M. bought a five-year Complete Care Warranty from Dell, and this somehow led him to believe that he would receive five years of warranty coverage. Crazy, right? Consumers can be so foolish. But just because the site will sell you a warranty, and documentation on the Dell site says that you have almost a year left on that warranty, that doesn’t mean that you actually have that warranty, because the Complete Care warranty that includes things like accidental damage is only an add-on to the regular warranty that has already run out.

Here, let M. explain.

I bought their Complete Care Warranty (includes Accidental Damage) from their website. It was a 5 year warranty (Back in 2009/2008) and I had peace of mind. Everything was great until it was time to exercise the warranty (today). My laptop fell from the table and screen did not work anymore. I checked my Warranty status and it stated: “[356] days remaining on your Complete Care warranty. See the Warranty Tab for details”.

[Click to enlarge. This page says 355 because we asked M. for a screencap the following day. -Ed.]

Great, I was still under their Complete Care Warranty so I decided to chat with them. Long story short, Apparently, the Complete Care is just an addon to the base warranty. I bought 5 years thinking I had warranty for 5 years. In reality, it was however long my base warranty was.

The worst part is that they still say I have 356 days of complete care warranty left…even though in reality I have none. They are going to give me a pro-rated refund but now I’m stuck with a broken laptop.

So, I just want to warn everyone out there. Even if on the Warranty status it does you say you have warranty left – that is pretty much a lie.

Good to know, and consider the readership warned. If you want to complain to someone at the top, you can send him a note at michael@dell.com. We’ve heard that people get actual responses from Michael Dell’s peeps.

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