OK \u2014 beg? No, not so much.<\/p>\n
Dell deceived customers, judge says<\/a><\/p>\n I have no complaint about any alleged bait-and-switch. It’s this:<\/p>\n “Our goal has been, and continues to be, to provide the best customer experience possible,” spokesman Jess Blackburn said in a written statement to CNN.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Cough, splurt. Get on it, please.<\/p>\n I had the misfortune and displeasure of buying from Dell recently. I was buying a computer for someone else, and they had gone to the trouble of configuring and customizing it, and saving an e-quote. Which I could not retrieve \u2014 I apparently can only retrieve quotes for some predefined work group. So if you aren’t set up in the system, I can’t buy from the quote. My colleague didn’t create an account, so going back and even accessing the quote on his<\/em> computer was problematic. At that point, if this had been any other purchase, I would have been shopping elsewhere, but approval had been obtained for this particular machine. Eventually \u2014 it took about an hour \u2014 we prevailed. I don’t see the business advantage in making it hard to buy something.<\/p>\n But the story doesn’t end there, since I had to get a replacement keyboard a few weeks later. Except there’s no actual part number on the invoice, and searching on Dell’s website led me to a dead-end. I had to pretend to buy a new computer to figure out what to order.<\/p>\n And even that is fraught with danger. I tried to replace a video card for an older machine last year, and found a list of compatible parts, but the Dell site wanted to charge me tax (government purchases are normally tax-exempt) so I ordered the part elsewhere. And it didn’t fit. An AGP vs PCI problem. When I contacted Dell to tell them their information was bad, I was assured that the card did fit my computer \u2014 it says so on the website!<\/p>\n Contrast those experiences with Amazon. I bought a new pocket-camera last week (SLRs don’t always travel well), and after taking a few pictures I noticed a spot in the same location on each. It became sharper when I zoomed in, and didn’t go away when I cleaned the lens. So it was inside somewhere. Went to their website, clicked on the “exchange this” option, and they overnighted a new camera to me (works great!).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" OK \u2014 beg? No, not so much. Dell deceived customers, judge says I have no complaint about any alleged bait-and-switch. It’s this: “Our goal has been, and continues to be, to provide the best customer experience possible,” spokesman Jess Blackburn … Continue reading