All_about_network

At first place i would like to apologize to my readers for long delay between posts – it is partly because of personal changes (moving out of country, looking for new job) and partly because of this sad story which I would like to share so anyone reading this will not repeat my mistakes.

About a month ago my very old laptop suddenly died. To be honest it was a very old piece (almost 5 years) and I did not treat it too well. So one day shortly after I arrived in UK my old Acer’s graphical chip overheated and malfunctioned terminally. As a modern man I do own an embossed VISA classic card which should be valid all around the globe. So as you can imagine a computer addicted guy like me could not stay without a laptop for long. From my experience at Huawei I knew that DELL’s computers are usually reliable and the service is quite good (especially in comparison with IBM and HP). As a bonus there was a special offer in newspapers so I could get a nice discount. I took it as a sign from above to go for the DELL’s Studio series laptop. The offer promised the laptop for 499L which was better than I expected – not for long, after combining some warranties and some more RAM and HDD (I think I don’t have to continue – you probably have the idea) it climbed up to almost double the original price – nearly 1000L. Well I do not buy a laptop every day so I went for it and payed by my Czech card.

Everything seemed to be ok the order was processed and I received a very convincing e-mail that the delivery will be in less than 15 working days.

First complication was that DELL did not asked me of my card’s registration address. There was just written home address so I did not expect it will be  anyhow connected to my credit card – well it was. Within one hour I received a call from my bank that “suspicious transfer is being processed”. So I was interrogated if I am me and the transfer is ok. After answering a ton of questions the bank agreed that the money will be sent to DELL’s UK account when wanted and blocked the amount at my account. So far so good the money transfer was approved by bank according to VISA standards.

The next day I received a very strange call from DELL’s financial department. Some Indian-accented guy told me that my bank stopped the money transfer – so I explained to him it is not true and the money are already blocked. Then he proceeded with very strange questions about if I am a resident in UK (that’s to freedom of movement in EU schengen space guys…). I can tell you I was getting more and more upset because this person was not able to understand that I used a credit card issued outside UK (yup there IS a world outside UK…). Finally he accepted the fact that VISA is international and I actually can pay with this anywhere.

After this short intermezzo everything seemed to proceed   normally. Until the delivery day. The delivery itself was scheduled generously between 9:00  and 13:00 plus minus the traffic delay so you couldn’t move from the house for whole day. No matter how hard I looked though the window no lorry seemed to be willing to stop at my house and deliver the PC. After waiting till 14:00 I called the DELL’s support center just to get the information that my laptop is in the delivery company’s hub but somebody from financial department issued and recall order because my triple approved and confirmed payment did not arrived in one day after asking for it. To get this information did cost me about 1 hour of phone calls as about three again Indian-accented personnel. So at the end i asked them to postpone the recall order before I can clear this out with someone from the finance.

Two short points to DELL’s service at this stage

- the attitude “will not help – bug someone else” was almost leaking from the headphone.

- If one operator can do something and the other does not like to do it – it is just plain stupid to say it is impossible even though being told that the other operator did that thing 10 minutes ago

At the edge of complete insanity I was assured that the recall order will be withheld until things will be cleared out. At this moment I had several calls to my bank if the payment was processed normally and I was assured three times that the money were already send. Which stands for being asked by DELL’s financial dept who recalled the laptop AFTER asking for money and who should expect them to arrive in 3-4 days which is usual delay even with inside-country transfers.

The second day I discovered that my money is really gone and my laptop was not kept at the delivery company’s hub. So I tried to call somebody at DELL but guess what – everyone was just in “no can do” mode all time. So I end up writing very nasty e-mail through and web interface – because DELL does not provide any contacts what so ever.

After this e-mail somebody finally stared to act normally – some guys spoke to me and offered that they will somehow deliver that PC to me with two minor changes – there will be 70L difference in the price and I will have to pay again as the financial dept has already started a refund. So to sum up -  they started refund few hours after asking the money from my bank and even before they recieved it?! As I was foolish enough and did not learn a lesson from the previous I accepted. I should know better that the 70L difference is definitely NOT a discount for their mistakes but it is an increase in the price for no reason as it was still the same package! Even though I was really pissed I accepted so the financial department blocked another 1000L before sending anything (money or laptop).

So my situation was desperate – first 1000L somewhere at DELL’s account (the we unable to keep it for the second order!) second 1000L blocked on my account and no laptop anywhere. But there was still hope.

AS you can guess it died the day after. Some very smart woman from financial department called me that even though the were able to block my money and I used credit card that is officially approved by DELL they are unable to proceed with the money transfer as (now I quote her) “Until your (international) VISA is registered to your delivery address.” WOW ! After this conversation I gave up. I have to stop for a brief moment – the woman from DELL wanted me to let my bank which actually is NOT international (in terms that it does not operate in UK) to re-issue my credit card just for one delivery ?! It was not really strange to her that issuance of a credit card usually does take a month or so ? After this I started to laugh loudly to the phone and told her to keep this laptop and return all my money because I thought I am talking to some people from computer company, not from a circus. I cancelled the order and waited what will happen.

After 4 days the money from first transaction were refunded. The difference on the exchange rate did cost me 40L. The blockage of the other 1000L will expire tomorrow as nobody from DELL was able to cancel the blockage when the delivery was canceled – leaving me out of my money for more than 14 days.

So what is the moral of this story ?

1) DELL’s shame is that even though they say that you can pay by card it is obvious that they cannot even process it according to the rules they should (guaranteed by VISA)

2)DELL’s shame is to employ employees with heavy accent and especially with this “no can do” attitude (there were two guys that seemd at least somehow helpful out of about 12 I was speaking to)

3) If you want to buy something from DELL in UK do that only if you have a British-issued cards otherwise instead of DELL you will get a HELL of an experience.

I hope this story explains why i did not posted anything in tha past time and I apologize for the delays.