On Black Friday, Rich attempted to give money to Dell to purchase a TV. He failed in this endeavor and Dell doesn’t seem to care, despite sending him 5 order acknowledgement emails.

The TV was a Sharp 32-inch LC32SB28UT 720p LCD HDTV advertised for $449.99, now listed at $529.

Richard writes:

I placed an order for a TV on Black Friday. The next day I got 5 identical order acknowledgment emails, each stating that I’d receive a confirmation email within 24 hours. No email ever came, nor did the TV (obviously). The 5 emails seemed fishy too, so I called support…

Attempt 1: (Saturday) 30 minutes of automated hell and hold music to find out their databases were down and I should call back in 3 hours.

Attempt 2 (5 hours later): same thing: database still down, 30 more minutes down the tubes.

Attempt 3 (next day): 60 minutes on hold, they can’t find my order despite me having a Purchase ID #, eventually transferred to sales to re-place the order and was disconnected while she looked something up. Fortunately I’d gotten her extension, except that it went straight to VM. I left 5 messages and never got a call back.

Attempt 4: Call the original #, ask to speak with a supervisor, 15 minutes on hold, tell him my issue, he promises to set up a 3-way conference call with sales so I can replace my order, instead I get transferred directly and sales won’t honor the original price. I get frustrated (but don’t swear or insult anyone) and she hangs up on me.

Attempt 5: Immediately ask to be forwarded to someone I can file a complaint with, 30 minutes on hold, finally get a manager. She’s nice enough and tries to help. 30 more minutes before we finally re-place the order for the original price and I get a confirmation email.

All told more than 5 hours spent trying to get this resolved. Unfortunately I could not tell if my original order was still in process or what, nor could they find it, so I couldn’t just cancel it. Plus the price was good and about half way through I was determined to make sure I at least got something for all my hassles. When I finally got it resolved I asked for a way to report my experience to someone who cared and the manager said that she’d take care of it. I asked for a case # and she said they don’t give those out. I asked for a venue to vent my frustration and she said that was it. I emailed customer service, which says to expect a response in 24 hours, and I never heard back.

I would advise strongly against anyone ever buying anything from Dell. I certainly will not.

Richard

The guy is standing here with earnest money, ready to exchange it for Dell’s goods. Even after Dell was made aware on multiple levels that he was trying to buy a TV, they could not help him. Their database went down, so see you later? Do you just butterfinger the whole order? With the flood of customers on Black Friday, maybe so. There’s another guy right behind you. In any case, Dell dropped the ball here, and so Richard had dropped them as future provider of televisions.

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