Ever wonder if “certified refurbished” is just corporate doublespeak for “not entirely broken crap?” Well, at Dell, it is! The refurbished Dell Studio Joseph bought as a gift for his father-in-law arrived with large scratches and a CD-R in the optical drive containing a pirated copy of Microsoft Office. Dell’s response? They’re willing to take back the laptop and waive the restocking fee, but that’s it.
Joseph writes:
I ordered a Dell Studio from Dell (My first mistake, I know). After I placed the order, where there were tons of helpful people eager to take my credit card number, I saw the Dell outlet center with some refurb laptops.
I called and cancelled my initial order, asked the lady on the phone (Name escapes me, but I KNOW they can find out who by my click to chat IDs) and asked her to compare, line for line, the two laptops. She assured me they were identical, component for component.
I then asked her about certified reburbs vs scratch and dent, which I did not want.
She says “Cert refurbs are conditioned to factory specification, the cases look just like a new laptop”. I pointed her to the description online that hinted at some damage visible, she says “oh they just say that, I have never seen a refurb with any damage on it.
I place the order. It is a gift for my father in law.
I get the order.
It looks like a bear clawed the front of the cover. Someone took a flathead and gouged the bezel in the front. It is not line for line the same laptop, missing features, wrong OS, etc.
Best thing was the “present”: a burnt .rar of Office 2007 corporate edition in the cd tray. It had a text file with the Warez site it was downloaded from as a reference. Yes folks, they sent me illegal software from a warez site. If this was refurb’d, where is the QA department? No one noticed a cd in the laptop?
I called corporate using Consumerist guidance, no help. I sent an email to corporate and CC’d Michael@dell.com, Got someone who honestly seemed to want to help me but “had hands tied”
Their compensation for a laptop that I cannot return (I was asking for a tech at least to come out and replace the case, drop off the OS I wanted, I was willing to eat the non-backlit keyboard) was this:
No restocking fee, return the laptop and get assistance ordering another.
I assure you, this was not “certified reburbished” but very much “scratch and severly dented”.
I cannot return it as it was a gift to be presented in front of about 20 folks, one of them my future employer. The future is suddenly not so bright.
This worth a letter to BBB?
Thanks a lot Dell. Any advice from consumerist? Seems like Dell is considering this a “case closed”.
Joseph doesn’t need assistance ordering a new laptop. He needs is the laptop he ordered delivered at the price Dell quoted. They should provide a system of equal or greater value, free of charge. An apology note wouldn’t hurt either.
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When you CHOOSE to order a refurb, and you save a ton on it, this can happen. When they volunteer to replace it by accepting the return with no restocking fee, then that’s the end of the story. What you you want, a higher end laptop overnighted? Want a pony with that?
If you can’t afford to lose a little time in the process, go buy a full-on NEW product. Don’t go to Al’s Used Junkers and expect the red-carpet treatment and a brand new luxury car for $2000.
@SMSDHubbard: LOL! A pony!
@undefined: @Con Sumer Zealot: Hey. When a large website like this takes to accusing Dell of bad service I would hope that they post ALL information relating to the matter. They can always black out identifying info but the onus is on the complaint-writer to prove that they were wronged.
And about the “even when wrong they’re right” bit: A corporations money is invested as well, in the form of the product. Don’t forget that when you buy something it’s like a trade, you trade money for a product. Both parties have to be reasonable. Don’t arrogantly think you’re always “right” because you’re labeled consumer.
Not blaming the OP, but I think the word for the wise here is to:
1) check with the vendor what “factory refurbished”, “factory recertified”, “factory reconditioned”, “factory retested” or whatever terms the vendor uses actually do mean before purchasing, so you know what you’re getting.
and
2) be ready and able to return what you get in case it does not meet what you’re supposed to get.
and, from personal experience
3) make sure you test every feature of the product, as sometimes “factory refurbished”, “factory recertified” and “factory retested” doesn’t necessarily mean everything works.
The lesson to learn from all of this is DON’T buy anything
from Dell! They suck! This article is a prime example.
1) Say out loud : “I won’t buy from Dell.”
2) Repeat #1 when you feel weak after seeing
one of their “buy our computers you stupid tool” commercials.
While I agree that what the OP received was not what he paid for (wrong configuration) and a failure of Dell’s refurb QA (possibly miscategorized as “Certified Refurbished” and shipped with someone’s warez disc still inside)…
Swapping out the plastic case of a laptop is, for most models, not a trivial operation. Yes, it can be done, and some end users are comfortable enough to do it themselves, but the proprietary nature of most of these cases, coupled with the relative tightness of the components, makes it a fairly delicate and time-consuming process.
I don’t have specific knowledge of this model or its case, but it’s likely that had Dell simply dropped off a new one, the new case itself or some other component would have been damaged by the OP in making the swap. Sending it back to Dell is really the most reasonable remedy they could have offered, both to ensure his satisfaction (which it now seems they just weren’t going to engender no matter what) and to meet their own end of the sales contract (which they should have done the first time around, obviously).
I agree with the commenter who said this might have been someone else’s repair, sent to sales instead. Still, that would be a greater inconvenience by far to the dumbass whose lappie it really is than to this guy who probably should have gone with his first instinct and bought a new machine, if it was such a critical “gift.”
I had a bad experience with a refurbished Dell laptop as well. As soon as I received the laptop, I noticed something weird. A lot of missing “parts” such as the plastic cover for the PCMCIA card and the cover for the memory card. My girlfriend fortunately bought a refurb one that didn’t give her any problem, so I could compare mine with hers.
