Why Won’t Dell Fix This Laptop?
March 20th, 2015 · 3 Comments · Posted in Blog
A year ago our then 14-year-old daughter dipped into her piggy bank to buy a Dell laptop computer online from Staples. She loved that computer. It had a touch screen! But less than 10 months later, while she was happily tapping away, the laptop suddenly died. We couldn’t get it to turn on again. Worse, when she called Staples, then Dell, they both told her that while the computer would normally be under warranty, they couldn’t do anything to fix it because it hadn’t come with a “service tag.”
Service tag? If you’re like us, dumb consumers that we ware, you’ve probably never heard of the service tag either. But it’s a sticker with a number that’s supposed to be placed on the back of the computer and identify it in case anything goes wrong. Like turning itself off and refusing to turn on again. Somebody at the factory must have forgotten to put a service tag on daughter’s laptop, and that spelled big trouble. In the weeks that followed, we took it to our local Staples store–twice–then to the Geek Squad at Best Buy. Everybody told us the same thing: Sure enough, looks like there never was a service tag on the computer, and, sure enough, the computer won’t turn on. But sorry, without the service tag, we can’t do anything to help.
My wife then spent hours on the phone–first Staples, then Dell–trying to find a way to get the computer fixed. She even reached someone in the company president’s office at Staples, who referred her back to Dell, who referred her back to Staples. Finally the man in the president’s office called the manager at our local Staples store, who later called and offered to see if he could get the computer to turn on if we would drive it the 16 miles to Saratoga. He didn’t offer to fix the computer, mind you. And since we’d already tried this twice at the same store, we declined the offer.
That’s when my wife finally threw in the towel. We called our credit card company to ask for our money back.
I drove our complaint, along with a copy of our daughter’s original online receipt from Staples, down to the mailbox at the end of the driveway with high hopes that our credit card company would be able to pull a rabbit out of the hat. But I can’t help wondering why we have to go to all this trouble–spend hour after frustrating hour chasing our tail–when the responsibility clearly lies with Dell. They shipped a computer with no service tag on it. Staples passed it along to us. And we get caught in the Catch-22 wherein your computer is broken, but you can’t get it fixed because you don’t have a service tag.
Michael Dell, are you listening?
We started the process of trying to get it fixed almost two months ago. Tuesday is the end of the one year warranty. This is the last Dell product we will ever buy!
I also spent two hours on the phone
Have you ever heard of a technology company that was good with their
customers? Once they get your money you are just a liability.
The only computer companies I would really trust would be ones selling
Linux computers, ZaReason or System76. If you go with a Linux system
you can email me for help.
Good luck with the replacement.