Tommy is trapped in one of the more tragic outer circles of Dell Hell. His sin? He’s not entirely sure, and Dell will not tell him. All he knows is that his Alienware laptop won’t charge, his account is mysteriously “on hold,” and no one at Dell will talk to him. [More]
Dell Hell: Every Time Dell Touches My Computer, They Break It More
By March 8, 2013
There are many ways to define “Dell Hell,” but Todd’s situation certainly is a perfect example. Every time Dell gets hold of his computer to repair it, things get worse. It began with a simple battery charging issue. When it came back to him, it wouldn’t accept half of his RAM. After another motherboard replacement, the fan went rogue and the keyboard wouldn’t light up. Dell sent Todd a refurbished replacement computer, which wouldn’t turn on at all. At this point, he probably wishes he only had trouble getting the battery to charge. [More]
Here’s What Happens When Guy Fieri Doesn’t Register The Domain For His Restaurant’s Name
By February 20, 2013
We all had a good chuckle back when frost-tipped, backward sunglasses-wearing celebuchef Guy Fieri opened his Times Square Restaurant, Guy Fieri’s American Kitchen & Bar. He had “donkey sauce” on the menu! Tee hee! Etc. But despite the maelstrom of media surrounding that restaurant’s opening, it seems Fieri or someone on his team forgot to do a very important thing — purchase the domain name of the restaurant. [More]
Ten Years Later, Maybe The ‘You’re Getting A Dell’ Dude Can Save Dell
By January 24, 2013
Some of our younger readers may not recall the “Dude, you’re getting a Dell” television spots where an extremely knowledgeable college-aged guy intervenes during shopping trips to talk parents into buying Dell PCs for their kids. The spots ran from 2000 to 2003, and were pretty memorable. (Memorable enough that readers still refer to them, ten years on, when complaining to us about Dell.) As Dell’s sales and reputation have fallen, they’re considering going private, and even Microsoft might invest. But maybe there’s another solution to the company’s woe’s. Bring back the Dell Dude. [More]
To Dell Hell And Back, With A Refund
By August 23, 2012
When we first heard from Dan a few weeks ago, he had been sent to endure punishment in Dell Hell for his sins. His principal sin, of course, was purchasing a computer from Alienware, a once-beloved company now owned by Dell. The products still look cool, but it’s Dell providing the technical support, with all of the competence and generosity that implies. His computer continued to fail. Dell sent a replacement, which was supposed to resolve this, Instead, he reached even more advanced and frustrating levels of Dell Hell. Finally, through persistence (and maybe having his story appear here on the site) he was able to make a deal with Dell and escape with his soul. And a refund. [More]
Dell Kicks It Old-School, Makes Me Place Orders With An Actual Person
By August 21, 2012
Reader E. has encountered an interesting problem with Dell. I always thought that the point of purchasing a computer online was that you could place the order yourself, with a printed confirmation page and the ability to check all of the numbers carefully before hitting the “submit” button. In E’s experience, though, Dell representatives insist on taking your order directly over web chat or over the phone. This isn’t necessarily a problem, but it became one when she was quoted one price over web chat and charged a different one, and had no evidence of this because Dell redacts numbers from chat transcripts. [More]
Computer That Touches Itself Comes Back From Dell In Worse Shape, Michael Dell Swoops In
By August 9, 2012
Remember Travis, the college-bound student whose touchscreen Dell laptop keeps moving the mouse pointer around on the screen, among other problems? When we last heard from him a week ago, he was waiting for the computer to return to him from Dell’s repair depot after two in-home tech visits, and he hoped the problems would be fixed. They weren’t. All Dell did was replace the wireless card. So he turned to the advice we gave in the post, and wrote to Michael Dell. This got him a new laptop for his trouble. [More]
Relegated To Alienware's Own Dell Hell
By August 3, 2012
