Web: Dell home= Indians. Dell Business= Americans.

@chatterboxwriting: use the online chat option featured on their support site. It's pretty slow but you deal with one person only and they've always been able to get me set up with a solution/exchange/whatever on the first try.

@legwork: Plus, their computers come with a virus called "Windows".

@redhelix: Dell, the Walmart of computer land!

@badgeman46: But if you buy online, how do you know which is processing the order? Is it by product line?

I wonder if Dell is paying its bills. Just wondering. It makes me sad - they were so very very good in the early days. (I write this on my first HP after nothing but Dell.)

@Charlotte Rae's Web: Home and business have different product lines. Same internal components for the most part, but different product names and configurations, and different service.

For the record, the premium consumer support defaulted for XPS is fine.

I recently had my monitor upgraded at work to a Dell 22" LCD. It also flickered. We switched DVI cables and now it works fine. OP should try a new cable as I have a feeling Dell may have had a bad batch.

I have had nothing but great service from dell. 3 home insp.laptops 11 business laptops 6 servers and 32 work stations at work. Min failures quick parts turn around. We are an electronics repair company so maybe thats why we have the good luck.

NEVER let a company sandbag you past the 30 day mark without a call to the credit card company for a chargeback.

I've been having a ton of trouble with Dell too... Last month I ordered an Inspiron 1318 from their Outlet site, so, no "build" necessary, just a refurbished computer. They sent it a few days later, and I logged into my account to check the tracking number, but it just said "Data temporarily unavailable" Fine, it can take a couple days...but two days later it still wouldn't give me a tracking number, which I needed so I could know when it would arrive to make sure I would be there (or someone else could get it for me). I was leaving Friday morning for the weekend and didn't want it sitting on my porch for days. So I email them, they tell me to check the site. I email them again, explaining, again, that the site tells me nothing, so they finally send me a tracking number...and guess what? It's going to California, not where I live (Idaho). So I e-mail them and ask them to verify, and they insist it's my tracking number, but I notice the reference number of the tracking looks CLOSE to my order number, so I go to FedEx's website and look up my package via reference number, and sure enough, the one they sent me was NOT my tracking number. I don't know how a huge, high-tech company can't manage to give me a tracking number, but Bob's Pewter Cattle Jewelry, Inc. can do it just fine.

I am still waiting on a Dell Rebate 3 1/2 YEARS later. Along with a horrible computer experience (it began breaking down within a month) and the non-help with an extended warranty (I was told to open the case myself and see what was wrong), I have since purchased a new computer from Costco (not a Dell) and have an extended warranty for no cost to me. I had to be fro the free printer which was supposed to be included-and with this experience and the state of the stock I own in Dell in the toilet (nice how the Dell experience carries over to the entire economy), I warn everyone not to buy their products.

@reynwrap582: Then of course I bought a Dell Mini 9 on sale last Monday but never received an order number or anything, nor an e-mail acknowledging or confirming my order, nor an e-mail informing me it's been shipped, BUT they did put a hold on funds in my debit account.

After 3 days I write to them and they tell me an e-mail could take 4 days. After 4 days I write them and they tell me that they can't find my order number and to call a CSR because "there must be a problem." Not wanting to blow half of this months cell minutes (like I did last time I called them), I opted just to wait and see if my funds were released, but I found a curious little page where I could actually look up my own information (why they hadn't referred me to this page, I don't know):
[support.dell.com]

So I find it's in production over the weekend and it shipped today (which I had to use the Track by Reference Number trick at FedEx.com again to find out the tracking info...again, no Shipping email).

It's truly wonderful to have to provide my own customer service support.

@chatterboxwriting: Put a bead of solder down the side of the plug. Or, if you don't own a soldering iron, google around for a roll of conductive foil tape and wrap that around the plug.

@bdgbill: FWIW Amazon has always been great with returns for me. We buy a great deal of items online in my house, mostly with amazon, so I've also had a little experience with their returns For replacements. they generally send the replacement out right away and give you an entire month to send back the old one. No cost for shipping the return either -- just print a shipping label and drop it off or whatever.

Normally there's also no need to call or get an rma number, it's all through the website. I once returned an opened item for a refund, and that was similarly painless.

Even with Dell I exchanged a broken laptop charging cord once, and was happy with the service. Although I've never needed a refund from there. But my point is, with many of the larger better-known companies returns and exchanges are often much easier than you think.

Had similar problems with my LCD, but i got em thru dell business, and had great customer service all along.

@badgeman46:

lol. Now that's just not true. There's a good few hundred people here in town that work for home sales. My spouse being one of them!(I'm in Austin, TX)

@GuinevereRucker: *eyeroll*

@badgeman46: i actully think he's kinda awesome. i bought a set of shamwows from him!

@Ratty: SOME of the same internal components, certainly, but one of the advantages of the business line of products is greater consistency than the home stuff. For example, the D series of Latitude notebooks... drivers, configurations and accessories change very little from one year or model of D-series to the next, so the IT department's setup image of a D600 will work on a D610, and the D-dock will work for all the D-series notebooks, etc. The Inspirons seem to be made of random parts selected by a blindfolded parts picker.

@NTC-Brendan: Give this man a cookie, he's 100% right.

In my years dealing with gold-level Dell Business contracts, I've never had an issue reaching a tech who can get me the parts (read: ship parts directly to me so I can swap them out) I need, and I've rarely had it take more than 20 minutes for any one call to their 800 number (the only time I can recall it ever happening was when I called while the callcenter was "upgrading their tools.")...

And I'm only 19.

@Charlotte Rae's Web: When you navigate to Dell's homepage, down at the bottom you have to enter the appropriate portal, whether you're home/home office, Small/Medium business, Government, k-12, Large Business...

Dell has good prices but shitty customer service.
You are better off simply buying from newegg (with nonexistent customer service).

@GuinevereRucker:

They also come with Ubuntu, but I suppose if it's not made by Steve Jobs Himself and priced based upon "clean lines and finish", you're not interested. Am I right?

@ScottRose:

I meant to add something substantive:

Agreed w/legwork. I've never used Dell Home -- only the business side -- even for home purchases. I haven't been dissatisfied yet.

Stay away from Inspiron and even Vostro (for small business) too. Optiplexes and Latitudes are sold mainly to large(r) businesses, and Dell is less likely to risk losing customers that order thousands of machines per year with shoddy parts.

@tc4b:

Big AMEN to that. Newegg RMAs and ship times are absurdly good. I've been a regular customer for a long time and they always shock me.

Once it took 15 hours from the time I ordered to the time it arrived. And I paid for ground.

An RMA for some RAM took 7 days for the CC refund to be processed from the time I shipped, keeping in mind that UPS took 6 days to schlep the thing from NY to CA.

Oh, and their CSRs respond to emails in times that are usually best measured in minutes (during business hours, of course).

^^ I'm not affiliated with NE in any way. That's just the kind of good PR they get for treating their customers the way they do.