When I turn my computer on, that thing started to make a noise SOOO LOUD that the only way to prevent from doing it so was to hold the power button to power it off. Closing the lid didn’t help. When I say loud, it was loud… it wasn’t hard drive or anything like that.. it sound like a woman screaming. I was kinda embarrassed wondering if my neighbors was hearing that.
And calling customer service was a nightmare. It took me about three hours for them to finally agree to issue me a full refund and they actually did after about 30 days I shipped the laptop (junk) back to them.
Refurbished Dell.. never.. ever.
We own two XPS 700/750 hybrids that were purchased from the Dell Outlet about 3 years ago (one was certified refurbished and the other was “scratch and dent”). Both arrived in 2 days and were in brand-new condition. The “scratch” on the “scratch and dent” tower came off with a microfiber cloth. Dell has always treated these two systems as if they were purchased brand new by us (they even replaced the mobo during the mobo exchange eventho it was purchased at the outlet, hence the “hybrid”) and we’ve been very satisfied with the CS we’ve received (always through XPS tech chat online).
But, honestly, if it’s a gift, why not buy him a new one? There are lots of deals in the outlet, sure, but there are lots of deals on new laptops, too. Or maybe FIL isn’t worth it? heh
So you ordered a refurbished laptop for which the online description specifically stated the laptop had visible damage, yet you ordered it anyway based on the statement of a customer service representative who stated “they all say that”.
I agree with you on the bootleg Office being in the CD drive, but I that was “extra” as you weren’t entitled to office pre-installed anyway.
Dell looks to be offering fair compensation. Your asking for too much.
forget what dell is offering. turn dell into microsoft’s report piracy number:
(800) RU-LEGIT
getting dell a nice fine should make you feel better.
I have bought over 30 refurbs (For friends, Co-workers, family, and myself) from Delloutlet and never had a problem with looks. A couple did have minor hardware problems, but dell fixed them under warranty. I can’t believe this story in any way. He either doesn’t know what he is talking about, or he is bull$hitting us. If you get a computer, and don’t like it, they have a 21 day return policy… simple… If they offer to replace it… do it… simple… what more can you ask for? retard.
Just wanted to clear some things up (I am Joe, original OP):
#1) I agree I should have just sent it back. I read the comments and to be honest, it was more of an embarrassing situation than not. It isn’t that I COULD NOT PHYSICALLY return the laptop, it was that it is already in the hands of my father in law, and I guess I was too embarrassed to ask for it back. So, to the posters who said I should have just sent it back and been done with it, I agree. I should have gone HP maybe?
#2) I was only asking for the case to be replaced, and I (wrongly) assumed that when the agent on the phone tells me it is the same laptop line for line, isn’t that what they are paid to do, to represent Dell? I guess I was being too idealistic on that one as well, although I felt a warm fuzzy when Dell assured me it was ok. Pie in my face, lesson learned, I move on…
#3) I can assure you there is no falsehoods afoot here. I also didn’t know it came with a refurb sticker. I actually have no problem with that, it was the case condition and lack of 64bit OS.
#4) I apologize for not making it clear on my letter, but I DID open the box, I DID contact them beforehand and I DO have the expertise to replace the case had they sent me a new (or less scratched) one.
#5) Bottom line for me on this one: It is not certified refurb’d. It is scratch and dent, which costs less than cert refurb. I paid more for this than I should have, which prompted the email to Consumerist (Awesome site *cough cough*).
I have gotten a return authorization code to return the laptop and wash my hands of this mess, which I am taking advantage of. Got a new laptop, stopped being cheap (yes, I was trying to save bucks) and to the posters who disputed my “future looking so bright” comment, I guess my opinion on that was that there was NO TIME to swap out the computer before the party, the guests knew a laptop was the main present and I could not afford to get another one. The extra gifts were laptop cases, mobile mouse, etc. Thankfully they were mature enough to realize this was out of my hands and did not hold me responsible for this.
Yes, lesson learned. Don’t be cheap, don’t be afraid to replace a gift and don’t buy Dell.
Thanks Consumerists!
Why is this such a big deal?
The item didn’t match the description (and/or could be considered to be damaged), so Dell offers to take back the item and provide a full refund.
That’s all I would expect Dell to do, and they have done it (or have offered to do it).
If this happened to me, it would probably make me not want to buy from Dell anymore, but it wouldn’t cross my mind to start writing nasty letters to executives.
(But it also would not cross my mind to buy refurb anything as a gift).
P.S. My only complaint about Dell is that their laptop power adapter bricks don’t seem to last more than a year, I’ve gone through 3 or 4 of them in the past few years.
Dell, Gateway, HP… I’ve had problems with all their laptops and computers.
But I’ve also had great experiences with all these companies so snafus really are random. I will say, however, that I’ve had the most problems with Gateway and the most success with HP.
Could be worse – if he’d ordered from Hewlett Packard they have a nasty habit of randomly canceling orders for spurious reasons and not bothering to tell their customers. At least he got the pirate bear-claw “scratch and dent” laptop…
I’ve personally been mostly impressed with the level of support I get from Dell, though the calls to India have hinted at trouble if I didn’t know exactly what I wanted. Business support is generally excellent.
The presence of the warez CD indicates that it was never looked over well, and for that reason alone Dell should take it back and give him expedited replacement. The case scratch is a bit excessive too, Dell’d benefit by describing that level of damage to set expectations properly.