I was on the phone to Dell Customer Support twice for a total of about 45 minutes. The first call I terminated after waiting on hold for six minutes (with no indication as to how much longer I would be on hold). The second call was on hold for just a few minutes and someone by the name of Ryan began the refund process. Unfortunately, I had to explain again the problems, then he had to do some research, and after doing so, he transferred my call to someone else. I asked him if all the emails going back and forth between Dell and I was in the case. He said it was. So it was unclear to me why I needed to explain anything as everything was already in writing.
Once transferred to the new person, I then had to explain again why I wanted to return everything and get a refund. The new person on the phone, Punit, had an Indian accent and was not all that easy to understand. However, once I finished explaining what I wanted, he said he would process another replacement. After waiting a moment and taking a deep breath so that I would not unleash a string of family unfriendly words, I explained again that I did not wish to get another replacement because it would probably be mis-configured or warped like the earlier two laptops. He insisted I could not assume that there would be problems and he would process another replacement. I insisted that he would not as I was the customer who paid for the system and he would instead process a return and full refund.
Instead, he offered a $100 store credit if I would take another replacement. I refused and told him, if they wanted my business, they should have offered something prior to my demanding a full refund. If earlier, they had offered, for example, an upgraded CPU, or more RAM, or something like that, I would have accepted the offer. However, at this point so late in the process I am offended by this attempt to buy me off with a store credit.
He finally agreed to do the refund. What Punit says will happen is that UPS will arrive within 24 hours to pick up the three boxes (one each for the two laptops and one for the accessories). Once the boxes are received by Dell and everything accounted for, I will receive a refund for all items returned within 31 days.
Excuse me if I am skeptical about this part of customer support working any better than any other part. I can envision spending more of my time trying to work out more errors on the part of Dell and expect delays to my refund.
As I may have said before in my earlier posts, I cannot imagine ever ordering anything else from Dell for myself or the Division that I manage. YMMV. Insert disclaimer here.
Aloha!
Update
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