There are many circles of Dell Hell. The difference between Dell Hell and Dante’s version of hell, though, is that Dante imagined sinners consigned to different levels of hell according to what they had done wrong in their lives. Your fate in Dell Hell is assigned pretty much at random, according to which model of computer you own, which technical support representatives you happen to encounter, and pure good or bad luck. Apparently, Dan’s first sin was buying an Alienware computer less than a year ago. His second sin, apparently, was having technical problems slightly out of the ordinary. [More]
Your Computer Was Built In 2007 And That's All There Is To It
By June 1, 2012
Max was trying to be all “yay, local business!” and bought his notebook computer less than a year ago from a local independent retailer. This computer wasn’t built by that local store, though. It came from Gateway. According to Gateway’s records, they don’t even have parts for it anymore, since it had been manufactured in 2007 or 2009. Even though it came new in the box with Windows 7 installed. Remember, that operating system that wasn’t released until 2009. According to Gateway, Max’s computer is so positively ancient that Gateway doesn’t even keep the parts for it around anymore. The computer that he bought new–or so he thought–less than a year ago. [More]
Dell Tech Support Manager: 'Sell Your Computer, Buy Something Not Made By Dell'
By April 4, 2012
Andrew had a beautiful and relatively modest dream as a teen. He wanted to own an Alienware gaming computer. When he became an adult, he was able to achieve that dream by purchasing a M14x laptop. There was no happy ending for the man and his computer, though. It has needed to be sent back to Dell five times already. He bought it in August. Of 2011. He hasn’t even owned it for a whole year yet. [More]
Audit Finds That Foxconn Workers Are Laboring Under Crappy Conditions
By March 30, 2012
While it turned out that monologuist Mike Daisey made up a bunch of stuff about working conditions at Foxconn, that doesn’t mean that things there are all sunshine and roses. A recent labor audit found the giant Chinese manufacturer has working conditions that need a whole heck of a lot of improvement. [More]
Dell Sends Technician To Your Office To Break Your Laptop
By March 2, 2012
Experienced customer service wranglers will tell you that if you’re going to buy products from Dell, buy them as a small business owner, since they get better customer support. I’d hate to see what kind of support reader Benjamin would be getting for his Vostro notebook computer if he weren’t a small business owner, then. [More]
Alienware Sells Marine $6,000 Paperweight, Shrugs
By July 18, 2011
The Alienware Aurora ALX is a pricey, awesome gaming computer that sort of looks like a blue Cylon. Except in Drew’s home, it looks more like a giant $6,000 paperweight. No matter how many extra parts Alienware/Dell try to sell him to fix the problem, the glorious beast still won’t work. Drew is a Marine, and he, his family, and his computer are now stationed in Okinawa, Japan. That means transferring the warranty to Dell Japan if he wants to keep trying to get the damn thing to work. What’s Japanese for “lemon law”? [More]
Dell Makes Good For Man Whose Life They Wasted 400 Minutes Of
By June 1, 2011
After Bill’s story of spending 400 minutes in Dell Hell to get his dead laptop replaced went up on Consumerist, Dell gave him a call [More]
Man's 400 Minutes In Dell Hell Could Cost Them Millions
By June 1, 2011
By pissing off this one customer, Dell may have lost millions of dollars. Bill is a corporate account holder and a consultant who makes recommendations to Fortune 500 companies on how to spend their IT money. Usually he recommends Dell, but after his trip to Dell Hell, that will no longer be the case. [More]
Man Skips Around Dell Hell And Gets Free Repair
By May 17, 2011
One of our reader’s Dell laptop had a defective NVIDIA chip and wouldn’t you know it, it was out of warranty and he had missed the window for getting it replaced as provided by a class action lawsuit by a month. It was dying for exactly the same reasons as defined in the lawsuit, but he just barely didn’t make the deadline. He didn’t let that stop him. [More]
Say Hello To Your Worst Company In America Elite 8!
By April 6, 2011
Two rounds of WCIA bloodshed are in the book and the beaten bodies of 24 multi-billion dollar companies are being hauled off to be burned on a pyre. But for those businesses left standing — let’s call them the Elite 8 — the parade of pain marches on. [More]
