Marc ordered an Alienware laptop 19 days ago and, despite frequently calling and escalating his issue to a supervisor, Alienware just won’t ship his laptop. Why? Computer glitches…or maybe its because they’re waiting on parts… or maybe it was because of his credit limit… or maybe it’s Dell’s fault for canceling his order…

They’ve given him so many different excuses—we don’t really know what the real problem is. Marc is ready to cancel his order. Would you cancel it if you were Marc?

Marc writes:

I just wanted to share my story about my dealings with Alienware. It’s fairly lengthy but there’s just a lot to it.

I recently was in the market for a new laptop and just for kicks went to Alienware.com. Their laptops are generally overpriced IMO, but they had a new financing option. I applied, got approved, and submitted my order. This was on June 28th. I received my order confirmation email and my order status was in “Phase I” (Order Confirmation). There are apparently 9 phases that orders go through, the last phase being “Shipped”. The sales rep I was working with was named Daniel.

According to Alienware’s website, being in Phase I still gives me some time to make changes to my order. I wanted a few more upgrades but the upgrades would put me over my credit limit by $71.00. I contacted Alienware on the 29th and was told I could use a credit card to pay the difference. I didn’t get the reps name because at this point, I didn’t have any reason to be concerned. In any case, she took my credit card information and told me everything was fine and my upgrades will be no problem at all.

On the 30th, I received a voicemail from Tasha with Dell Financial Services. She told me that I needed to confirm my account order with them and that I needed to call them back. I called and spoke with a Dell Financial Services rep. He asked me some verification questions and said that my account has now been confirmed. I asked if this means my order shouldn’t have any delays and I was told that he saw no orders for my account. He suggested to call Alienware on Monday (July 2nd) since their sales office is closed on the weekend.

I called back and spoke with Rodney in the billing department and asked about my order. He told me that my order was cancelled because my configured system put me over my credit limit. I explained that I had given a sales rep my credit card information on the 29th to make up for the difference but I was told that I had to put in a new order. I was then transferred to Reyna who cancelled my original order and retook my order. I gave her my credit card info again but for some reason she used the same order confirmation #. I was told my order would be processed and she apologized for the issues.

Later that afternoon, I received a phone call from Nancy tell me that my order was cancelled! I told her that earlier in the day I placed my order again and that there were mistakes made on their end. She directed me to call Dell Financial Services because my credit account was not valid. I checked my account online and it said I had my full available balance. I contacted DFS and spoke to Philip.

Philip looked into my account and said he couldn’t find any reason why my original order didn’t go through and that everything looked fine on his end. He said the issue is with Alienware but he would research it and get back to me. I gave him my contact info. At this time it was too late to contact Alienware so I had to wait until the next morning.

On the 3rd, I spoke with Alex in the billing department and told him about the situation so far. He said that Alienware was experiencing a “computer glitch” which created problems for many other customers. He said they were looking into it but offered nothing else. I said I would like to speak to a supervisor and was told that I would get a call back from either Daniel or Yvone since a supervisor was not currently available.

After waiting a good part of the day with no call back, I called Alienware again and actually got Daniel as my rep. After being put on hold a good 15 minutes, he finally came back and said he will place a new order for me. He took my information and I gave him my credit card info again.

On the 5th I checked my order status and it had moved to Phase II (Billing/Finance). I checked my Alienware account and my credit card and saw that a transaction on each from Alienware. I figured the next phases should go rather quickly (Phase III, Payment Processed, Phase IV-VII, Production and Testing) so I waited.

On Saturday the 7th, I checked my orders status online again and it was still in “Phase II”. I knew I would have to wait for Monday but I didn’t understand why it would take so long in this phase.

On Monday the 9th I was out doing errands and was not able to write down any of the names of the people I spoke with. I contacted their customer service department to complain about the length of time it was taking on my order. According to the rep I spoke to, their customer service department only helps customers AFTER they receive their system. I was told that I would have to contact Sales who in turn told me I would have to contact Billing. Billing then told me I needed to talk to customer service.

After more transfers I ended up speaking to Daniel again. He blamed the delay on computer glitches and also said that Dell Financial Services was part of the delay. I told him that I spoke to Philip and was told that everything was fine on their end and that I needed to contact Alienware. He put me on hold again and when he came back he assured me that my order would be fastracked out of these next phases and they would request a rush on production. I asked that since this delay was not my fault would Alienware be able/willing to do anything for me (like some sort of upgrade). I suggested upgrading me to the 2-day shipping for free. I was put on hold and when he came back he said his supervisor approved it and that it will be no problem. He said he was going to put it in my account notes and upgrade me to the 2-day shipping.

I checked my order status over the next few days and it was still in “Phase II”. On the 12th, I called Alienware again and spoke with Michael. He told me that even though the website says “Phase II” I am actually in “Phase III, Payment Processed”. He said that they were having a website glitch and that was the reason for discrepancy. I asked how long it would going to be before it went into production and he told me that even though all of the parts on available, there is a current backup in production due to the amount of orders they have received. I asked if he could confirm that I was going to get 2-day shipping and he said he saw a request but that it wasn’t approved.

I told him that Daniel promised me the upgraded shipping and that I wanted to speak to a supervisor. Michael told me he could transfer me to Daniel but not to a supervisor. I asked why and was told that since he was the one who promised it to me that he would be the one I had to deal with. I said fine and was put on hold again.

When Michael came back, he told me that Daniel was unavailable and that he would transfer me to his supervisor, Franklin. I explained the situation to Franklin, citing the delays and computer glitches. I asked him about the upgraded shipping and he also told me that he saw a request but no approval. I asked if he was going to honor it and was told that even though that what I was told before, he’s making a decision now and will not offer me the upgraded shipping. I asked him if he was saying that he was not going to honor a deal I was promised. He put me on hold and then came back and told me that he would give me the 2 day shipping and that he would add it to the notes. He then said to keep in mind my order may still be delayed to the fact that they are waiting on parts. I told him that Michael just told me that all of my parts were available and that they were backed logged in production. He had no answer for this other than saying that going forward I am to only deal with him.

As of today, according to the Alienware website, my order is still in Phase II. I continue to get the runaround on this order with excuses ranging from website glitches to delays in production. I would like to escalate this to someone higher up but I can’t find any contact information and no one is willing to transfer me. I just don’t understand why an order should take this long or be stuck on the same phase for a week and a half. I guess it’s time to cancel my order.

—
Marc

Marc, if we were you we’d just cancel the order. They really don’t seem as if they want or appreciate your business. There are other laptops out there…

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