The Wargos

Posted: August 19, 2009 | Categories: Miscellaneous

I had an interesting experience with a Dell Netbook purchase that I thought I’d share with you…

I purchased a Dell Netbook that we wanted to use for something but we quickly changed our minds (‘we’ actually means my wife, but that’s another story).

I waited patiently for it to arrive so I could immediately send it back. What fun, eh? I got a tracking number from Dell and checked every so often to see when it would arrive. The delivery date came and I looked outside several times during the day to pick it up off the porch when it arrived. At about 4 PM I gave up and hopped back online and saw that FedEx thought they delivered it at 10:00 AM. Well I knew several of us had been at the house all day and never left, so I was pretty certain it wasn’t there. I looked outside – no package. I checked the neighbor’s front porches – no package. I called FedEx and explained that they thought they delivered a computer to me but I knew for a fact that they didn’t.  Well, they opened a ‘case’ and except for a phone call a day later indicating that they were still looking, I’ve received no further information from them.

The next day I got a phone call from a slightly more distant neighbor – he told me he had a package for me from Dell. As it turns out, they were watching the house for a neighbor who was out of town and picked up my package from another neighbor’s front porch. So FedEx left it at the wrong address then a neighbor picked it up and gave it to me a day later. I’m not quite sure that I understand why he waited a day to give it to me, but at least I had the package in my hot little hands all ready to send back to Dell. FedEx still doesn’t know I have the package – I wonder when they’re going to bother to check with me and/or let me know they don’t know where they left it.

Being a very technically savvy guy, I went online to Dell’s web site, read the return policy and requested an RMA number. Figuring that Dell was a rather technologically savvy company too I expected to get an RMA in short order. Nope, nuttin’ happened. Two days later I get an email from the Dell RMA department saying that they can’t process the RMA and I’ll have to call in to get the number. Crap, that’s not very helpful – here I am trying to save them the cost of the phone call by trying to use the ‘automated’ internet-based system and they won’t let me. The email I got from Dell said that the RMA department was open from 8:00 AM to 9:00 PM Central time. It’s now Sunday morning at 10:50 AM EST, so I knew they’d be open. I quickly dialed the number, spoke with a lady in Mumbai who promptly told me she couldn’t help me – that the RMA department didn’t open for another 10 minutes.  Huh? It’s 9:50 AM Central time, why aren’t they open? I was told they opened at 8??? OK now, this is getting ridiculous.

So I waited as patiently as I could for 11:00 to come around and called them back. The person who answered (Mumbai again) said she’d help me and transferred me to the RMA department. The RMA department answered (still Mumbai), listened to my requirements then told me they needed to transfer me again. Huh? Transfer me again? But you’re the RMA department??? So, I finally get on the phone with someone who actually wants to help me. Whew!

I explain my plight and he puts me on hold. When he comes back, he actually offered me $25US to keep the netbook. Huh? You want to discount it now after I’ve told you I don’t want/need it? So they’d rather give me money back than process the RMA. Interesting. I politely told him I really wasn’t interested in keeping it and he offered me another $10 to reconsider. Huh? Nope, I told him, the only way I’d keep it was if it was free – I just didn’t need/want it.

Well after I finally convinced him that I really didn’t want it, he dutifully started processing the RMA. He first notified me that there’d be a 15% restocking fee to cover depreciation on the computer. Depreciation? Dude, It’s two days old and I haven’t opened it. You have thousands more of these in the EXACT same shape sitting in your warehouse (this particular model was preconfigured & ‘ready to ship’) – how could this one be worth less than any of the other unused models of this type? It just didn’t make any sense.

Anyway, he plodded through the RMA and kept me on the phone for about 40 minutes while he did it. Think about it, there’s an online process that doesn’t involve the cost of a phone call (888 number) and a limited amount of a person’s time and instead you want to use three quarters of an hour to do it the hard way? I’m really surprised they want to do it this way although it makes sense that they do it to try to get me to keep it. But since they’re going to charge me %15 restocking fee anyway, why bother.  The restocking fee was more than the extra discount they were offering me. They made more money taking it back except for the long cost of the RMA phone call.

Anyway, the good thing out of this was they had an automated system (finally an automated system) that interfaced with UPS and generated a shipping label. I received an email in a few hours with a URL I clicked to get to a page where I could print the label and affix it to my package. The return shipping was free (I didn’t expect that) so at least one pleasant surprise – I had resigned myself in advance to the restocking fee and return shipping cost, so I made out better than I planned except for burning most of an hour on the phone with these guys. I dropped the package off Monday, it arrived in TN today which isn’t too bad. Get this though, they received it in three days – they’re predicting 30 days until I get my refund (minus the restocking fee of course). How’s that fair?  Oh, right – they get the interest on my money for 27 days. Nice!

Wasn’t a good Dell experience which is too bad – the only computer I’ll buy (when I’m not building them myself) is Dell. This doesn’t change anything from that standpoint, but now I know to expect a huge waste of time if I ever want to RMA anything to them again.

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