Maybe Adam is being a bit unreasonable here, but when he sends in a laptop to be repaired he expects to receive not only the laptop’s hard drive, but the entire computer.

Unfortunately, Dell didn’t quite see things that way. He writes:

Last week I called Dell Technical Support about my Dell Studio 1537 Laptop and a DVD drive which was making loud noises and ejecting all cds. I had the basic “mail-in” warranty which required I ship them the laptop back. After my phone conversation with overseas tech support I received an empty box with a prepaid packing slip to mail the laptop back. A couple days ago I received both an automated email and phone call that my laptop was coming back to me. This morning, Fedex delivered a refurbished hard drive – yes just a hard drive.

I began my calling spree this morning and spoke to 7, yes 7, different Dell reps who transferred me between technical support, customer service, and back to technical support. After about 90 minutes of phone calls, hold music, and redialing I’m stuck with a 250gb hard drive but no laptop. Who do I call for help?

Adam could start by shooting off an email to michael@dell.com. The address goes to a Dell executives relations team and has helped people solve problems before. Any other suggestions?

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